With The Perrys - Infertility, Suffering, and Hagar

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

A few years back, the Perrys started a series on the podcast called “Teach the Text,” and that’s the format of today’s new episode. Jackie teaches through Genesis 16 – the story of Hagar, Abram, and Sarai – reflecting on the unique questions that only a woman might think to ask of this text. Jackie and Preston discuss impatience, idolatry, and misplaced hope, at the end pointing us to the God who sees us in our suffering. Check out other “Teach the Text” episodes:  Jude John 9   Shop BOLD Apparel at BOLDApparel.Shop. Take our brief listener survey.  Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, St. Nains. How are you? What's up with y'all? Today is Monday, where we are. It is Monday, June. It's not June. It's May. You are all in different months. What day is it? Let me look at my phone.

It's May 22nd. The way our podcast schedule is usually set up, y'all probably ain't even going to get this to August. Sorry. But y'all going to get it like it's fresh. But it's just going to be a right-now word whenever you do get it. What did you do? this morning. What was your day like?

I got up. I laid there for a minute. You got up and laid there. Yeah. That's interesting. I'm gonna be real. Because you said got up and laid there. No, I woke up. Okay. I woke up. You know, some Christians be trying to act deep. I saw the Lord's face as soon as I woke up and 4 a.m. in the morning. Yeah, yeah. I didn't do that. Okay. I'm gonna be all the way on it. I got up.

That's gonna be terrible. Huh? No, go ahead. No, I got up. And I woke up and I stood and I laid there. at the ceiling and I was like, I want to get out of bed, but I did. And I was like, you know what, after like 20 minutes, I was like, I should pray. So I prayed. And then after that, I just started handling stuff with my clothing line, bold apparel, where you can get some of the dopest Christian merch out there.

What's the website since we're here? Boadapero. Dot shop. Okay. You're going to ask me what I did. What you had did? He don't care. Okay.

He was doing squats. No, not today. I saw you a little story. Not today. Showing your little thighs. No, I got up. I fed your children. I took them to school.

Then I went to the gym. Today was cardio, arm day, and core day. I've been trying to fix my diastis recti. Yo, what did you say? What's your recti? Diasis recti. So when women have babies... Girl, I'm on rectums.

Wow. That's obnoxious. When women have babies, their abdomen separate to create room and space for the baby. The body is a beautiful thing. But when the baby comes on out, the abdomen is still separated. So women have to do core work or surgery to allow their abdominal muscles to come back into place. No, you've been putting in work, though. So that's what I've been doing.

I've been really inspired by you. You've been putting in work. That's good. You was always fine, but now you just, you know, tightening it up me. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, okay, okay? No, you know.

Being healthy is very much an aesthetic for me. I'm not one of those people that's like, oh, health is well. and I just want to be, no, it is an aesthetic. I like how I look when I look a certain way. But it also feels good. It feels good to be strong. It feels good to be able to get up and not be tired. It feels good to walk up steps with babies and not be, you know what I'm saying,

you're a different person because I remember after our first child, we was living in a little one small bedroom apartment in Oak Park, Chicago. And our first event, I never forget this, our first event, we had a poetry event in Atlanta, ironically. We live in Atlanta now. I don't remember. I don't know where you're going. Yeah, but I remember the people from the college,

we had a poetry event, sent pictures back from the event, and you saw yourself, and you said, oh, my gosh, look at me, I look like a Muppet. And literally the next day you was in the gym, and you went to work. I did. I mean, she was so motivated. I call that my, I think everybody when you're trying,

before you lose weight, I think you have to have a trigger moment. And that was my trigger moment, seeing myself in that picture. I was like, wow, I'd look like a wide mop. Like something has to change. But what's crazy is I lost 60 pounds after. So that was Eden. I lost 60 pounds after Eden. I lost around 50 pounds after autumn.

And now this is me losing Sage and August weight. But it's crazy. The older I get, the harder it is. It was so easy with Eden. With Eden, I cut out ketchup. up and dropped 10 pounds. Yeah. You can know what I'm saying?

Because you know ketchup, it's like 60 tablespoons of sugar. You went too extreme though. With our first child. Because you ended up losing weight and then I'm going to run a marathon. I'm like, what? What?

I needed a goal. It was a goal that I set up. It wasn't extreme. I just was really bony. I won't get that bony again. You were skinny. I was. I was.

Let's get into this. So what we're doing? Why are we here? So some of you guys, may remember we did a series called Teach the Text where we opened the Bible and Jackie would either walk through a text or I will walk through a text and we thought it would be a good idea

to bring this series back. Look at you. Hosting. You're showing out in season 17. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It's not season 17. I don't know. I lost count. But yeah, man. This story, Genesis 16 about Hagar

is a really, really good, good story. You know, and I feel like Jackie would be a good person to teach the text because she has been teaching this text. Yeah, I've been on the road. I've taught this about six times now. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, let's dig into this text with Sarah. So I could lead with saying, I don't know why that's in there.

But, okay, so with Glory, this year's theme was Jesus and women, right? And so I was turning over my mind, like, what text could we walk through to, kind of highlight this idea of Jesus caring for, providing for being with all the things when it comes to women. And I knew I wanted to do the woman at the well. That's a really obvious... And I love taking texts that people are familiar with and not turning it on its head in terms of heresy

because I think some people can try to find something new in the text and they actually create something new. Yeah. Versus turning it in such a way where it's like, no, that's always been there. We just haven't had the eyes to see it. That's the way I like to watch. And by the way, that's a very hard thing to do if you're trying to do it by your own strength.

I think that people need to be praying when they... Yes. You know, because... You have to be trained and developed. Because you also need a certain amount of discipline to have biblical interpretation. Yeah. Because I've seen where people, they want so bad to find a nugget that they actually read into the text. Yeah.

And they don't see that the actual simple interpretation is just as powerful. Because what's deep, and this is not to criticize people out there, but I think a lot of times I see people. people handling a text and I can identify creativity there. Yeah. No, you're a creative person I can just tell. The text ain't saying that though. It's literally not there. It's not.

But what you just said was creative. Yeah. And so, but the text doesn't need your creativity. It needs to create. That was your imagination, not interpretation. Yeah, absolutely. So I just thought that was a good word. Anywho.

