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God Already Knows // Missing Peace (Part 3) // Pastor Brie Davis
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WEEK 3: THE MISSING PEACE // GOD ALREADY KNOWS // PASTOR BRIE DAVIS What if the peace you've been searching for begins with knowing you've never been overlooked? In Week 3 of The Missing Peace, Pastor Brie Davis walks us through the story of Hagar in...
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Welcome to Transformation Church podcast, where we represent God to the lost and found for Transformation in Christ. We're so glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe God will transform your life through today's message. If we haven't met before, my name is Bri, and I serve as one of the pastors here at tc. I love y'. All. I love y'. All. And I am your substitute teacher for today, okay? We have been in a sermon series with Pastor Tim Ross, sharing with us the missing piece, talking about the peace of God. And for week three, I am gonna bring the message, and Tim will be back next week. But I'm not just your average substitute teacher, okay? Because I know when you was in school, you had your favorite teacher, and the sub you walked in, you was like, dang, the substitute today, okay? I'm not just a regular old substitute. I've been here for a long time, okay? 14 years I've been on staff here at Transformation Church. I am not new to this. I am true to this, okay? And I'm not your average sub that don't know what she talking about. So she just kind of keep you busy until the next teacher come back. No, no. I have a word from God for you today. One that I truly believe has the potential to change your entire life, because it has done that for me. I can't teach anything that I haven't experienced. And one of the things that this is, this word today that I want to give you is one that God has shown me in my own life. And I'm really excited about this. If you don't know my story, I'm married to my husband Aaron, who was up here jumping around a minute ago. We've been married for 11 years. And I'm going to tell y', all, I received every single one of them classes because, baby, we did the work to make it to 11 years, okay? Happy and love and absolute love with one another. And we have experienced some really hardships in our life. And today I'm going to talk a little bit about that. But if you haven't heard our story, you can go to YouTube and hear our story where we talk about our marriage and how it was jacked up 10 years ago, especially, my God, we didn't know if it was going to make it. I had to Google divorce, okay? We didn't know. I. But God did a miraculous work in our marriage. And two years ago, we experienced a tragedy with the loss of our son who was two weeks old, Ace. And there Are two. Those are the two, I would say, biggest hurdles that I've experienced in my adult life. That tragedy of not knowing if our marriage was going to make it. And our marriage was absolutely in shambles at the time. And, and also experiencing what it's like to lose a child. Two heartbreaking situations. And the truth is, in those two situations, I had two very different responses. The first time 10 years ago, I was questioning God on every end. God, who are you? You told me to get married. Why would you allow me to go through this heartbreak? Lord, what is going on? I did not see God as good or real at all in that situation. But then I took a 10 year journey. And when I started taking that journey, I didn't know that two years ago, in 2024, we were going to lose our son. And when we lost our son, there was such a different response in Aaron and I than 10 years before when we experienced some hardship. And I believe that the word that I'm sharing with you today is the reason why when Ace passed away, there was nothing in us that wondered if God was good. Nothing in us wondered if God saw us. Nothing in us wondered if God knew what was going on in our lives. And it's because God has shown himself to me through even this story that I'm going to share today, but through the words that I'm going to share today. And so my hope and prayer is that hearing this word today that your roots will go down deeper into who God is. Because when your roots are deep, that the winds can come, the weather can change, you may sway from side to side, but you're not going to break because you will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that will bear fruit in every single season of your life. I believe that. And I believe that because I have experienced that. So I want you to go with me today to Genesis 16 and we're gonna look at a story here, one that is not told often. Actually, as a matter of fact, there's parts of this story that I told. But the part that I'm gonna lean into today is not normally the part of the story that we actually share in church a lot today. I wanna talk to you about the story of Hagar. Now, if you know that name and you know this story, you know Hagar was in a story where, where she was not the main character. Hagar was a third character in a story that really was about God giving a promise to Abram and Sarai. At the time, their name had not changed yet. And God Came to Abram and said, I'm gonna make you a father of many nations. You're gonna have a child, you're gonna have a son, and you're gonna be a father of many nations. Well, Abram and his wife were very old and they waited 10 years