May 10, 2025 • 40 mins
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Well, as you might guess, given what tomorrow is Mother's Day, right?
I did not get the wrong day on my calendar.
It's kind of a special day, isn't it?
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Moms, I am sorry.
I tried to put the ball on the tee and all the men and the kids hit it out of the park.
Mother's Day is kind of a special day, isn't it?
Amen, amen.
Because God loves our moms.
Can we agree with that?
Some moms.
(00:45):
It's a tough crowd today.
I understand it's starting to get hot and people are getting sleepy around this time.
That's okay because Mother's Day has actually been around for a long time.
And maybe because it's not new, maybe we're just not so excited about Mother's Day.
But hopefully by the end of today, we'll have a renewed love for Mother's Day.
And at least, you know, here's my answer.
(01:11):
It is because we don't just love mothers on one day.
We love mothers every day, right?
And so that's why we're not getting so loud and excited about Mother's Day.
because we love you every day, moms.
It's a special day every day.
But when you look back at the history of Mother's Day,
(01:32):
it's kind of arguable about when and where and how
and why it came into existence.
And some people tie it all the way back
into pagan celebrations and whatnot.
They had different purposes.
The Mother's Day I want to talk about
is our more modern understanding of Mother's Day.
(01:53):
It actually started right around the Civil War era.
There was this lady named Anna Jarvis
who she put together these Mother's Day work groups.
And what it was was it was with the idea
that she was going to clean up work situations.
In other words, the conditions were unsanitary.
(02:15):
And so in honor of mom, she wanted to clean it up
and provide good workspaces for moms.
If you, well, I sort of say if you remember,
none of us remember that era, but least of all me.
But if you remember in your history books,
working conditions were not that great in the 1800s.
And so she put together this Mother's Day work clubs
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to help combat those unsanitary working conditions.
And later she was concerned about the high mortality rates
of giving birth because also it was unsanitary.
So it just wasn't that great.
She was really looking from a practical side.
In fact, during the Civil War, she organized mother's brigades to help,
(03:02):
and it didn't matter which side the husband was on.
They were banding together as mothers to provide aid for people in need.
And after the Civil War, she proposed a mother's friendship club to rebuild relationships between both sides.
In other words, a mom from the north could be a friend's with a mom from the south, and it was okay.
(03:25):
Why? Because they had something in common.
They had children who were in the war.
And many people experienced loss.
And as this nation tried to heal and reunify, they played a role in aiding in that because they broke down the barriers and said, you know what?
War is an ugly thing, but we're here for each other.
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We're part of the same nation.
We're part of the same people.
Julia Ward Howe also played a role.
By the way, did you know she's the one who composed the Battle Hymn of the Republic?
My musician over here knows this and probably on this side too.
she did and it has a line in the song which reminds us that christ was born of a woman
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she included that in the song now before we go running off some tangent that's actually in the
bible that comes from a bible verse and i found it in my study but after the civil war she called
for a mother's day of peace and it was observed in several locations for about 40 years before it
(04:31):
wiped away by World War I.
Anna Jarvis' daughter, also named Anna,
shifted gears a little bit from the practical to more of a memorial,
and she wanted to honor her mother's efforts,
and so she took up the banner for Mother's Day.
And she proposed it was more about the mother's role in the home,
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the sacrifices that a mom makes to make the home a good place to live,
a good place to raise a family.
And so you'll see the shift over time.
And eventually it comes to what we do today.
It honors mothers, both living and deceased.
We honor all moms.
We look at the good things that they've done, the sacrifices that they make.
(05:15):
And I would challenge you, somebody correct me.
I've never heard it.
Maybe you have.
We always focus on the positives of moms on Mother's Day.
Don't we?
I mean, I have never heard somebody say,
Happy Mother's Day.
You're a terrible mom, but I want to wish you a happy Mother's Day.
(05:35):
Or, you know what?
You got everything wrong as a mother.
You made your family's life miserable.
Happy Mother's Day.
Has anybody ever heard anybody say that?
I've never heard that.
We always look at the positives of the things that are done right.
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You sure made a lot of mistakes, but I turned out okay in spite of it.
Happy Mother's Day.
No one ever says that.
Well, today we're going to talk about a mom who didn't have it all together.
We're going to talk about a mom who made a lot of mistakes.
We're going to talk about a mom whose heart maybe wasn't the,
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she wasn't the poster child for Mother's Day.
But we're going to talk about her because I believe that God loved her anyway.
I believe that God had a special experience with this woman in the Bible.
And I believe she's spoken in the Bible about three different times, three times.
(06:37):
And she's actually used as an illustration of how not to be a mom.
When Paul writes about her, you look and you say, yeah, that's not the one I want.
That's not how I want to do things.
It's done in a way that is rather negative.
He's not talking bad about her per se, but he's saying this is not the way you want to do things as a mom.
(07:01):
So today, we're going to look at Hagar.
And for those of you who grew up reading the comics, I'm not talking about the Viking.
Sorry.
We'll talk about him later.
But Genesis chapter 16 is where we're really introduced to Hagar.
(07:24):
I'm going to start reading in verse 1, and we're going to spend most of our time here.
So if you would open your Bibles or your devices or however you get there, we're going to be
in Genesis chapter 16.
I'll start in verse 1.
It says, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maidservant
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whose name was Hagar.
So Sarai said to Abraham,
See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children.
Please go into my maid.
Perhaps I shall obtain children by her.
And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.
Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian,
and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be his wife,
(08:08):
after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.
So he went into Hagar, and she conceived.
and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.
Then Sarai said to Abram, My wrong be upon you.
I gave my maid into your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived,
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I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judged between you and me.
So Abram said to Sarai, Indeed, your maid is in your hand.
Do to her as you please.
And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence.
Hagar was probably given to Abram and Sarai back when they went into Egypt.
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And it was the first time when Abram said, oh, this is my sister.
This isn't my wife.
No, there's nothing between us.
And Pharaoh wanted Sarai and he said, yeah, go ahead.
here, here's some maidservants, here's some male servants, here's some sheep, some goats,
some oxen. In other words, we're trading here. And so you already get a little bit of a feel
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of the tension between Sarai and this female servant. Because in Sarai's mind, my husband
and traded me for her.