So a friend of mine, said, what about Hagar in Genesis 16? I said, yeah, no. I ain't touching that. Why? Because I knew it was a complicated text. Like you have Hagar, this slave, this concubine, who was in the household of Abram,

who is made to have his baby, and then she flees the abuse of Sarai, and then she's in the desert, and the angel of the Lord meets her and tells her to go back to, Abrams house. And so all of that together, you have infertility, you have barrenness, you have suffering, you have abuse, you have slavery, you have

surrogacy, like, you have so many themes that land on women in a very particular way. And so I didn't want to touch it. And then I felt like the Lord was like, nah, but you're going to touch it. So I did. And I'm grateful I did. That's so. I'm grateful because, one, I think as a Bible teacher, I think it, you kind of build, your textual muscles by handling text that might be a bit difficult. But I also think it reaffirmed God's goodness and faithfulness.

Because I think a lot of people, when it comes to passages like these or like Uza in 1 Samuel 6 who touches the ark and drops dead, like those passages that don't sit right with us, we can read them in such a way where we kind of have a cynicism about the Lord because of the text. But I have the disposition that what Jesus has revealed, about God must influence how I understand him in text that complicate me or are complicated. So it's like I presuppose goodness. Like Jesus said to Nicodemians.

Like, was it Nicodemus? Yeah. Yeah. Why do you call me? No, there was a rich young ruler. Like, why do you call me good? Only God is good. So I presuppose goodness in every complicated text.

And if you presuppose goodness, you're going to see goodness. That's good. I think you should read the text. All right. So if you are in your car, no worries. we're going to read the Bible. Somebody tore this off. Ain't no worries.

Pull over. Who did this? Pull over. If you ain't car, pull over right now. I think one of our kids did this. It looks like our dog, December. No, he don't be opening the Bible and eating it. Oh, you know, that's true.

It looks like something August would do. Or sage. Anyway, I'm going to read it so that we have context for the text, okay? Yeah. It is Genesis 16. I'm reading from the ESV. Yeah. Now, Sarai, Abrams' wife, had born him no children.

Everybody say no children. No children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant, it may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abraham's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife.

I hope y'all are recognizing all the repeated words and things that are happening. and he went into Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, may the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace and when she saw that she had conceived,

she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me. But Abram said to Sarai, behold, your servant is in your power due to her as you please. Then Sarai dealt harshly with her and she fled from her. Should I keep going or should I?

pause. Maybe we should pause. Yeah, pause. Pause from here. So context has it. We got Sarai, who's Abram's wife. Eventually, he'll be Abraham, she'll be Sarah, right? And Moses,

the writer of Genesis, opens up the text by immediately establishing that there's a problem. Yeah. Like, there's some tension, which is that Sarai, Abram's wife, has not born him any children. That don't sound like a problem. to everybody, right?

Yeah, yeah. Because everybody don't want kids. So you could read that and be like, oh, she ain't got no kids, that's all good. You only know it's a problem if you read four chapters before this one, which is Genesis 12, where God speaks to Abraham. That's what I was going to ask next.

Go ahead. Where did you start? Where did I start? Yeah, because I think a lot of times when you get to a story like this, some people may approach the text like, oh, I should just read this. story and just like look at the context clues and just kind of see what the story is saying.

But a lot, the Bible is a book, right? A continued, like a continued narrative of stories or whatever. So like when you started to study this passage, where did you start? Was it a starting place to get you to this point to give you further context of this story? Yeah. So because this is a narrative that involves people with, history. Yeah. Especially like somebody like Abraham. Abraham is actually an easy slash hard person to teach because there's so much context about him. You got Abram in Romans. You got Abram in Hebrews.

You got Abram in Genesis. He's the father of faith. Like you got Abram mentioned by the Pharisees and the people of Israel in the Gospels. Like you have a lot. So that that means that it's easy because you got a lot to pull from. It's hard because you got to decide what to pull. Yeah. But I think knowing that they are people with a history, it's not fair to just start in Genesis 16 when his story begins in Genesis 12, right? Like, if I was to write a story or a sermon about Preston regarding Preston in 2023, I could start there. There's a lot like, oh, Preston is married to Jackie. He got a start on the block.

He got like a long beard, you know what I'm saying? Like, he got four kids. He has a dog. That's cool. but that's actually a short-sighted understanding of you. I need to start in 1986, right? And so that's the way I started. So I started in Genesis 12,

which actually gave me a lot of clarity on Genesis 16, which is that God sets him apart, says, A, I'm going to make you a father of many nations. Then in Genesis, I think 15, God makes a covenant with Abram and says, hey, I'm going to give you a son. So that means that the nations, like all of the nations of the earth will be blessed through Abram. This nation will come through a son

that Abram will have from his own, not his body, but you're good, I'm saying, like the sperm and all the things. And so that means that when we get to Genesis 16, it immediately begins by, but Sarah had no children. We got a problem. Yeah, yeah, we see like, okay.

And God is often like that. It's like he says things will happen. And then when you get to the point, to a particular point, it's like, okay, how is this going to happen Lord? Yeah. And the Lord has, he has a pattern of like,

I'm going to make things happen in such a way where you know it's me. Come on here. Like, yeah, I said I'm gonna do it. When we get to... Now he'd be handing out promises and we'd be like real excited. Like, oh, fog of many nations.

That's fire. Okay. You don't like made the covenant and you was like a smoking pot and a flaming torch. Like, that's cool. That's awesome. And it's like 10 years go by.

Okay. 20 years. What does the voice come from? 15 years? Oh, okay. We still ain't got no kidding. Right. It's like either you're a liar or you're like doing something.

Yeah, or you're trying to show us that you're the Lord. And he's never a liar. So I think it's significant to recognize that God's promise to Abram involves and hinges on the procreation of a son. And so not having a son. in this narrative means that it can seem as if God's promise to Abram is being threatened. And it's not being threatened by sin. It's not being threatened by Satan. It's not being threatened by Sarai's own body.

All right. So let's jump into 16. And I really want to... Chapter 16? Chapter 16. We've been there. I mean, you went back. I'm saying like...