for God to make this promise a reality. And it didn't happen. So they did what we do. If God made us a promise, we don't see it happening. We immediately try to come up with our own strategy to make it happen. So instead of waiting on God, they decided to pull in an innocent bystander into the situation named Hagar. And Hagar was a maidservant to Sarai. She was one that was forced into labor and obviously was forced into this situation. And this was not an abnormal thing. It was very customary actually, that if a wife could not get pregnant back in this day, what they would do was have their maidservant sleep with their husband, get pregnant, and then the wife would raise that child. It would no longer be the maidservants. Instead, now this child is a child of the husband and the wife. So Sarai and Abram couldn't wait. And so because they couldn't wait on God, they went ahead and decided to get Hagar pregnant. And what happens is once Hagar gets pregnant, she starts to treat Sarai with some contempt. She's mad at her AKA it's sister wives in the house and they can't stand each other, okay? So they get to fighting and cussing and fussing. I don't know if they cuss and fuss, but I'll just make that up. Anyways, they get to fight in one another and what happens is they. Hagar has such a nervous system response that she decides instead of fight or freeze that she is going to flee and she runs away. And this is where we're going to pick up in verse 7, Genesis 16, verse 7. Hagar is on the run because she is so upset about her situation. It says in verse seven, the angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, hagar Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? I'm running away from my mistress Sarai. Sarai, she replied. The angel of the lord said to her, return to your mistress. Submit to her authority. Then he added, I will give you more descendants than you can count. And the angel also said, you are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him ishmael And Ishmael means God hears, for the Lord has heard your cry of distress. This son of yours will be like a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey. He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives. Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord who had spoken to her. She said, you are the God who sees me. She also said, have I truly seen the one who sees me? This story about Hagar is not one that we, like I said, we usually focus on in scripture. We. When we tell the story about Abram and Sarai. But Hagar had a profound encounter with God when she was running away from her situation. And what she found out is several things about God knowing her fully in a way that she didn't even know that he knew her. Now, this is a crazy thing, because we are so used to living our lives compartmentalized. To think of a God that knows us fully almost doesn't make sense. So for me, there are several people who know different parts of who I am. My husband, who calls me sweet sometimes. And sometimes I'm not sweet, so he doesn't call me that as a nickname. And that's how I know I haven't been sweet. He knows me in a way that other people don't know me. He knows the way that I sleep, the way I snore. He knows different things about me around our house that other people would never be privy to. I come to this church, people call me Pastor Bree. Here we go. Which, you know, I'm still working it out, but whatever. Pastor Bri here. And basically, you know me as a leader, as a teacher, you may not know parts of me that my husband knows about me. And honestly, sometimes because I'm not my husband's boss or pastor, he is not seeing me in the way that people here may see me. My family sees me in a totally different way. They see me because they know who I was from the day that I was born, when I was a little girl with the buck teeth and the glasses. I had to get glasses in first grade. Anybody else had to get glasses that early? Anyways, I. I had to get glasses. Not these. These are fake. Okay. See right here. Anyways. But I had to get glasses a long time ago. My family knows me differently. And the beautiful thing was, when I left my hometown in 2007, I moved to Tulsa. And when I moved to Tulsa, none of my family came. Well, about two years ago, my family joined me In Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I actually am really glad about that, except one thing. So my dad has a nickname for me. Dad. You didn't know I was gonna say this? My dad has a nickname for me. And the thing is, it's okay for dads to have nicknames. It's just when your dad starts working at the place that you're a boss at that you really don't want him saying that nickname just in the hallway, right? That's the part of me that I don't want nobody else knowing. So the nickname that my dad has for me. And I'm gonna tell you this, and y' all better keep it to yourselves. I ain't lying. If one of y' all come up to me and say. If you come up to me and say the nickname, we're done. The conversation's over. The nickname that my dad says to me is Buddha Bear. Okay. Buddha Bear. Endearing. You know, I love it a lot, except for when I'm walking down the hallway at work being Pastor Brie, and I see my dad. Because if you see my dad, to see my dad is to hear my dad. Okay? If you know anything about my dad, I got this volume from him, all right? So I see my dad sometimes in the hallway, and before I even get close