Think about that.
This is the woman that she's giving to
have a child with her husband.
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The servants were given to Abram
as a price for Sarai.
So there's this constant reminder
in Sarai's mind that
this was given
in exchange for me
for a servant girl
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and considering in that culture Sarah had been barren for almost 80 years
in that culture
I was kind of looked down upon as the old maid
I mean we grew up hearing about the old maid right
even as recent as our generation is kind of looked down upon
as the old mate. Well, here's Sarah, almost 80 years old
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in a culture that thrives on having children, especially men and children.
And here she sits. Here's the woman that was
traded for her.
And so Sarah decides she's going to get some good out of this servant
after all. I can't have children? Here, you take her.
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You traded for her anyway. You take her. Have a child.
But the idea was that that was going to be Sarah's child.
She's going to get the child back.
But you'll notice, I mean, this is for the purpose of producing a child.
It's producing an heir.
It's continuing the family name.
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It's having someone to pass your legacy down to.
But God had already promised Abraham, I'm going to make a great nation out of you.
where's the faith
and I don't say so much
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where's Sarah's faith because
you remember God made the promise
to Abraham
not to Sarah
now I believe I'm a true believer that
marriage in God's eyes they were one
and when God made the promise
to Abraham Sarah was included
that was the idea
you guys
are going to have a child, not just Abraham. But notice the way that they do this.
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It looks as though Sarah is saying, you know what, we're going to have to get,
we're going to have to try something different. This isn't working. And God has promised that
you're going to be a great nation. We got to get on this. We got to figure out how to make this
happen instead of just sitting back and waiting on it. But you know, I'm almost 80 years old.
(12:20):
Let's give her a little bit of credit.
You ever read the promises of God in the Bible
and not seen them come through?
And the things start running through your head.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Maybe God's trying to tell me something.
Maybe I'm supposed to learn something through this,
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or maybe I didn't comb my hair right.
Maybe I didn't get the right haircut.
But things start running through your mind,
and you start doubting those promises as being what God is going to do for you,
and it starts becoming what you're supposed to do for God.
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And I think that's where Sarah is like, listen, I'm almost 80 years old.
My childbearing days are done.
And so here's how we're going to do this.
We're going to give my maidservant to Abram to have a child with,
And there we go.
And that'll be now before we get too hard on them.
(13:24):
You've heard of the Amarna letters.
Almost 400 cuneiform tablets that were found from that era.
And a lot of them are letters of transaction.
I traded 40 sheep for 30 goats, etc.
But there was some of them that was dedicated to the laws of the land.
And you find a lot of the custom.
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In fact, you find when you go through Abraham's life,
you'll find a lot of that plays into what happens with Abraham.
It fits the culture of the day.
In fact, God makes promises in such a way that fits the culture.
In other words, God is saying, okay, this is how you guys understand it.
Let me change the way that I would do it and do it so that you can understand,
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so that you can learn, so that you can see what I'm doing.
And so there is a law in these Amarna letters that says,
if a woman cannot have a child, it is lawful for her to give her maidservant to her husband to have
a child for the wife. And so, you know, we kind of point a finger at Sarah and say, where's your
(14:28):
faith? And we point a finger at Abram, where's your faith? But it was the culture. It was the
way that they believed. It's the way people did things. And so you kind of see where, okay,
maybe in their reasoning, maybe this is what God meant. Let's be a little more practical about this.
Let's not ask God for the big miracle. Let's ask him for the little miracle instead.
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But you've got this history between these two women and
look at it from the servant's perspective for a moment, because this sermon's more about
her. Look at it from her perspective. One, she was given to Abram. She had no say in that.
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She was traded to just like Sarah. Only she wasn't given back. Sarah was given back to her husband.
Hagar was not given back. She was kept and forced to leave her country where she was born,
where she grew up, everything that she knew, follow Abram and his family and live in tents.
You know, we've talked about the tent life.
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It's a hard life.
And she had no say in it.
She had no rights.
She had no government agency to go to and say, this is wrong.
My rights are being trampled on.
She had none of that.
It was, you will do this.
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There's not even a nor else.
You will do this.
And then I need to have a child.
You go into my husband and have that child.
Again, she has no voice in this.
She's the servant.
She will do this.
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Again, there's no or else.
You will do this.
It was expected.
This is what you will do.
Look at it from her perspective for just a moment and see.
It wasn't this great life that she had.
And after you have your first child with this man,
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you don't even get the privilege of raising up your own child.
You have a front row seat to watch somebody else make the decisions.
What's his diet?
What clothes is he going to wear?
What school is he going to go to?
What's his career going to be when he grows up?
All these things.
You don't have a voice in all that.
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And not only that, your child is raised up to be your master
because you're just a servant who has no rights.
And at any time, they could just trade you off to somewhere else.
you are allowed to bond with your child
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the way that a mother bonds with her children.
That's severed.
And there's more to this picture, though,
because she gave Hagar, the Bible says,
into Abraham's embrace.
My version says of your bosom,
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which, or I'm sorry, in Deuteronomy,
the same words, the same phrase is used,
it says, of your bosom or who you cherish.
So when you read the story a little bit more
where it says that she gave him to be the wife,
it's not just being nice and saying,
giving to be the wife.
There's a little bit of,
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I'm giving Hagar, my maidservant,
over to be a surrogate
so that I can have a child.
But when you read through the Hebrew, you see that maybe there was a little bit more going on here
than just a one-night surrogacy.
There's a hint of a continuing relationship,
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which lends credibility to, as Sarah is despised,
now she's taken on the role of the wife who can bear children
versus the role of the wife who cannot.
If you want a picture of what that looks like, go look at 1 Samuel 1.
We won't look at it today, but remember Hannah, the mother of Samuel,
how she was treated by the other wife because she didn't have children.
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Sarah's going through the same thing here.
And it's Hagar who is doing this to her.
She's taking on the role of, yeah, I was a servant yesterday, but now I'm the wife.