Yeah, I just brought it back to verse 1. Okay, I'm sorry. So we can go to verse 2. Verse 2. Okay. And Sorai said to Abraham, Behold, now the Lord has... has prevented me from being children. What I love about that sentence is that Sarai has a very true theology about the creative

sovereignty of God. And I say creative sovereignty because anytime you see a baby, God created the baby. He made like life, he is its source. You know what I'm saying? Like the body is not the ultimate source of conception. God is. And so she understands that the reason she is infertile and the reason she is in barren is is because the Lord has prevented her from bearing children.

But as a teacher of the text, I can't just say that part and not be sensitive to all the women in the room that hear that and actually are discouraged. Yeah. Because that can be very discouraging. Yeah, yeah. That's another question I was going to ask you.

Because you, I saw this sermon being tall at your at your conference to glory. I was like, what's the name of the conference? Glory conference. You forgot the name of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you teach like 2,000 women this text. And so even approaching this text, were there any fears that came up? Were there any fears that came up in you saying like, man, this is a woman who, yes,

acts to do some very hard things. And so not only was it any like, grappling with you as a woman with this text, but how did you even approach this text knowing I have to teach this to 2,000 women? Well, more than that. Yeah. Because if I have nine glories,

2000, that's about 15,000, 20,000 women. I'm able to bring this text before. Yeah, yeah. And that's a lot of people whose story is similar to surreise. Yeah. And so I think, one, it's a beautiful thing to be a woman, honestly.

And and work through this text because I'm not asking the same questions that men would often ask. You know, I'm not saying that men are insensitive because they're human beings. But even when I went through the commentaries, they were not answering the questions I had, such as how would that have felt for Sarai? Yeah. To not be able to have a baby. How does that feel, especially when God has promised it, right?

Yeah. Like that's especially considering the context of their community and their day, barrenness and infertility was considered shameful. So, so shameful that you were considered to be a cursed. Yeah. Because even when you look through Deuteronomy, like one of the curses that came with disobedience was barreness. Yeah. So it looked as if you weren't blessed.

Yeah. Like God has actually turned his face away. Can I say this real quick too? And not to get off subject, but this is just, it just made me think of this. this, I think this is a reason why men in the body should really value women's voices. You know what I'm saying? Because like even when we look in Genesis, right? And, you know, God told Adam it wasn't good for him to be alone.

Like humanity couldn't fully mirror the image of God without both male and female. Yeah. And so I think we can we can have like, oh, women. value women's voices to be like we're pro women and all that. It's bigger than that. It's about are we not hearing from women and is it preventing us from really seeing a clear picture of the Lord? Right. Right.

It's about, it's really a gospel issue. Yeah. Right. Because if women reflect the glory of God in ways that men don't, we miss out. You do? We miss out on so much. And so I think what that shows me is I think that we need both men and women. and looking and knowing how to read the Bible

contextually and coming, putting our heads together and saying like how can we come together and fully see the heart of God in concerning the text. Because you saw things in the text as a woman that I just won't see. Yeah, because

And I can read things about war. You know what I'm saying? About a text as a man that you just couldn't understand. Because it's no different than you being from Chicago. If you watch a documentary that is placed in Chicago

let me give a better example. I remember there was a show that was supposedly based in Chicago but they were, they had these actors that I could tell weren't from Chicago. And if I didn't live

five years in Chicago, if I wasn't married with somebody from Chicago, if I didn't have history in Chicago, I wouldn't have been able to even discern those kinds of dysfunction in the show, right? And so there's a sense of... We don't say son.

Every time they do a Chicago movie or Chicago, they make in New York. And they think urban culture, especially if it's not the South, it's New York. And it's just like, bro, we don't talk like that. We don't say, yo. Yeah.

So being connected to, you being from Chicago, but me being connected and living in Chicago meant that I have a certain social location that allows me to ask or think through or notice certain things

that don't, correspond with the social location I live in. So bringing that back to his text, as a woman, right, in friendship with other women who are dealing with and walking through barrenness, when I come across a text that says, now Sarai Abrams' wife had borne him no children,

I'm not going to just move on. Right? I'm not just going to be like, oh, okay, cool, but she eventually had chat. No, I'm going to stay there and say, huh, it makes sense why she's eventually going to create a strategy for having children. because that means a lot to her.

You get a little what I'm saying? So I put makeup on my Bible. That's good. That's a very womanly thing. So she says the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. And I know that that's discouraging to many women, especially women who have tried to have a child through IVF, who have prayed, who have fasted.

And there's all these internal pressures and external pressures that come with that, which is like you have internal shame that says, I'm not woman enough, I'm not wife enough, I'm not good enough. You have external pressure, especially with people outside of the Christian community or inside the Christian community, will say like, oh, you just don't have enough faith. You're not praying enough. You know what I'm saying? Like it's something wrong with you.

That's why you remain childless. And what they don't recognize that they're doing is that they're putting the burden of barrenness on the woman. instead of on the Lord who the Bible consistently says that he is the one that opens and closes the wound. What would you say about her strategy? Like for people who would just wrestle with the fact that she created a strategy to have the children where you say it was a lack of faith? Or would you say it was... It was totally a lack of faith.

But also to... Is it commendable in any kind of way? No. Sin is never a commendable. Okay. So explain that. Because the Lord has made... a promise.

God is a man that cannot lie. Yeah. So much so that, remember, before this chapter is Genesis 15, where God makes a covenant with Abraham, where he has Abraham slaughtered these animals, Abraham goes to sleep, and God manifests himself as a pot in a flaming torch,

and walks through the blood of these animals, saying, basically, metaphorically speaking, if I don't keep my promise to you, the blood of these animals, I will be just like them. The blood will be on my hands. So God has made it very clear he's going to do what he said. But the problem is that one thing you'll notice in Genesis 16 is that it gives you a timeline.

It says in verse 3, so after Abram listened to the voice of his wife, no, so after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram. meaning it's only been 10 years since they've been in the land of Canaan, and she doesn't have any more patience. That's the problem. Wow. Is that you are unwilling to wait on the timing of the Lord.