enough to him, he said, hey, Buddha Bear. And I'm like, dread, I'm Pastor Bri here. Because there are parts of us sometimes that. That we want to keep to ourselves. And the truth is that people in our lives, no matter how that person, how long that person has lived life with you, only knows a part of who you are. It doesn't matter how deep your relationship is, how many of your secrets you have told, how long you and your best friend has been friends. I don't care if you are a twin. It doesn't matter. There are. Everybody in your life only knows who a part of who you are. Except for one person. God does not know just a part of who we are. God knows fully who we are. And this is what Hagar realized in the story, is I don't have to be one way in front of God and another way someplace else. I don't gotta be one way in church and then go home and be something totally different. God knows fully who I am. So much so that God knows me better than I know myself. Sometimes I confuse my own self. Why do I do that? Paul said, there's things I want to do that I don't do. There's things I don't do that I want to Do I confuse myself? God is the only one, because when something is created, you have to go to the Creator to find out what's going on inside of it. And so oftentimes we try to go to ourselves, our therapists, our friends, whoever, to learn more about ourselves. Which is great, except for no one will ever fully know you the way that God does. So in verse seven, we pick up and Hagar is running away from her home. And at this point she's decided she is done. She is pregnant. She is aware that she is pregnant at this time, and yet she decided she's done living in this house because it was not a situation. That was a good situation. Honestly, if you think about it, this is something that would absolutely cause you to have some type of trauma response, some type of nervous system response, because it wasn't a pleasant situation. And in verse seven, it says, the angel of the Lord found Hagar. Now, what you have to know about this word found is it is not like God was scouring the earth looking for Hagar, trying to find out, where does she go? I can't place a finger on it, Where'd she go? This is the same word that's used when they say Noah found favor with God. Noah wasn't searching for favor. Noah encountered favor. So this angel of the Lord was not looking for Hagar and couldn't find her, and then happened to stumble upon her and found her instead. God set up an encounter with Hagar while she was on the run. This is what I love about God. He knows you so much that he knows exactly where to set up an encounter. He knows exactly where you are going to meet the end of your rope. Because Hagar met the end of her rope. And God's address is at the end of your rope as soon as you are done. And I am done striving and trying to make it work for myself. And that's where an encounter has been set up. So the angel of the Lord encounters Hagar and not just in any place. The scripture says that Hagar was by a spring of water in the wilderness on the way to the land of Shur. Now this scripture is action packed, y', all, because God specializes in putting water in the middle of a wilderness. All you have to do is look at the story of the children of Israel. Four different times they encountered a thirst that only God could quench. Four different times on their journey to the promised land, God made water out of a rock. He made water out of a bitter stream. God specializes in bringing water in the middle of the wilderness. And this is what happened with Hagar. While Hagar was on the run, trying to get away from her situation, God stopped her, not just anywhere, but he stopped her by a spring of water. It is the same situation in the New Testament when the woman at the well met Jesus. And when she met Jesus, she not only ran into a well of water, she ran into living water. And this is what Hagar experienced on the 1. This is what I love about God. He doesn't wait until we fix ourselves up and get ourselves together in order to bring a spring of water. No, he does it in the middle of the wilderness in a place that doesn't make sense, with this being her on the road to Shur. The crazy thing is Hagar was actually an Egyptian slave. So what happened was in this story is theologians believe that when Pharaoh gave some servants to Abram and Sarai a few chapters ago, what happened was that Hagar was probably one of those servants that was given to them. Well, the land of Shur was a territory outside of Egypt. Because the truth is, Hagar was likely on her way to back to her past. If you think about your own story, if I think about my own story, how many times do I run up against something that seems like it's insurmountable, too big for me to address, too big for me to overcome. And it makes me want to just go back to where I came from. Obviously, Hagar was not well respected in the land of Egypt because she was sold to someone else. So it wasn't like she was going back to a place that was once good to her. It's not like she was going back to a place where she was once respected or seen as worthy or significant. She was obviously already a servant there, but a lower level servant to the point that they sold her to someone else with no care for her well being. And just like the children of Egypt who said, if you gonna bring us out here in the wilderness to die, send us back to slavery, they this is what Hagar