I'm the one who can give children to Abram.
i'm the one who in this whole promise thing i'm the one that god is blessing to have this you see
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this transition happening maybe pent up years of of having to be the one with no rights the one with
no say the one who has all these things going on and now all of a sudden you feel vaulted into a
position of i'm the good wife abram loves me more than you i know you guys have been married you just
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celebrated your 50th anniversary, but I gave him a child. You get this picture of things are not
beautiful here. I mean, this relationship with Hagar, this whole situation today we would say
is a hot mess, right? There's so many things going on, so many variables going on in this relationship.
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You can't even put a finger on exactly what's going on here.
And the Bible doesn't go into a whole lot of details.
I think for that reason, the Bible is just saying it's a hot mess.
This whole situation is not what God had in mind when he was planning Abraham's life.
When he was giving Abraham the promise, this is not what God had in mind.
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God had something else of order and I'm going to bless you and I'm going to do all these
things and through that, you're going to be a blessing.
And it's turned into something else.
And you see Hagar from her position.
She was suffering.
She was a suffering servant.
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Some of it was of her own doing.
Some of it was the choices that she was making.
Not all of it, obviously.
But some of it was.
What's important happens next, though.
Because as easy it is to judge her either a victim or an instigator,
The bottom line is that God loves this mother.
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God loves Hagar.
And it almost sounds weird to say that
after you look at this mess of a relationship
that they've got going on here.
But when you go to Genesis 16, start in verse seven,
says, now the angel of the Lord found her
by a spring of water in the wilderness,
by the spring on the way to shore.
And he said, Hagar, Sarah's maid,
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where have you come from and where are you going?
There's a couple things we need to look at.
Number one, the angel of the Lord.
Who's the angel of the Lord here?
It's Jesus.
It capitalizes it in my Bible to make it easy for me.
But the angel of the Lord is a phrase that is used more than once.
But when you look through this conversation and she talks about God
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and the angel of the Lord responds, it's in the first person.
In other words, there's no go-between.
He's speaking.
Especially when he says later on he starts making these promises.
I will multiply your descendants.
That's, yeah, that's Jesus.
That's God.
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That's him right there.
So it's not an angel.
And what's really interesting is that it says that he found Hagar.
This is the kind of finding that God did in the Garden of Eden when he went looking for Adam and Eve.
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Did God not know where they were?
God knew where they were.
God knew where Hagar was.
God knew where Cain was.
God is all seeing.
He is all knowing.
He didn't go looking because he didn't know where they were.
He didn't find her because she was lost and he couldn't see her.
And so he had to come down from heaven and go looking around where she at.
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God knew where she were.
God is looking at this from a different perspective.
Number one, he's initiating a conversation with this woman.
He's calling her by name.
He's intentional in this finding Hagar, just like he was intentional with Adam and Eve,
just like he was intentional with Cain.
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She's getting the same treatment here.
and just like Adam and Eve God wasn't talking about logistics
and when you look at her answer you understand a little bit more about what's going on here
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because he says where did you come from and where are you going she tells him where she came from
but she doesn't say where she's going did you notice that she avoids that part of the conversation
You ever notice when people talk to Jesus, you know, we look at the woman at the well.
Jesus asks her a question and she goes off on a tangent somewhere else
because she doesn't want to answer the question.
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The same thing's going on here.
Where are you from?
Oh, I came from Sarah's where I've been beaten.
I've been abused.
I'm treated horribly there.
So I'm leaving there.
Where are you going?
I'm leaving because I'm being abused.
That part she's comfortable with telling God.
I'm telling God the bad part of my life, but where are you going?
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The fact is, it says she was, let me find it,
by the spring on the way to Shur.
Shur, from where she was at, Shur was on her way to Egypt.
She's going back to Egypt.
Theologians, you can look into the correlation between Israel wanting to go back to Egypt
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and Hagar wanting to go back to, we won't get into that today.
But the point was, she was going back to her place of origin, where she was comfortable.
She was going back to a place where her gods reigned.
Because this God of Abraham and this mess that I'm in, I don't want any part of that God.
If that's the kind of life that he's got for me, I don't want any part of that.
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I'm going back to my old gods.
And I'm just going to avoid the confrontation.
I'm going to avoid the hot mess.
I'm just getting myself out and I'm going to go.
Hagar, where are you going?
In other words,
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it's not going to be any better
to go somewhere else.
Your life's not going to get better
to go back to those old gods.
It's not going to go better
to go back to your old life.
There was nothing for you then
there's nothing for you now. And yeah, you live in a hot mess, but you are better off here than you
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are going back there. And God's not just sending her back into this situation. You'll notice God's
answer back to her shows that his priority is spiritual. In verses 9 and 10, he says,
return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand. And we look at that and that sounds,
I mean, I'm sorry, when I read that, that sounds like, man, God, really?
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You're going to send her back and then tell her she has to submit?
But listen to what he's saying.
What he's saying is, you had a role in this.
You're not innocent.
You despised your master, and now you're being treated badly.
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You need to go back.
You need to repent of what you've done.
It's not centered back into you need to now pay for what you did,
but you need to go and try to make things right.
Does that sound at all like the gospel message?
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Does that sound at all like things that Jesus has said?
Go look at Matthew chapter 5.
If you come to the altar and you remember that somebody has something against you,
leave your gift at the altar and go make things right.
Matthew chapter 18.
If your brother has done something against you,
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in other words, if you've got something against your brother,
go and make it right.
There's a message here that God has been saying from the very beginning
with Adam and Eve all the way through to the book of Revelation,
all the way to the end of time.
This is an imperfect world. We don't live in a good place. God's got a good place in plan for us,
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but we don't live there now. And right now we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people
and imperfect situations. Our world is, can I say it? It's a hot mess.
But what God is saying is we got to take care of the things that we can take care of.
And that means I need to take responsibility for the things that I do wrong. I need to try
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to make our relationships right while I'm here. It may not work, but try. Put the effort because
that's what Jesus did. Jesus came down here. Jesus didn't do anything wrong with us. We wronged God,
but he came down from heaven. He left all the glory of heaven above and he came down.