And isn't that all of us? All the time. When you even move forward into Exodus, I think it's 33, they build the golden calf because they're like, hey, Moses been on the mountain for four days. We don't know where yet. And patience really is at the root of a lot of idolatric. Yeah.

But we don't want to say that. And our forgetfulness. Say that again. And our forgetfulness. Explain that. We, we, like, because it's not just impatience with the people of Israel, but it was the fact that they forgot, like, you literally saw God split a whole sea. Like, literally, like, to go back to your analogy is that God made a way out of no way with the whole pot and all of that.

It's like, not only did he take you from the land of Egypt, but when y'all got to a roadblock, which was the, the sea. It's like how are we going to get to the other side? Yeah. What did he do? He created a way. Yeah. I don't know. And he literally split the sea. Yeah, he did. And y'all was walking and like seeing like, oh, that's a blue whale. Yeah, they did. And they're not even followed on me. Friends of Egypt. Because, because that's what I thought. You know, that's a blue. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And like, y'all literally walked through a sea because God made a way. And so y'all hear. So it's not just your lack of impatience, but your lack of remembrance.

You have the inability to remember what God has done for you. I would imagine that the discipline, because it is a discipline of remembering, is actually what can cultivate hope, right? Impatience don't come out of nowhere. So I wonder if impatience also comes out, like that there's a step. Like step one is remembering. Step two is hope. Step three is therefore endurance and steadfastness.

Yeah, yeah. But if we don't do the remembering, then we lose the hope and therefore functioning in patience and then don't endure. Yeah. Yes? Yeah.

No, I think that was good. I was trying to create a path. Yeah, I think that was good. So, yeah, she's sinning. And you know one way you could know she sent it is that because verse two says when she comes up with this idea that, hey, go into my servant

and may be that I shall obtain children by her. Two ways you can understand that. One, she says, going to my servant, it may be that I shall obtain children by her. That's interesting because she just said that it's the Lord that prevented me from bearing a child. So you would assume then that if the Lord has prevented it,

then the Lord can give it. But she doesn't say, hey, the Lord has prevented us from having a baby. Let's pray. Let's fast. Let's seek the Lord. Let's welcome in community to help us stir up hope because it may be that I will obtain children by him.

She says it may be that I will obtain children by her, which tells me that she's actually misplaced her hope. She's put her hope on somebody else. That's good. She's put her hope on somebody else to bring this baby into the world instead of the Lord. Yeah. Another clue that it's sinful is that it says, and Abram listened to the voice of his,

and Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. What does that sound like? Genesis. Adam. Is that where you going? I can't find it. But yeah, it's the same language. Yeah, it's the same language of Abram-Adam,

listened to the voice of Sarai. Meaning this is a textual clue that Moses is giving us that there is sin happening among them. And so he does. A pull aside Hagar, the Egyptian. Now the question I'm going to ask you, where did Hagar come from? Because how does a wife,

how does a wife in Canaan, Sarah, get a slave from Egypt. Those are two different nations. You tell us, you studied the Texan. Let's turn to Genesis 12. You got your Bible. Yeah, yeah. You ain't going to turn to it.

You don't care. Yeah, you can read it though. Okay. So in Genesis 12, there's a famine in the land. Abram goes down to Egypt to escape the famine that's happening. Obviously, he takes Sarai. He takes his whole family, all the things. He goes to Sarai.

He's like, A, you're really pretty. and because you're pretty, when Pharaoh, his people see you, they're going to take you and then they're going to kill me. So this is what you're going to do. You're going to say that you're my sister. So that they won't kill me. Like they'll spare me for your sake, which is completely obnoxious.

But I want you to notice that it shows you that both Abraham and Sarah are very strategic people. They both know how to come up with plans and strategies for how to secure themselves, how to make sure that they're going to be okay. So when you move forward, forward. Oh, so eventually the Pharaoh and them people,

they see Sarah, they're like, oh, she's pretty. They take her and they bring her to Pharaoh's house. Somebody could read them like, oh, she's just going in the house real quick. No, sis. She's going and taking into a harem. So she's taken into a harem to be a concubine of a foreign king.

And then eventually Pharaoh, he starts to give Abram all these gifts. He's like, thank you for giving me your sister. She's so beautiful. And imagine as a husband how bogus that is. Oh, my gosh. I'd be bowling.

She's not my sister. Why did you growl? My sister. Did you do that as a... I could just see you do it and we used to. I did. I used to always like talking to my breath because I didn't want my mom would slap me. So I knew if I talked back, I'd say some real smart shit hit me in my face.

And so I was, I'm going to, shut up. No, but for real, though. Like, you can't... What are he going to say? He can't talk. So it's like, that has to be like a deep wrestle. But he did it. But this is how crazy it is.

He told her to say that she was his sister. He let her be taken by Pharaoh's people. And Pharaoh was so happy to get his wife that he gave him wealth. He gave him male servants. He gave him animals. And he gave him female servants, meaning that Hagar was a gift to Abram in light of his wife being enslaved in Pharaoh's house. That's so sad. That's crazy.

Now, mind you, he don't try to get her out. He don't go to war. Because he went to war for Lai. When Lai had beef earlier in Genesis, he pulled two up, two, three hundred of his man to get a lot out. He don't do that for his wife, though. The person that rescues Sarai out of Pharaoh's house is God himself. So then when we get to Genesis 16,

I find it fascinating. I find it interesting that what Sorai does is very similar to what Sorai is. endured. Which is that she takes her slave. She takes Hagar, who is a foreign woman, and subjects her and subjugates her to be the concubine of a foreign man. Repeated behavior.

She replicates the same exact trauma. Isn't that all, all of us. Repeated behavior. It is. Wow. And so I think that's important to draw out because we tend to only think that, think about abuses of power coming from men. When this is an abuse of power coming from a woman.

Yeah. A woman who has also been abused by power. You know what's crazy? I've been seeing a lot of videos on Instagram of just women attacking women, like in the name of speaking up for men. And I wonder how many of y'all women just been abused by men. Or by women. Or about women.

And then you just, you know, because even, you know, like when I was growing up, it used to be like pimps, you know. And the pimps will keep a lot of their women in check by using other women to do it. That's deep. Right? And they're calling madams or something? Yeah, they call madams. And so like, you know, these women also came from places of abuse. And so it's just learned behavior.