did. Can I tell you that on your way backwards, God will set up an encounter for you to meet him and he has to stop you before you go backwards in your journey. The situation she was in with Abram and Sarai was not lovely, it was not pleasant, but it was not her past. And today, if you think about the things in your life that maybe, you know what, this is not working the way I want to. You know what, I'm just going to do it the old way that I've done it before, find yourself in this story. Find yourself in this story because God wants to have an encounter with you. Now, as we keep going in this scripture, the story gets better and better. So Hagar has this encounter with this angel. And the angel in verse 8 says to her, Two questions. Where did you come from? And where are you going? Now, when we talk about, one of the things I love to study is psychology. I'm not a therapist, but I love the idea of psychology, human behavior. And we talk a lot about trauma. We talk a lot about your history, your childhood, different things like that. That was not made up in 2026. Okay? In this scripture, the angel is asking about her history. What, where have you come from? Don't think that the angel is just asking about her. Coming from Sarai and Abram's house, he is asking, what is your story? Because God is emotionally aware enough to ask us, what is your story? Tell me where you have come from. Tell me about your childhood. Tell me about the people that raised you. Tell me who knew you and who did not know you. Tell me who celebrated you and who took advantage of you. Tell me your story. This is the question that's being presented to Hagar. Where did you come from? And the second question attached to that is, where are you going? Because God doesn't want to just know our history. He wants to know our hopes. He wants to know our dreams. He wants to know the desires, because likely he placed them in your heart anyways. He wants to know, where are you going, what's your intentions, where are you headed? Because what I want to do is not only speak to who you are in the present. I. I want to speak and heal your past, but I also want to give you some guidance for where you're going in the future. This is the kind of God that we serve. And Hagar found out point number one, that God already knows you. He's asking questions, but it's not really for him to get answers, to understand you or to know you. It's really for you to know yourself. When we are looking for peace in our life, one of the things that help gives us peace is understanding that God already knows us. So he goes on in this story and he's talking to Hagar and he says a couple different things to her. How you know, how you know that Hagar has had this encounter with God is when the angel tells her what to name her son. He says, you're pregnant now. I want you to name him and Ishmael. Point number two is God already hears you, because Ishmael means God hears. And he goes on to say, God hears your pain. How you know someone hears you well is how they respond to you. And people act like they hear you all the time. But have you ever been in a conversation before and. And someone's talking and you honestly miss everything that they said. And then it's like a pause and you like, did you ask me something? Was I supposed to answer a question? We never had that encounter with God. God hears everything that we say. And how we know is how he responds to us. The angel of the Lord is talking to Hagar. He asks her a question. She responds. And the angel responds to her with four different things. He gives her a promise. He says, you are pregnant with a son now. Name him Ishmael. He gives her a path forward. He says to her, you go back to your mistress, go back to Sarai and submit to her. He also gives her the pressure. He knows that when she has his child, he's going to be like a wild donkey. God does not ignore our reality in order to give us a blessing. This is not the kind of God we serve. The kind of God that avoids real tough conversations. That's not the kind of God we serve. That's church people. I'll never forget when our son passed away. And having conversations with the saints, and sometimes having conversations with the saints didn't make me feel no better, honestly, because I would leave the conversation questioning whether or not they see my reality. Because God says both and can be the truth. The truth can be your actual reality as well as a greater reality. But God doesn't tell us a greater reality about his blessings and his provision and all the things he wants to do in our life without first addressing our reality. Don't let us church people make you think that God does not care about your actual reality. He's not saying to you you too blessed to be stressed. He's not saying that to you. He's saying, that's actually very stressful situation. I understand. And I have blessed you and I have called you and I'm more than enough for you. And you have what it takes to walk this out. And I see you and I hear you. That is the kind of God that we serve. And Hagar had no idea that God was this relational, had no idea that God was this intimate with her, had no idea that God cared about the details of her life because no one in her life ever did. No one in her life ever cared about what her desires were. No one in her life cared about the pain that she had experienced. And sometimes when we haven't been witnessed by other people in our