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Why? To make things right with us. He initiated the reconciliation. And so God has got this message
that he's just trying to say,
we need to learn how to fix these relationships.
Life hasn't been fair.
That's true.
You were born into a bad situation.
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You were traded into a worse situation.
But you've also made mistakes too.
And where you're going isn't going to fix it.
To keep running from the situation is not going to fix it.
But instead, step in.
keep your eye on the future because i've got plans for you and your son
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first sign that god loves hagar is that god went and found her
next two verses i'm just going to skip through i'm looking to the clock so i'm going to skip through
in the message that he's giving back says you'll have a son name him ishmael because the lord has
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heard your affliction that's the second reason that we know that god loves hagar because she's
crying she's leaving she's in a bad situation god heard her he knows her situation is bad he's heard
her affliction. He's heard her cries. He's heard her pleas. And God wants her to know, I heard you.
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Don't go back to the gods of Egypt because they can't hear you.
I can hear you. And I'm here to answer your prayer.
He's not ignoring her needs. It's not ideal, but there's no place in this sinful world that is
ideal. And God hears Hagar. He hears her afflictions. And with his directions to go back,
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He gives these promises that she is going to have this son.
She will name him Ishmael, which literally means God has heard.
In other words, she will have a constant reminder for the rest of her life.
God heard your prayer.
God is listening when you go through hard times.
When you're in that dark place, God can hear you.
God knows where you are.
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God found you and he hears you.
It's this reminder.
And then God throws in this extra special blessing.
that Ishmael's descendants will be so numerous that they can't be counted.
It's similar to the promise that he gives Abraham.
He's giving the same kind of promise to Hagar.
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Did God love Abraham?
You better believe it.
Did God love Hagar?
You better believe it.
He loves Hagar too.
He wants to save Hagar too.
He wants her in his kingdom.
And then in verse 13, our scripture for today,
Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her.
You are the God who sees.
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For she said,
Have I also here seen him who sees me?
Again, when we're in our darkest hour,
God finds us, God hears us, and God sees us.
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He knows what you're going through.
He knows why it's dark around you.
There's a reason why David wrote the 23rd Psalm
and he puts in there about the valley of the shadow of death.
But I will fear no evil because thou art with me.
David knew that God sees him in his darkest hours.
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God's telling Hagar the same thing.
I am here.
I see you.
I hear you.
And she gets this epiphany.
And there's a difference in the way,
I really got to point out this difference
God sees in the way that we see, because when God sees Hagar, he sees, he knows, he gets the whole
picture about Hagar. He sees her clearly. When she sees back, it's a little bit different variation
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of the wordage, the word used here. And it's, she sees, but not quite as clear. The reason I say
that is because there's something that isn't translated into my new King James version.
And I don't think it's in the NIV and I don't think it's in the ESV and I don't think it's in
the NAS. And there was one version that got close that I found, and it still didn't say it the way
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that I read it in the Hebrew. It compares to Exodus 33, verse 23. Moses has asked, show me your glory.
And God's like, wait a minute, brother. Nobody can see me and live. Okay. So let me work with
you on this. I'm going to put you in the cleft of a rock and I'm going to hold my hand over you
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and I'm going to pass by and after I pass by I'll remove my hand and you can see the back of me.
And there's a whole lot of theology in here.
But we remember when he says this, what does he say that Moses sees?
His goodness, his glory, his compassion, his mercy.
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That's what Moses sees.
The same verbiage that is used for Moses' experience with God,
who is God's friend, who God speaks to face to face,
who is a prophet of God, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt,
not back into Egypt, but out of Egypt,
this same person, the same verbiage is used with Hagar.
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What she's saying that she is seeing,
she is seeing God's mercy.
she has seen god's grace she's seen god's goodness she's seen his love this is the god who sees me
i have seen this same god she has a very similar experience to both abraham and to moses two of
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the old testament greats she has this woman who couldn't get anything right
has the same experience and i believe that that is because god loves her
just as much as he loves abraham just as much as he loves moses just as much as he loves sarah
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just as much as he loves all the world because he sent his son to die for every last one of us
so moms we're celebrating mother's day this weekend you know we always talk about the positives of mom
how they've sacrificed for us how they've loved us how they made a wonderful home
and i am not disagreeing with that and i'm so happy that we can set aside the negatives
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and see the positives at least for one day out of the year
but there's something about this story that says moms
you may not have it all together
you may not get it right every time.
You might make mistakes along the way.
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You might find yourself in dark places.
You might find yourself in bad situations.
You might feel like God has abandoned you.
You might feel like maybe there is no God out there
if I'm in this kind of situation.
God loves you.
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god loves you god wants you to have the same salvation as everyone else he's not asking you
to get it all together he's not asking you to get it right every time he's asking you to get in a
relationship with him and let him take care of the rest let him work that work in you let him be the
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one that pulls out all the positives that everybody sees and makes people forget the negatives.
Let God be the one that makes you the mom that people smile at when they say happy Mother's Day.
Because God loves you. Wherever you're at, God has found you. God has heard you. He has seen you.
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But what he wants most of all is for you to see him too.
He wants you to have that experience.
Every year we celebrate our moms by giving out gifts.
And some of you moms may be saying, you guys forgot because we didn't do it.
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I'm actually going to call the kids to come up and help me out here because we do have,
we didn't forget you moms.
we did not forget our mothers i'm gonna go kids that's a call for you i know some of you have
fallen asleep on me because it's a grown-up sermon but i'm gonna ask the kids and the kids at heart
because you know what there's some of us who are still kids no matter how old we get i'm gonna ask
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you to come and help so that we can wrap this up but we have gifts over here and i'm told i have to
walk a maze and i'm sorry i'm gonna go off camera for a minute
someone said no I'm not
I have
we have the church
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has gifts and so
if I can get you young
people to please
just dump the gifts right there and pick
them up
see even dads don't have it all
together but
you know what he loves me too
but if you would take these gifts and pass these out to the moms
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and be able to stand on your own,
pass out all the gifts to the moms.
So if you were a mom,
I don't care how good you feel you are of a mom.
If you're a mom, would you hold up your hand
so the kids know who to bring these out to?