Yeah. And it's an experiential behavior. Yeah. And it's wicked. Yeah. It really comes from a wicked place because it's as if having the power and being able to flex it in subjugating someone else makes you feel powerful when that's incredibly weak. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

And I think I can empathize to a certain degree with Sarai because she's, she's doing what is normative in her cultural context. In her context, it was normal for a barren or infertile woman to use her slave as a surrogate, right? But the dynamic of it that is problematic is that the surrogate has no say or consent in her wanting to bear the baby or become a concubine. So you automatically kind of put her in a position

not to be treated as a whole human being with dignity and honor, right? I think that's different from culturally now today where people go get surrogates or whatever they can't be. Like the surrogate can say, yes, I want to have your baby. Yes, I will carry this baby. Hagar didn't have that option so much so that when you look at this text,

you never see them ask Hagar about Hagar. They never say, hey, Hagar, do you want to be with Abram? Do you want to have his baby? when you have the baby, do you want to give it to Sarai? They don't even use her name. The only reason we know Hagar's name is because Moses says it. Yeah. You get what I'm saying?

And so this whole dynamic is really problematic. Yeah, that's good. I don't want to skip along here, but I definitely want to get to the part where she is approached by... The Lord. The Lord. And so can we go to that part for the second time? I don't care about time

No more Okay, yeah, yeah Yeah, it has been like an hour And 30 minutes with the paris It has not Oh, you mean it in general Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I'm just hearing that's what the saints want

But I do want to point out A couple things though Sarai hasn't had any children For Abram She creates a strategy The strategy is that she gives Hagar Her concubine or her slave, her servant As a concubine

slash wife to Abram. He goes into Hagar, she conceived. Because she's a surrogate, that means that the child that comes from Abram and Sarah's union will legally be Sarah's child. When she conceives,

the Bible says that she looks on her mistress with contempt. Some people have looked at that like, oh, like, why she being contemptuous? It's because contemptuous is because contempt means to take lightly. It means that Sarai's position has been lowered in Hagar's mind.

because you've done, like, this is what Sarai did. You've made her not just a slave, but a wife. But you also allowed her to be a wife that carries a baby that you want. And so now we see Hagar has power. And she's flexing her power. Like, imagine being a slave and it's like, ah. Yeah, I got power now. You want to treat me crazy.

Well, I got your baby. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. It's like house slaves. She's probably walking around, rubbing her belly, you know what I'm saying, over the lady. So Sarai goes to Abrams like, hey, she tripping, like the Lord is going to judge you for what's happening, which is just psychotic, lo-key. Well, I'm not going to say she's psychotic. She's just, she's not the woman of faith in this moment that we see in Hebrews.

Yeah. Which is actually kind of fair. Yeah. Because I think we've all had seasons where if they were written in books, people would judge us. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I guess I'm a look.

That's actually what I love about the Bible the most, especially when I first came to faith, not growing up in the church and struggling if what was the Bible true compared to other faiths. It was like the Bible didn't highlight people's highlight reals. Mm-hmm. You know, it didn't give us. Moses was a straight murderer. Moses was a murder. David, we already knew he was bogus. You know what I'm saying?

Killing that dude, you know what I'm saying? Killing a dude to get his wife and all of that. Like, it shows you the reality of a person's journey, you know. Paul before he was converted, he was straight murking cats. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, the Bible is so consistent in showing you the progressive nature of how God sanctifies his people for his glory. Yeah. And, you know, I thought that was like dope.

I think that's actually one of the dopest things of the Bible. Yeah, because what it does, I remember hearing this from somebody, the Bible was very honest about everything so that when the Messiah comes, you know he's the Messiah, because he's the only perfect one. Yeah. So you can't be confused and think, Moses is that, because in Genesis 3, you know, it says that the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head, and people are reading the scriptures waiting on who that seed is going to be.

Is it Moses? Oh, no, he kills somebody. Is it Abraham? Oh, no, he keep giving his wife over to these kings because he's scary and he weird. Is it, is it David? Oh, no, he over here, you know, sleeping with Bashiba. So when Jesus comes in it says,

in him was no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth, it's like, oh, he's here now. Yeah, yeah. That's the one that's going to crush the head in the serpent. That's why it's always confusing to me when, like, people in the world we're trying to, like, call out Christians for, like, you know, not being perfect.

It's like, y'all haven't read the Bible. It ain't that of them perfect either. It's like, You haven't read any of the scriptures. No. Like we jacked up. Yeah. And they was jacked up too.

Yeah. But the difference is we put our hope in the one who's not jacked up. And Abram and Sarai's stories don't end here. Because even Abram, even though he listens to the voice of his wife, we have this moment in Genesis. When is that? Yeah, Genesis 22. too. When God, when he finally does have Isaac his son, and God comes and say, hey, sacrifice your son for me.

Like this is the same man that gave his wife up because he was unwilling to sacrifice his own life. Yeah. Who now gets to a point where he has the faith and the knowledge of God where he's now willing to sacrifice his son because he trusts God that he trusts God that much. So it's like, I think because we can read these chapters back to back, we don't recognize that these are decades passing. before us that we can read in 30 minutes. So yeah, so what happened? Hagar, she filled away, she treated no rick attempt, and then Abram was like, you are power.

Like he restores Hagar's power over his servant or whatever, or her servant, and then it says that Sarai deals harshly with Hagar. The dealing harshly, some commentators say that because it's very similar to the language used of the Egyptians, how they dealt with Israel. They dealt harshly. That couldn't mean that they just imposed heavy labor on her. And I didn't say this in the sermon because in sermons, you can't give all these facts because it's not a lecture.

But this is low-key, how do you call it? This is a preview of the Exodus narrative. Because you have Hegar from Egypt who flees to Canaan and eventually you're going to have Israel in Egypt that flees to Canaan. Did I just say that wrong? Yeah, I think you say Canaan twice. So Hagar is an Egyptian servant who goes into the land of Canaan.