life, we think that God too does not hear us. But God heard Hagar and he gave her a promise. You're gonna have a son and you're gonna be a mother to many nations. Who would have ever thought that? Hagar, if you just looked at the way that she was raised, the place in society, and you have to remember this was not a time where there was advocacy for people that were marginalized. There was no me too movement. There was nobody going around trying to look out for the minorities. That was not the case. If you were in the lower level of social status, that's where you stayed. But God looked down from heaven. And when he saw Hagar, he didn't see what everybody else saw in her. He didn't see that she was lower than anything else. His thoughts outnumbered the grains of sand. When it came to Hagar, she was his masterpiece. Beautifully and wonderfully made. When we know that God sees and hears us like that, it changes how we show up in the world. It changes who we care about. Hearing us when we know we are heard by God. If I know I'm heard by God, I don't have to get anyone else's attention. I have his undivided attention. And Hagar learned this about God. He spoke to her pain, her path, her promise and her pressure. Then we go on to verse 13. And here, Hagar, after having this encounter with God and the angel of the Lord speaking back to her, she then comes up with a name for God. And this was the first time in scripture that someone ever gave God a name from an experience with him. Hagar, the person in the story that seems like she's the third most important character in this whole story, she had an encounter with God that changed her view of him. And she named him a name that meant the God who sees me. This name. Now, I'm going to tell you how I thought it was said, and I'm going to tell you how it's really said. The name is Elroy. And I thought it was like Elroy, your cousin, you know, every black person know. At least Elroy or Leroy, you already know that. Okay? But it's actually pronounced El Roe and it means the God who sees me. Earlier today, while praying some of the names of God, this is what you need to know. That God is. He's a God that you. He never loses track of you. He never loses track of you. He knows you so well. He knows the Number of hairs on your head. Every time one of them fall out, he minus one. This is the kind of God that we serve. A God that we can never get. There's no such thing as peripheral vision for God. There's no such thing as him needing to go get. Go see an optometrist and go get some contacts or glasses. He sees every single detail in our lives. And for somebody that might feel like, ooh, shoot, I don't know if I want God seeing everything, honestly. But the only way that you can embrace that and find peace in that is to know if he sees the invisible parts of you. He sees the parts of you that you don't even see yourself see, our God loves to see the invisible. Not only did he see Hagar in her invisible situation, he saw Hannah in hers and he saw Leah in hers. And blind Bartimaeus, even though he couldn't see Jesus, Jesus saw him. And Zacchaeus, although he was shorter than everybody else and had to get up in that tree to see Jesus, Jesus saw him. The people that feel the most invisible in their lives and in this world, God sees every ounce of their life. He sees the injustice that was done to you. He sees how they betrayed you. He sees how they hurt you. He sees your successes that you even try to keep on a hush because you don't know if anybody's going to be excited for you. He sees every part of your life. And Hagar, after having this encounter with God, was realize that not only does God hear me, he sees me. I think that there's some comfort in knowing that I'm being witnessed by God and knowing that there's not a part of my story that I'm ever introducing to him and knowing that when I pray to Him, I'm not initiating a conversation. He'd already been knocking at the door of my heart. There's a scripture in Psalms that says, my heart has heard you say, come and I am coming to talk to you. You are never starting a conversation with God in your prayers. You're never initiating a relationship with Him. The Holy Spirit drew you into a relationship with him long time ago. And you know why? Because God knows you so well, he knows when to sit, set up an encounter with Him. Scripture tells us that before we were ever, ever in our mother's womb, he knew us. Now, sometimes we make God out to be just a really good human. So sometimes we think that he is having the same experience as we have when a child is born. That's when we are first introduced to that child. Oh, no. When it comes to God, the earth was groaning for our existence. It wasn't just by happenstance that your mama and your daddy got together and you ended up being here. God knew from the beginning of time, the exact day, the exact hour, minute and second that you would enter this earth. And what kind of impact and calling he placed inside of you. That's how much God knows you. If you know you're known and, and heard and seen by a God like that, how would you show up every day? How would you go after the things that he's called you to do? How would you have courage to live the life that he's called you to live? How would you stop caring about the people who don't hear you or see you or know you or understand you? Because I am fully understood by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Even