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We give you gifts to remind you that we love you, that we honor you.
Yep, if they're holding up their hand, just take them out.
But we also want to give you gifts to remind you that God loves you too,
that you don't have to be the perfect mom to be perfect for us.
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You hold up your hand and they'll get to you as quickly as possible.
But God has a gift for you, just like he had a gift for Hagar.
His gift for Hagar was a son who was going to have descendants and become a great nation.
God's gift to you is to be part of his great nation, to be part of his family,
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to be able to cross over into that promised land and spend eternity with him.
We've still got a few back here on this side.
I've still got at least one over here.
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And then we got some more.
As we're wrapping this up,
can I give a special Mother's Day prayer?
I want to pray for the moms in our lives.
If we could bow our heads.
Father in heaven, we thank you so much
that you are a God of family.
And Lord, we thank you that you have blessed us with mothers.
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And Lord, yeah, we know that all moms are not perfect.
In fact, the Bible says that none of us are.
But Lord, you have given them for us because they are the perfect mom for us.
We thank you for these moms.
We ask for your blessing on these moms.
And we ask, Lord, that you would show your glory to the moms here today
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so that they always have this reminder of your love for them
and your desire to be in a kingdom filled with moms forever.
we pray this in Jesus name
Amen
Well, as you might guess, given what tomorrow is Mother's Day, right?
I did not get the wrong day on my calendar.
It's kind of a special day, isn't it?
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Moms, I am sorry.
I tried to put the ball on the tee and all the men and the kids hit it out of the park.
Mother's Day is kind of a special day, isn't it?
Amen, amen.
Because God loves our moms.
Can we agree with that?
Some moms.
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It's a tough crowd today.
I understand it's starting to get hot and people are getting sleepy around this time.
That's okay because Mother's Day has actually been around for a long time.
And maybe because it's not new, maybe we're just not so excited about Mother's Day.
But hopefully by the end of today, we'll have a renewed love for Mother's Day.
And at least, you know, here's my answer.
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It is because we don't just love mothers on one day.
We love mothers every day, right?
And so that's why we're not getting so loud and excited about Mother's Day.
because we love you every day, moms.
It's a special day every day.
But when you look back at the history of Mother's Day,
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it's kind of arguable about when and where and how
and why it came into existence.
And some people tie it all the way back
into pagan celebrations and whatnot.
They had different purposes.
The Mother's Day I want to talk about
is our more modern understanding of Mother's Day.
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It actually started right around the Civil War era.
There was this lady named Anna Jarvis
who she put together these Mother's Day work groups.
And what it was was it was with the idea
that she was going to clean up work situations.
In other words, the conditions were unsanitary.
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And so in honor of mom, she wanted to clean it up
and provide good workspaces for moms.
If you, well, I sort of say if you remember,
none of us remember that era, but least of all me.
But if you remember in your history books,
working conditions were not that great in the 1800s.
And so she put together this Mother's Day work clubs
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to help combat those unsanitary working conditions.
And later she was concerned about the high mortality rates
of giving birth because also it was unsanitary.
So it just wasn't that great.
She was really looking from a practical side.
In fact, during the Civil War, she organized mother's brigades to help,
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and it didn't matter which side the husband was on.
They were banding together as mothers to provide aid for people in need.
And after the Civil War, she proposed a mother's friendship club to rebuild relationships between both sides.
In other words, a mom from the north could be a friend's with a mom from the south, and it was okay.
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Why? Because they had something in common.
They had children who were in the war.
And many people experienced loss.
And as this nation tried to heal and reunify, they played a role in aiding in that because they broke down the barriers and said, you know what?
War is an ugly thing, but we're here for each other.
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We're part of the same nation.
We're part of the same people.
Julia Ward Howe also played a role.
By the way, did you know she's the one who composed the Battle Hymn of the Republic?
My musician over here knows this and probably on this side too.
she did and it has a line in the song which reminds us that christ was born of a woman
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she included that in the song now before we go running off some tangent that's actually in the
bible that comes from a bible verse and i found it in my study but after the civil war she called
for a mother's day of peace and it was observed in several locations for about 40 years before it
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wiped away by World War I.
Anna Jarvis' daughter, also named Anna,
shifted gears a little bit from the practical to more of a memorial,
and she wanted to honor her mother's efforts,
and so she took up the banner for Mother's Day.
And she proposed it was more about the mother's role in the home,
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the sacrifices that a mom makes to make the home a good place to live,
a good place to raise a family.
And so you'll see the shift over time.
And eventually it comes to what we do today.
It honors mothers, both living and deceased.
We honor all moms.
We look at the good things that they've done, the sacrifices that they make.
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And I would challenge you, somebody correct me.
I've never heard it.
Maybe you have.
We always focus on the positives of moms on Mother's Day.
Don't we?
I mean, I have never heard somebody say,
Happy Mother's Day.
You're a terrible mom, but I want to wish you a happy Mother's Day.
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Or, you know what?
You got everything wrong as a mother.
You made your family's life miserable.
Happy Mother's Day.
Has anybody ever heard anybody say that?
I've never heard that.
We always look at the positives of the things that are done right.
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You sure made a lot of mistakes, but I turned out okay in spite of it.
Happy Mother's Day.
No one ever says that.
Well, today we're going to talk about a mom who didn't have it all together.
We're going to talk about a mom who made a lot of mistakes.
We're going to talk about a mom whose heart maybe wasn't the,
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she wasn't the poster child for Mother's Day.
But we're going to talk about her because I believe that God loved her anyway.
I believe that God had a special experience with this woman in the Bible.
And I believe she's spoken in the Bible about three different times, three times.
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And she's actually used as an illustration of how not to be a mom.
When Paul writes about her, you look and you say, yeah, that's not the one I want.
That's not how I want to do things.
It's done in a way that is rather negative.
He's not talking bad about her per se, but he's saying this is not the way you want to do things as a mom.
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So today, we're going to look at Hagar.
And for those of you who grew up reading the comics, I'm not talking about the Viking.
Sorry.
We'll talk about him later.
But Genesis chapter 16 is where we're really introduced to Hagar.