But then you're going to have Israel who will be in Egypt who goes back into the land of Canaan. Like there's this reversal that God is already prepping our minds to see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all I'm saying. So she goes and they say that the text finds her in the wilderness on the way to Cher. That's significant because you'll see that in Exodus where they will be in the wilderness on the way to share, which means that Hagar is on her way back to Egypt. She's trying to go home.

Yeah. I think we need to feel that for a second. Yeah. Like she's been in this foreign man's house. Now she's pregnant with his baby. A baby she ain't even asked for. And the wife deals harshly with her. And she's like, you know what?

I got to go. Like, y'all got me messed up. Yeah. And so I'm going to walk all the way back to another country. She's like deuces. Y'all can be messed up. Mind you, between Canaan and Egypt is 300 miles. Woof.

That's a month of walking. I wonder why she was thirsty. Don't the text that she was drinking? It doesn't say that. Oh, okay. I'm reading into the text. It's okay. I'm sure she was.

We can assume that. She was Thursday. I'm sure she was thirsty. She stopped to get some Kool-A to something. Wow, but she's on the way to Cher, and she should die. Like, that's kind of like what might happen. And what had happened when she, you know, she was in his wilderness? So it says that the angel of the Lord found her.

I love the word found because it means you're looking. Yeah. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water. Spring is also the Hebrew word for eye. Yeah. So next to the eye she is seen. Yeah. He finds her by a spring of water in the wilderness to spring on the way to Sher.

So remember this means that she is in between, like she's out, she's coming out of Canaan on her way to Egypt. And he speaks to her and he says, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from? And where are you going? This is the first time in this narrative where we see somebody asks Hagar about Hagar. Wow. I love that part. That's amazing. Because the Lord acknowledges her.

The Lord calls her by her name. The Lord asks her a question. Like he gives her the dignity of even showing up as if he's curious. Yeah, yeah. And I love the fact you said, you love the fact that it said it found her. Not only does it indicate that the Lord was looking for her, but, you know, Hegel wasn't looking for the Lord. And isn't that so evident of us?

It's like the Lord often finds us not when we're necessarily looking for him, but we're looking for a way out. I should have put that in my sermon because that's not in there. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. We're not. She's, she's, she's, she's searching for something.

Mm. And she doesn't really know what she's searching. She's searching for safety. Safety. Freedom. And security and deliverance. But see, that's, that's, that's the time when the Lord comes. That's when he comes.

Keep going. When you, when you are at the end of your, of your, your rope. Your rope. Your rope. Yeah. Yeah. When you were at the end of it and you don't know what to go. I don't know.

Go ahead. But, you know, and so that's just a beautiful. picture of the gospel. You know, she wasn't looking for God, but God was looking for her. You know? But I loved when it says, when the, what verse is that?

No, I don't know. When the angels asked her. Oh, where you come from? Where are you coming from? And where are you going? Oftentimes in the text, when God asks a question, well, we not know oftentimes, all the times. All the time.

He's never, he's never acting the question because he doesn't know the answer. He's trying to reveal something. And so what do you take from that when it says, what do you come from? Where are you going? Well, I think it could be easy for us to make our, allow our imagination to take that question too far.

Hmm. In what way? So our imagination might start to apply this in ways where, is the Lord asking you where you came from? And is the Lord asking you where you going? Did you come from this? And I think there's room for that kind of introspection. Because the text, because this part is a question geared towards her,

but it shouldn't be all about us. Is that what you're saying? I think what I'm saying is I think the bigger question is, if God, when he asks a question in scripture, it is a revelation of some sort. I think the safest way to understand why he's asking it is to say, what is he revealing a question? about himself in the asking.

And so for God to say, where have you come from and where are you going, is really for God to invite her into a conversation with himself. He already knows the answer to the question. You better teach you a little pretty face off. It's like in Genesis 3, after Adam's sinned.

Adam, where are you? He knows where he is. But if Adam answers the question, God has actually given him an opportunity to confess. That's so good. Wait a minute. I would throw this whole ESV.

It's a thick Bible, so this is one of them Grandma Bibles. I don't know. We heard my feelings. I would, he would be dealing harshly with me. That's so good, though. So that's what I'm, so I think it's safer to say God is just creating space

for a conversation with her. So he's creating space for her to, to dialogue with himself. And so if God is asking, like even when he says, Kane, where's your brother? He's creating space for him to deal with his anger and to deal with his sin. And so it's not all this like, who told you? Where you're naked?

Yeah, let's stick to what God is revealing about himself instead of putting our imagination in the text and making it say something it's not saying. So the question is, what is God trying to reveal about himself here with Hagar? He does reveal that he's a God that sees. The text tells us. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? So she says, he says, where have you come from? She answers the question. Yeah.

She says, I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarai. He also says, where are you going? She does not answer that part. Because she don't know. But guess who does? God. He says, the angel of the Lord says to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. Now, I need to point out real quick that the angel of the Lord is the Lord. because you see Angel of the Lord in Scripture often and sometimes we can get really caught up by the word angel and we think, oh, angel, created being that God made, this seraphim, cherubim, you know, like the angels that came to lot, et cetera, et cetera.

But angel is a category. All it means is messenger. So that means that the context of the passage has to influence what kind of messenger we're dealing with. What does the context of the passage say here? It says that she will eventually say in verse 13, so she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God of singing.

So that means that this is not the cherubim or seraphim that were around the throne in Isaiah 6th, saying, holy, holy, holy, this is the one on the throne who is meeting her in the wilderness, not in Jerusalem, not in the temple, not in heaven, not in glory, not on Mount Sinai in a desert place. That's good. The angel of the Lord comes to her and reveals himself. That's good. That's good. You want me to keep going?

No, no, no. I just love that. I love the fact that she, that she, she leaves this place, but she doesn't really know where she's going, right? And that's, I'm,

I'm reflecting on my own life when I left so many different, difficult circumstances, but I didn't really know where I was going. I was just aimless. I was just, I was like, you know, I'm leaving what I don't like, but I'm, I'm walking aimlessly because I don't,

I don't know, but because God saw me and he he's before I was formed into my mother's womb he saw me right he came and he met me and said you know what I know you know the life that you live wasn't wasn't the move it wasn't

wasn't the life that you wanted and I know you don't know where you're going but you know I'm going to give you vision I'm going to give you direction I'm going to give you myself but here's the hard part I think this is this is a prosperity preacher's a keyless heel that's probably why they don't

teach this text, which is he tells her where she's going, which is back into suffering. That's the vision he gives her. Yeah, yeah. It ain't, oh, yeah, I'm going to set you on the high mountain. I'm going to let you go all the way. No, no, no.