the parts of me that I don't understand, he understands. He says, I know you don't know why you got that habit. I do. I know why you don't know how you. Why you can't just stop running your mouth. I know why you can't break that addiction. I know. And when we know that, it changes our relationship to God. Instead of running to and fro, trying to figure out answers about our lives and trying to find peace in other kind of ways, we go to the ultimate source who fully knows us, fully hears us, and fully sees us. The only reason that God fully knows us, hears us and sees us is because of point number four. God already loves you. God loves you. And love has been such an unconditional, a conditional thing in our lives with the humans in our lives that we sometimes sum that up to how God loves us. I think that I love my husband unconditionally. I think I do. But the truth is there are certain things that he does that when he does just makes me swoon. It just makes me fall more in love with him. And oh, how beautiful that is in a human to human relationship. But that is not our relationship with God. God cannot love you any more than he already loves you right now. There is nothing that you can do or say, no performance that you can put on that will make him swoon over you more than he already swoons over you right now. Scripture tells us that he sees, sings songs over us. You are God's dream come true. You are the apple of his eye. And I know because most of us in our lives never felt like we were anybody else's apple of their eye or anyone else's. Dream come true, not outside of performing. Well, that sometimes it's hard for us to receive. That that's how God sees us. How you know that you are loved by someone is how much they are willing to pursue you. In the story of Hagar, Hagar didn't run to God. She wasn't trying to have this encounter with God. She was just trying to get away from her situation. And in her trying to get away from this situation, she found out that there was a God that that had been pursuing her all along. And because he had been pursuing her all along, she ran smack dab in the middle of his love and found out that he was a God who already loves her. This is the beautiful thing about God, is there's nothing you can do to decrease his love for you. There's nothing you can do to increase his love for you. And I know because of the human relationships that we have, it's almost hard to even think because a lot of times we think, oh, God loves us because he has to love us. But he don't really like me. He don't really like me because I keep making decisions that I shouldn't make it. And because we see God partially only as just the parts of who he is. You know he's king, you know he's judge, you know he's Lord. But you don't understand. He's also father and friend. So although he does care about fairness and righteousness, he also cares about you. He also has compassion towards you. Because God is never in heaven thinking, why did they do that? I don't understand. He understands why we make every decision that we make in our life. And because of that, he loves us. That's why his grace covers a multitude of our sins. Hagar realized that God already loved her. And I think about the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, we see that God has been passionately pursuing us from the beginning of time. In Genesis, he's passionately pursuing Adam and Eve, finding them in the garden, where are you? But in Revelations he says, I stand at the door of your heart knocking. And if you invite me in, I will come sit at your table like a friend. This is the kind of God that we serve. And when we know this about God, it changes how much peace we behold in our lives. I can live a peaceful life. You can live a peaceful life. Because I know I'm never unknown, I'm never unheard, I'm never unseen, and I'm never unloved. This reality is true enough that when our son passed away two Years ago, there was parts of the situation that honestly was just. I don't even know how our nervous system even was able to contain all the stuff that was happening, honestly. But I would remind myself over and over again how much God loved us and saw us and heard us. And over and over again, I'd have to remind myself of that. Because when you're going through something really hard, naturally you start to feel alone. And in this situation, there was one day. I'm going to ask Shakia if you can hand me that. There was one day that I was at Ace's incubator in nicu. And when I was preparing for this talk, I was like, God, was there something in that experience that I could share today? And a lot of times we would sit in nicu. We were only there for two weeks. Ace only lived two weeks. And for two weeks we would sit in nicu and there's nothing you can do. Our son was on paralytic medication, and that meant that his body wasn't moving, his eyes weren't opening. He was alive, but he was on a breathing machine, so we couldn't really interact with him. We would just, you know, sing to him or read books to him or talk to him, so he would know our voice. And it gave me insight on how God feels about me. And on this day, I was sitting in NICU, sitting by ACEs Incubator, and I wrote this in my journal. And I wanted to read it to you because it blessed me reading it again. Honestly, what I learned about the love of God is that it really has nothing to do with you at all. God is love. He can't