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I'm going to start reading in verse 1, and we're going to spend most of our time here.
So if you would open your Bibles or your devices or however you get there, we're going to be
in Genesis chapter 16.
I'll start in verse 1.
It says, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maidservant
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whose name was Hagar.
So Sarai said to Abraham,
See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children.
Please go into my maid.
Perhaps I shall obtain children by her.
And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.
Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian,
and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be his wife,
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after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.
So he went into Hagar, and she conceived.
and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.
Then Sarai said to Abram, My wrong be upon you.
I gave my maid into your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived,
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I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judged between you and me.
So Abram said to Sarai, Indeed, your maid is in your hand.
Do to her as you please.
And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence.
Hagar was probably given to Abram and Sarai back when they went into Egypt.
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And it was the first time when Abram said, oh, this is my sister.
This isn't my wife.
No, there's nothing between us.
And Pharaoh wanted Sarai and he said, yeah, go ahead.
here, here's some maidservants, here's some male servants, here's some sheep, some goats,
some oxen. In other words, we're trading here. And so you already get a little bit of a feel
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of the tension between Sarai and this female servant. Because in Sarai's mind, my husband
and traded me for her.
Think about that.
This is the woman that she's giving to
have a child with her husband.
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The servants were given to Abram
as a price for Sarai.
So there's this constant reminder
in Sarai's mind that
this was given
in exchange for me
for a servant girl
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and considering in that culture Sarah had been barren for almost 80 years
in that culture
I was kind of looked down upon as the old maid
I mean we grew up hearing about the old maid right
even as recent as our generation is kind of looked down upon
as the old mate. Well, here's Sarah, almost 80 years old
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in a culture that thrives on having children, especially men and children.
And here she sits. Here's the woman that was
traded for her.
And so Sarah decides she's going to get some good out of this servant
after all. I can't have children? Here, you take her.
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You traded for her anyway. You take her. Have a child.
But the idea was that that was going to be Sarah's child.
She's going to get the child back.
But you'll notice, I mean, this is for the purpose of producing a child.
It's producing an heir.
It's continuing the family name.
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It's having someone to pass your legacy down to.
But God had already promised Abraham, I'm going to make a great nation out of you.
where's the faith
and I don't say so much
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where's Sarah's faith because
you remember God made the promise
to Abraham
not to Sarah
now I believe I'm a true believer that
marriage in God's eyes they were one
and when God made the promise
to Abraham Sarah was included
that was the idea
you guys
are going to have a child, not just Abraham. But notice the way that they do this.
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It looks as though Sarah is saying, you know what, we're going to have to get,
we're going to have to try something different. This isn't working. And God has promised that
you're going to be a great nation. We got to get on this. We got to figure out how to make this
happen instead of just sitting back and waiting on it. But you know, I'm almost 80 years old.
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Let's give her a little bit of credit.
You ever read the promises of God in the Bible
and not seen them come through?
And the things start running through your head.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Maybe God's trying to tell me something.
Maybe I'm supposed to learn something through this,
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or maybe I didn't comb my hair right.
Maybe I didn't get the right haircut.
But things start running through your mind,
and you start doubting those promises as being what God is going to do for you,
and it starts becoming what you're supposed to do for God.
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And I think that's where Sarah is like, listen, I'm almost 80 years old.
My childbearing days are done.
And so here's how we're going to do this.
We're going to give my maidservant to Abram to have a child with,
And there we go.
And that'll be now before we get too hard on them.
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You've heard of the Amarna letters.
Almost 400 cuneiform tablets that were found from that era.
And a lot of them are letters of transaction.
I traded 40 sheep for 30 goats, etc.
But there was some of them that was dedicated to the laws of the land.
And you find a lot of the custom.
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In fact, you find when you go through Abraham's life,
you'll find a lot of that plays into what happens with Abraham.
It fits the culture of the day.
In fact, God makes promises in such a way that fits the culture.
In other words, God is saying, okay, this is how you guys understand it.
Let me change the way that I would do it and do it so that you can understand,
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so that you can learn, so that you can see what I'm doing.
And so there is a law in these Amarna letters that says,
if a woman cannot have a child, it is lawful for her to give her maidservant to her husband to have
a child for the wife. And so, you know, we kind of point a finger at Sarah and say, where's your
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faith? And we point a finger at Abram, where's your faith? But it was the culture. It was the
way that they believed. It's the way people did things. And so you kind of see where, okay,
maybe in their reasoning, maybe this is what God meant. Let's be a little more practical about this.
Let's not ask God for the big miracle. Let's ask him for the little miracle instead.
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But you've got this history between these two women and
look at it from the servant's perspective for a moment, because this sermon's more about
her. Look at it from her perspective. One, she was given to Abram. She had no say in that.
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She was traded to just like Sarah. Only she wasn't given back. Sarah was given back to her husband.
Hagar was not given back. She was kept and forced to leave her country where she was born,
where she grew up, everything that she knew, follow Abram and his family and live in tents.
You know, we've talked about the tent life.
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It's a hard life.
And she had no say in it.
She had no rights.
She had no government agency to go to and say, this is wrong.
My rights are being trampled on.
She had none of that.
It was, you will do this.
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There's not even a nor else.
You will do this.
And then I need to have a child.
You go into my husband and have that child.
Again, she has no voice in this.
She's the servant.
She will do this.
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Again, there's no or else.
You will do this.
It was expected.
This is what you will do.
Look at it from her perspective for just a moment and see.
It wasn't this great life that she had.
And after you have your first child with this man,
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you don't even get the privilege of raising up your own child.
You have a front row seat to watch somebody else make the decisions.
What's his diet?
What clothes is he going to wear?
What school is he going to go to?
What's his career going to be when he grows up?
All these things.
You don't have a voice in all that.
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And not only that, your child is raised up to be your master
because you're just a servant who has no rights.
And at any time, they could just trade you off to somewhere else.
you are allowed to bond with your child
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the way that a mother bonds with her children.
That's severed.
And there's more to this picture, though,
because she gave Hagar, the Bible says,
into Abraham's embrace.