Go back and submit to Sarai. Yeah. That's what makes this text complicated. And this is one of the things that we pray for one day in the bed when you was thinking about, you know, teaching this text because I knew, you knew that you were going to, to teach this, you know, amongst women, so many women with so many different backgrounds who probably have, you know, suffered a great deal of, you know, oppression, you know,

persecution, you know, all of these things. And so for you to teach a text, man, that says this woman left a bad situation, the Lord met her and told her to go back. Yeah, yeah. That's, that's hard. Yeah. Well, one thing, I think there's a few things we need to be careful of, which is this is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Explain that. So prescriptive is like the Ten Commandments or when they go to Jesus and say, hey, what do you say the greatest commandments are? He says, love the Lord, your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. Right. That is prescriptive, meaning I am prescribing this for everyone. Everybody is to obey God with all of their heart, all of their mind, all of their soul. This is descriptive in that they are telling us a story that applies to Hagar, right? And so God comes to Hagar and tells Hagar to go back and submit to Soros.

And they're telling everybody else. Yeah, so I would hate if someone would abuse this passage and use it as reason for for you to go back and submit to an abusive husband. Yeah. Or to submit to an abusive job. Yeah. That you can't take a narrative that is very specific to this individual woman and apply it to every other woman and every other content.

Yeah. That's not. Because God has a particular plan in this story and his plan might not be the plan for everybody. Correct. And so, yeah. Because God also cares about safety. Yeah. God also cares about dignity.

God also cares about justice. Yeah. Let's be clear. And so I think. if a woman is in an abusive situation with a husband or a man or whatever the case may be, I don't think the Lord will be out here like, yeah, go, go submit to him even if it costs you your life. That's not God's heart. Yeah, because God does care about safety, I think the main thing that we have to just trust is God good. Because if God is good, you can obey him,

even when it seems like he's telling you to do something crazy because you know if he's telling you to go back, he's good enough to protect you when you do. Yes. And so that's the main thing. It's kind of like, okay, you're telling her to go back to the abusive situation, but it's like, am I not the guy even over this abusive situation? And even we have to go back to the text.

It says that Sarai dealt harshly. We don't know what that means. Yeah. Right? And so we don't know if that just could mean harsh labor. Yeah, yeah. It could mean she was mean to her verbally. Like, it could mean physical abuse,

but we don't know. Yeah. And so, again, It would be a disservice to people and even to this text to apply this universally to everyone who is in a hard situation. That's good. That's good. That's one. Two, we also don't want to read our African American heritage into this text. Let's talk about it.

Because we could see the word slave and servant and be like, see, the white people was right. You know what I'm saying? Like slaves submit to your masters. It's like Old Testament slavery is not the same as pre-Silver wealth. pre-Civil War chattel slavery. One, this is not race-based. She is not a slave because she is black. She is not a slave because she comes from Africa, right?

Two, it's not intergenerational. Yeah. In pre-Civil War chattel slavery, if you were born into slavery, you stayed in slavery. Yeah, you had no choice. Your children, children, children, like generations' worth of slavery. There was no freedom, right? So it's not intergenerational. And it's not lifelong.

We eventually see in Genesis, 20-something. When they paid off debt. No, she's eventually emancipated. Yeah, yeah. Like she, her and Sarah getting to her because Isaac laughs or Ishmael laughs at Isaac or something like that.

And the Lord goes to Abram and says, send her on her way. Yeah, yeah. Like, let her go. And where she goes, she goes back to Egypt. And so it's just not the same. So again, when we get to the point where he says, hey, go and submit to Sarah, do not read your context or another woman's context

or even your heritage into this text. Let the text say what the text means. That's good. That's good. Now, back to the point. God sends her back into suffering. Why? You want me to say?

Yeah. Like, being loved by God does not absolve us from difficulty. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because when I think about suffering, I think about, my mind automatically goes to 1st Peter 4, 12, but it talks about, you know, not suffering as an evil do or not suffering as a meddala, but it says suffer as one who does not, don't suffer as, basically said don't suffer as one who does not know the Lord.

Is that first Peter? It's 1st Peter 4 starting into 12 verse. It says, be loved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, though something was strange was happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you sharing Christ's sufferance, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. For if you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rest upon you.

But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or evil doer or meddler, yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let them not be ashamed, let them glorify God in their name. And I love that because it's literally just talking about like, you know, basically saying the whole world is going to suffer, right?

Christians and non-Christians. But after the world suffers, there's more suffering, right? But after we suffer, there's glory. Yeah, yeah. Right? But not only that, suffering produces an endurance in us. Yeah.

It produces, it refines us, right? I love at the end of this passage, it says, it says, for this time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with, and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And so essentially what it's saying is, like, God is going to judge the whole world by way of suffering. But he's going to judge the world differently to how he,

he judge, he's going to judge the world, definitely how you judge the church, right? He's going to use suffering to condemn the world, but he's going to use suffering to purify church. He's going to purify us, it's going to refine us. So when he comes, he can judge us good, right? And so this suffering, God is using suffering to essentially judge the whole world.

But our suffering is not going to be used ultimately to judge us, to condemn us, but it's going to be used so that God, I can come back and judge as holy. And so when I see her, I see this woman being shaped by the Lord through her suffering, right? God is sanctifying her. It's not that God is being crude to her. God literally has her in mind. I'm preparing you from myself, you know what I'm saying, in a way.

And so I don't know. That's what I think about suffering. That's excellent because I think when I think of Hagar and I think of me and I think of what I've been through or what I've seen other people go through, I think many times we are encouraged by the fact that God sees us in our suffering. That is encouraging to know that like, okay, God has his eye on me,

that God really, he's not, he doesn't have a blind eye to my suffering. Like even when you look at before God freed Israel out of Egypt, he says, I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cry. I know. their sufferings. Like he, it's a very, God is very much alive as it relates to his people.