act outside of love. And when I know that God loves me in that kind of way, I show up differently in my everyday life. So this day, this was July 16, 2024, and I was sitting in NICU, and this would have been five days before our son passed away. And this is what I wrote. It says, I'm sitting here with Asa and nicu. It is the oddest and most natural thing to just sit and admire him. He's not doing anything, not even breathing on his own. And yet I absolutely adore him. He's the apple of my eye. He is my dream come true. And then to God, I said, that's how you feel about me, huh? Doing nothing at all. You swoon over me. How would I live day to day if I really believed that? What changes in me? What do I allow myself and what do I not allow? If I believe that you love me, this kind of way that sums up in my mind how God feels about you. Not just us, you individually. The way that God loves you is almost inconceivable. We almost can't even fathom it in our minds. But if I knew that every day, all day, the eyes of heaven were on me, hearing not only the words that I say, but my thoughts afar off, hearing not only my thoughts, but bottling my tears every single day, the things that I consider countless or worthless, he bottles them as a treasure. This is how God feels about you. If we believe that if we live like that, we will live in more peace. Because when we talk about the missing piece, it has to do with the fact that God knows you, hears you, sees you, and loves you. This is the kind of God that we serve. What I love about the story of Hagar is that this is essentially a foreshadowing of the gospel. Jesus came to earth, came to you and to me, to encounter us, to have an encounter with us, because he heard our pain and he saw us from far off. And when he came, he did not come to just do miracles, signs and wonders. He did not just come to have arguments with the Pharisees. He did not just come so that he can have a group of disciples that followed him. Jesus came to this earth in order to show you and me how much God loves us, how much he hears us, sees us and knows us. This is the kind of God that we serve. So Hagar's story is not one unto itself. It is a part of a greater story of how when we were in the wilderness of sin, there was a spring of water. And in that spring of water, it wasn't just any old spring of water. It was a living water. And when the living water water encountered us, he let us know. I want to know all about your story. Don't think because you're a new creation in Christ that you do not have to share your story anymore. I want to know all of it. And you know why? Because we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the words of our testimony. I want to know all about your story. But I also want to know where do you want to go in life? What do you want to do? Because I've called you to those things, that's not something you can came up with on your own. I put that desire in your heart. And because of that, I'm not only going to just check your reality, I'm going to give you a promise. The thing that you think you are, you are more than that. Before the Beginning of time. I knew who you were and I called you into this earth, and the earth was groaning for your existence. And Esther wasn't the only one that came for such a time as this. You came for such a time as. As this. You are supposed to be here on this earth right now doing the things of God. You have my full attention. God says you have my full attention. Not one second of your life did I miss out on. I've seen it all, and I know you better than you know yourself. So what is God asking from us today? In Proverbs, it says the scripture, it says, my child, pay attention to me. I've been paying you attention. I've been paying you attention. But you've been looking everywhere else for your worthiness. You've been looking everywhere else for your peace. You've been looking everywhere else to fit in and to belong. But today, pay attention to the one who's paying attention to you. Hagar says, I have seen the one who has already seen me. Today, God is asking us to open our eyes and set our attention on him. When you set your attention on God, what you'll notice is he's already been paying attention to you. Let's pray. God, today we're really, really grateful to serve a God like you. Really grateful to know that you are a God who knows us, hears us, sees us and loves us. And because of that, we can find peace for everyday life. To know that there's not one second that you've missed out on our life. To know that even the things that we whisper to ourself, you hear. To know that the moments where we maybe thought you didn't see us, you already saw us. There's been times, honestly, that we thought like a child playing hide and go seek, that when we don't see you, you don't see us. But the truth is you've always seen us. Every single day of our life was already written out. You already know us and you already love us. Today. God, in whatever wilderness we may be in, maybe it's a wilderness in our relationships. Maybe it's a wilderness in our finances. Maybe it's a wilderness in our bodies and our health. Would you set up an encounter with us today? Just like you met Hagar where she was at? Would you do that same thing for us today? God, help us to embrace your love in a way that changes how we show up every day. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. I'm going to do something a little different today. I. I've asked the worship team to come up. Typically, what we do at the end of service is you'll come up to the altar and have an encounter with God, and we'll have our altar workers come up a little bit later. But what I'm gonna ask you to do for a second, I'm just gonna ask you to hold in your seat for one minute and allow God to encounter you right where you are. Hagar didn't go looking for God and found him. He found her where she was already at. And today I'm asking the worship team to sing a song. You can sing with them if you want to. But more than anything, what I'm asking you to do is where do you need from? What do you need from God today? Do you need to feel like you are known, heard, seen or loved? And today can you have that encounter with him right where you are? Because our God sees you. He hears you. He knows you. And my God, with every ounce of his being, he loves you. So before we run out of here into our everyday lives, where we go around striving, trying to be heard and seen and loved and known, maybe today, before we leave, we allow God to encounter us right where we are. Amen. God has given us this thing that's called our imagination. We use that imagination for his glory. We have encounters with him that maybe we wouldn't have if we didn't use those faculties in that kind of way. So today, with your hands open, I want you to imagine God hand in hand with you in a way you know how you'll maybe grab your grandmother's hand and she squeezes it in a way that lets you know, I'm here, baby, I love you. I see you. I know you. Today, with your hands open, would you receive the love of God? He says that he's a father to the fatherless. He knows that you weren't loved by your father the way that you should have been. He said that he is a mother to the motherless. Maybe today you're carrying some mother wounds. He said that he is afraid, friend of sinners. Today, maybe friendship has hurt your heart. Maybe you have felt betrayal or rejection. He is the lover of your soul. And honestly, that may feel a little even awkward at first, but it means that he loves every ounce of who you are today. Would you receive that love? God, today we receive your love. We receive your love. You bottle every one of our tears. You give us peace that not only calms our mind, but calms our nervous system. You give us healing that binds up the wounds, the traumas, the wounds that we had from long time ago. You don't stand on the other side of our mess and ask us to clean it up. You stand shoulder to shoulder with us and say, let me help. Today, God, we are asking you to open up our eyes to see you the way you see us, to open up our ears to hear you the way that you hear us, God. Open up our minds to know you in a new way and open our hearts to love you back. When we say, I love you, God, essentially what we're saying is, I love you too, God, because we love you, because you first loved us. And we don't want this to be just some church experience, but one that follows us to work. And we think we gotta get the boss to see us, to get a promotion. We know promotions come from you and God. When we go home and we're with our families and we're trying to be seen or understood by our spouse or our kids or our friends or our siblings, our parents, that we can lean back in confidence knowing that we are fully known by you. Let this understanding bring us peace that passes all understanding. We love you so much. We love you, too. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. You may be in this room right now or even watching online, and we've been talking about this God that loves you from head to toe. And you may be wondering, who is this God and how do I get a relationship with him? Well, today I love for you to take a next step, and that is to receive this free gift of salvation. This God who loves you so endlessly, so unconditionally came to this earth, died on the cross, not just for the sins of the world, but for you. If it was just you on this earth, he would have done that. If today you want to receive this gift of salvation, I'm going to ask you to pray a prayer after me. All you have to do is believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. And so that's you today. And I'm going to ask all of our church, online and in the room to pray this prayer together. Say, dear God, I admit I've made mistakes. I admit I need a savior. I ask that you change my heart, change my motives, change my mind, and transform me. Today I believe that you know me, that you hear me, that you see me, and that you love me. Today I am saved. In the name of Jesus, we pray. And everybody says amen and Amen. If you pray that prayer today, either in this room or online. We want you to text Save to 828282. And we want to get you some more information about how to walk out this life of salvation. Don't do it on your own. And also, if you're heading out of here to do day, there's a booth in the back that you can also get some more information and next steps. And I believe we might even have some free Bibles back there for you. So be able to go go back there and get that information. I'm going to ask our altar workers to come up here to the front. Maybe today you want prayer about anything at all, maybe something that we talked about today or anything else that's going on in your life, you can come up here to receive prayer. We love you so much. Go out and live a transformed life.