My version says of your bosom,
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which, or I'm sorry, in Deuteronomy,
the same words, the same phrase is used,
it says, of your bosom or who you cherish.
So when you read the story a little bit more
where it says that she gave him to be the wife,
it's not just being nice and saying,
giving to be the wife.
There's a little bit of,
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I'm giving Hagar, my maidservant,
over to be a surrogate
so that I can have a child.
But when you read through the Hebrew, you see that maybe there was a little bit more going on here
than just a one-night surrogacy.
There's a hint of a continuing relationship,
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which lends credibility to, as Sarah is despised,
now she's taken on the role of the wife who can bear children
versus the role of the wife who cannot.
If you want a picture of what that looks like, go look at 1 Samuel 1.
We won't look at it today, but remember Hannah, the mother of Samuel,
how she was treated by the other wife because she didn't have children.
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Sarah's going through the same thing here.
And it's Hagar who is doing this to her.
She's taking on the role of, yeah, I was a servant yesterday, but now I'm the wife.
I'm the one who can give children to Abram.
i'm the one who in this whole promise thing i'm the one that god is blessing to have this you see
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this transition happening maybe pent up years of of having to be the one with no rights the one with
no say the one who has all these things going on and now all of a sudden you feel vaulted into a
position of i'm the good wife abram loves me more than you i know you guys have been married you just
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celebrated your 50th anniversary, but I gave him a child. You get this picture of things are not
beautiful here. I mean, this relationship with Hagar, this whole situation today we would say
is a hot mess, right? There's so many things going on, so many variables going on in this relationship.
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You can't even put a finger on exactly what's going on here.
And the Bible doesn't go into a whole lot of details.
I think for that reason, the Bible is just saying it's a hot mess.
This whole situation is not what God had in mind when he was planning Abraham's life.
When he was giving Abraham the promise, this is not what God had in mind.
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God had something else of order and I'm going to bless you and I'm going to do all these
things and through that, you're going to be a blessing.
And it's turned into something else.
And you see Hagar from her position.
She was suffering.
She was a suffering servant.
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Some of it was of her own doing.
Some of it was the choices that she was making.
Not all of it, obviously.
But some of it was.
What's important happens next, though.
Because as easy it is to judge her either a victim or an instigator,
The bottom line is that God loves this mother.
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God loves Hagar.
And it almost sounds weird to say that
after you look at this mess of a relationship
that they've got going on here.
But when you go to Genesis 16, start in verse seven,
says, now the angel of the Lord found her
by a spring of water in the wilderness,
by the spring on the way to shore.
And he said, Hagar, Sarah's maid,
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where have you come from and where are you going?
There's a couple things we need to look at.
Number one, the angel of the Lord.
Who's the angel of the Lord here?
It's Jesus.
It capitalizes it in my Bible to make it easy for me.
But the angel of the Lord is a phrase that is used more than once.
But when you look through this conversation and she talks about God
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and the angel of the Lord responds, it's in the first person.
In other words, there's no go-between.
He's speaking.
Especially when he says later on he starts making these promises.
I will multiply your descendants.
That's, yeah, that's Jesus.
That's God.
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That's him right there.
So it's not an angel.
And what's really interesting is that it says that he found Hagar.
This is the kind of finding that God did in the Garden of Eden when he went looking for Adam and Eve.
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Did God not know where they were?
God knew where they were.
God knew where Hagar was.
God knew where Cain was.
God is all seeing.
He is all knowing.
He didn't go looking because he didn't know where they were.
He didn't find her because she was lost and he couldn't see her.
And so he had to come down from heaven and go looking around where she at.
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God knew where she were.
God is looking at this from a different perspective.
Number one, he's initiating a conversation with this woman.
He's calling her by name.
He's intentional in this finding Hagar, just like he was intentional with Adam and Eve,
just like he was intentional with Cain.
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She's getting the same treatment here.
and just like Adam and Eve God wasn't talking about logistics
and when you look at her answer you understand a little bit more about what's going on here
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because he says where did you come from and where are you going she tells him where she came from
but she doesn't say where she's going did you notice that she avoids that part of the conversation
You ever notice when people talk to Jesus, you know, we look at the woman at the well.
Jesus asks her a question and she goes off on a tangent somewhere else
because she doesn't want to answer the question.
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The same thing's going on here.
Where are you from?
Oh, I came from Sarah's where I've been beaten.
I've been abused.
I'm treated horribly there.
So I'm leaving there.
Where are you going?
I'm leaving because I'm being abused.
That part she's comfortable with telling God.
I'm telling God the bad part of my life, but where are you going?
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The fact is, it says she was, let me find it,
by the spring on the way to Shur.
Shur, from where she was at, Shur was on her way to Egypt.
She's going back to Egypt.
Theologians, you can look into the correlation between Israel wanting to go back to Egypt
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and Hagar wanting to go back to, we won't get into that today.
But the point was, she was going back to her place of origin, where she was comfortable.
She was going back to a place where her gods reigned.
Because this God of Abraham and this mess that I'm in, I don't want any part of that God.
If that's the kind of life that he's got for me, I don't want any part of that.
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I'm going back to my old gods.
And I'm just going to avoid the confrontation.
I'm going to avoid the hot mess.
I'm just getting myself out and I'm going to go.
Hagar, where are you going?
In other words,
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it's not going to be any better
to go somewhere else.
Your life's not going to get better
to go back to those old gods.
It's not going to go better
to go back to your old life.
There was nothing for you then
there's nothing for you now. And yeah, you live in a hot mess, but you are better off here than you
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are going back there. And God's not just sending her back into this situation. You'll notice God's
answer back to her shows that his priority is spiritual. In verses 9 and 10, he says,
return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand. And we look at that and that sounds,
I mean, I'm sorry, when I read that, that sounds like, man, God, really?
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You're going to send her back and then tell her she has to submit?
But listen to what he's saying.
What he's saying is, you had a role in this.
You're not innocent.
You despised your master, and now you're being treated badly.
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You need to go back.
You need to repent of what you've done.
It's not centered back into you need to now pay for what you did,
but you need to go and try to make things right.
Does that sound at all like the gospel message?
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Does that sound at all like things that Jesus has said?