Yet at the same time. So I think we're encouraged by God's seeing us. But I wonder how often we look at our own suffering and see it as an opportunity to identify with Christ himself. Mm-hmm. Where it's like, yeah, he sees me, but have I ever considered that he went through the same things and yet is sinless?

Like if Christ went through suffering, if, like Philippians too, for example, it says Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of what? A servant. What was Hagar? A servant. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

Submission. Hmm. Even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him. Meaning, like, God tells Hegar to do what Christ himself would eventually incarnate and do. You know what I'm saying? Like the Lord, the angel of the Lord who sees her will then become man and submit himself to suffering, submit himself to human weakness, even going so far as to become obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross. And so if we have a master who himself submitted to suffering as in obedience to God, how could we think that he would require anything less of us? That's good. That's real good. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, God isn't telling you to do nothing.

He didn't get it. Like, he did far more exceedingly and abundantly above than what Hagar was at. That was minor. I'm not saying it wasn't hard. I'm not saying it wasn't difficult. But she was not the creator of the universe. She was not God.

She was not the Alpha and Omega. She was not the king of kings. She was not him. So for him to choose to suffer, when he himself is also a king, does not make any sense. Yeah, that's good. Now, we can wrap this up now.

I think it's important to know that when God sends her back into Abrams' house, he does not send her back empty-handed. the angel of the Lord gives her promises and it gives her assurance, which is good news. The angel of the Lord says, return to your mistress and submit to her. The angel of the Lord said,

I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be number for multitude. Who does that sound like? Abram. Like he gives her a similar promise that it gave to Abram in Genesis 12, which is that she will not just have a son, but she will have a nation.

Yeah. Back in those times, having children was understood as, So, for example, earlier in the text, she says, go into my servant, Hagar, it may be that I will be, what does she say? That I shall obtain children by her. When you look at the Hebrew, it actually says that I shall be built up by her, meaning that having a child was seen and considered as having the same stability as a house. So imagine not just having a child, but a nation.

Wow. Like God ain't making her a house. He's making her a mansion. That's good. Like, he's giving her ultimate security and stability. So that's one promise. He also says that you will bear a son. His name will be Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction.

He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him. He will dwell over against his kinsmen. That's actually a consequence because the Ishmaelites will be in direct opposition to Israel, which was a consequence of Sarai's sin. Yet at the same time, what God is promising is that if he is a wild donkey, he don't mean that he's going to be ugly. He mean like that he's going to be a stallion. He's going to be free.

Free. He's not going to be subjugated. He's not going to be a servant. He's not going to be a slave like his mother has had to be. And what is the assurance? The assurance is in verse 13. So she called the name. No, it's not.

It's in verse 11. He says, you shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. It's really easy to skip past that. When you study the Bible, take your time. Take your time. Like, all of it can preach. You shall call his name Ishmael

because the Lord has listened to your affliction. His name means God hears. Now, imagine this little boy being born. And every time Abram and Sarai say his name, they're reminded about the nature of God. God hears. Stop playing with the... God hears, come to dinner.

That's good. Like, every... They have to testify something true about God. even in saying his name, and it's a truth that actually condemns their sin. Because if God can hear her suffering, God can also hear your sin. And so I think, I can imagine,

that in them saying his name over and over and over again, it actually gave them pause in how they treated Haygar. Yeah, absolutely. But it also, I think, points back to the intentionality of God because he understands his creation. He understands that we are people, like we said in the beginning, that have the tendency to forget. And so he's like, I'm going to name,

Have y'all named him something, but y'all are forced to remember. Which is all the Old Testament. Right. That's why we need to name our children better names. Because these things was always like prophecies or testimonies. You know what I'm saying? The Brick of Shaw. Come here. Because even Isaac's name.

What does that mean? Isaac's name means laughter. And that don't mean nothing if you don't remember that later when the angel comes and speaks to Abram and says, A, your wife is going to give birth to a son this time next year. What is Sarah do? She laughs. That's our main takeaway. Name y'all kids

from Old Testament names. Our sound guy, his name back there. Put the camera on here. His name is Abashai. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a powerful name. That is a powerful name. I think.

But yeah. This was good, though. Let me finish. I wasn't trying to wrap you up. I'm just saying. Oh, you're encouraged? Encourage. Okay.

So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God of Singh, because she said truly here. I've seen him who looks after me. When I've taught this to women, I've tried to point. out how sometimes when you read passages like this,

you can import your feelings into the text and translate it in such a way that it honors your feelings and actually dishonors the text. And so you could say, like God is bogus and you go into it looking at God a certain kind of way. But have you given Hagar the dignity of defining how we should understand him? She doesn't respond to him sending her back with contempt in the same way she does Sarai. She doesn't respond with confusion even.

She responds in praise. She says, you are a God of seeing. Therefore, Hagar's response to what God calls her to do should inform our response to how we understand what he called her. That's good. Let the text help you understand the text. Amen. Verse, I'm going to end it by saying that in verse 15,

it says, And Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore. they're not even mentioned to Sarah, notice that, Ishmael. That's a beautiful text because it seems so small, but that means that Hagar went back to Abram's house, told Abram what God said, and he listened to her.

Wow. He honored what he believed. Like this is a man in Old Testament times with the men named their children, right? Yeah, yeah. And so he believed her testimony of what God had said. That is significant. when you move forward to John 5.

Because how does this text point to Jesus? When we get to John 5, we see there is a woman in a wilderness place next to a spring of water who meets a man who reveals himself as God. And she ends up leaving her

water jar, goes to the town and gives her testimony about what he said. And she says, I have seen a man who has told me everything I have ever done. She is basically saying, I've met El I have seen the God who has seen me. That's how you point that text to Jesus.

That's it. Mic drop. That was good. Look at you. Ditto. Bye y'all. With the Perry's is produced by The Perrys with support from Amanda Reed and Channing B. McBride.

Editing by Xavier Fairley, video recording and audio production by Kim Powell, artwork by Hop, and music by Swoop. If you'd like to support the Perrys, you can visit you. the link in the show notes. This is with the paris. Thank you for listening. Now go with God.