Go look at Matthew chapter 5.
If you come to the altar and you remember that somebody has something against you,
leave your gift at the altar and go make things right.
Matthew chapter 18.
If your brother has done something against you,
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in other words, if you've got something against your brother,
go and make it right.
There's a message here that God has been saying from the very beginning
with Adam and Eve all the way through to the book of Revelation,
all the way to the end of time.
This is an imperfect world. We don't live in a good place. God's got a good place in plan for us,
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but we don't live there now. And right now we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people
and imperfect situations. Our world is, can I say it? It's a hot mess.
But what God is saying is we got to take care of the things that we can take care of.
And that means I need to take responsibility for the things that I do wrong. I need to try
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to make our relationships right while I'm here. It may not work, but try. Put the effort because
that's what Jesus did. Jesus came down here. Jesus didn't do anything wrong with us. We wronged God,
but he came down from heaven. He left all the glory of heaven above and he came down.
(28:33):
Why? To make things right with us. He initiated the reconciliation. And so God has got this message
that he's just trying to say,
we need to learn how to fix these relationships.
Life hasn't been fair.
That's true.
You were born into a bad situation.
(28:54):
You were traded into a worse situation.
But you've also made mistakes too.
And where you're going isn't going to fix it.
To keep running from the situation is not going to fix it.
But instead, step in.
keep your eye on the future because i've got plans for you and your son
(29:20):
first sign that god loves hagar is that god went and found her
next two verses i'm just going to skip through i'm looking to the clock so i'm going to skip through
in the message that he's giving back says you'll have a son name him ishmael because the lord has
(29:43):
heard your affliction that's the second reason that we know that god loves hagar because she's
crying she's leaving she's in a bad situation god heard her he knows her situation is bad he's heard
her affliction. He's heard her cries. He's heard her pleas. And God wants her to know, I heard you.
(30:05):
Don't go back to the gods of Egypt because they can't hear you.
I can hear you. And I'm here to answer your prayer.
He's not ignoring her needs. It's not ideal, but there's no place in this sinful world that is
ideal. And God hears Hagar. He hears her afflictions. And with his directions to go back,
(30:27):
He gives these promises that she is going to have this son.
She will name him Ishmael, which literally means God has heard.
In other words, she will have a constant reminder for the rest of her life.
God heard your prayer.
God is listening when you go through hard times.
When you're in that dark place, God can hear you.
God knows where you are.
(30:48):
God found you and he hears you.
It's this reminder.
And then God throws in this extra special blessing.
that Ishmael's descendants will be so numerous that they can't be counted.
It's similar to the promise that he gives Abraham.
He's giving the same kind of promise to Hagar.
(31:09):
Did God love Abraham?
You better believe it.
Did God love Hagar?
You better believe it.
He loves Hagar too.
He wants to save Hagar too.
He wants her in his kingdom.
And then in verse 13, our scripture for today,
Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her.
You are the God who sees.
(31:30):
For she said,
Have I also here seen him who sees me?
Again, when we're in our darkest hour,
God finds us, God hears us, and God sees us.
(31:51):
He knows what you're going through.
He knows why it's dark around you.
There's a reason why David wrote the 23rd Psalm
and he puts in there about the valley of the shadow of death.
But I will fear no evil because thou art with me.
David knew that God sees him in his darkest hours.
(32:13):
God's telling Hagar the same thing.
I am here.
I see you.
I hear you.
And she gets this epiphany.
And there's a difference in the way,
I really got to point out this difference
God sees in the way that we see, because when God sees Hagar, he sees, he knows, he gets the whole
picture about Hagar. He sees her clearly. When she sees back, it's a little bit different variation
(32:36):
of the wordage, the word used here. And it's, she sees, but not quite as clear. The reason I say
that is because there's something that isn't translated into my new King James version.
And I don't think it's in the NIV and I don't think it's in the ESV and I don't think it's in
the NAS. And there was one version that got close that I found, and it still didn't say it the way
(32:57):
that I read it in the Hebrew. It compares to Exodus 33, verse 23. Moses has asked, show me your glory.
And God's like, wait a minute, brother. Nobody can see me and live. Okay. So let me work with
you on this. I'm going to put you in the cleft of a rock and I'm going to hold my hand over you
(33:18):
and I'm going to pass by and after I pass by I'll remove my hand and you can see the back of me.
And there's a whole lot of theology in here.
But we remember when he says this, what does he say that Moses sees?
His goodness, his glory, his compassion, his mercy.
(33:43):
That's what Moses sees.
The same verbiage that is used for Moses' experience with God,
who is God's friend, who God speaks to face to face,
who is a prophet of God, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt,
not back into Egypt, but out of Egypt,
this same person, the same verbiage is used with Hagar.
(34:09):
What she's saying that she is seeing,
she is seeing God's mercy.
she has seen god's grace she's seen god's goodness she's seen his love this is the god who sees me
i have seen this same god she has a very similar experience to both abraham and to moses two of
(34:31):
the old testament greats she has this woman who couldn't get anything right
has the same experience and i believe that that is because god loves her
just as much as he loves abraham just as much as he loves moses just as much as he loves sarah
(34:55):
just as much as he loves all the world because he sent his son to die for every last one of us
so moms we're celebrating mother's day this weekend you know we always talk about the positives of mom
how they've sacrificed for us how they've loved us how they made a wonderful home
and i am not disagreeing with that and i'm so happy that we can set aside the negatives
(35:17):
and see the positives at least for one day out of the year
but there's something about this story that says moms
you may not have it all together
you may not get it right every time.
You might make mistakes along the way.
(35:40):
You might find yourself in dark places.
You might find yourself in bad situations.
You might feel like God has abandoned you.
You might feel like maybe there is no God out there
if I'm in this kind of situation.
God loves you.
(36:03):
god loves you god wants you to have the same salvation as everyone else he's not asking you
to get it all together he's not asking you to get it right every time he's asking you to get in a
relationship with him and let him take care of the rest let him work that work in you let him be the
(36:27):
one that pulls out all the positives that everybody sees and makes people forget the negatives.
Let God be the one that makes you the mom that people smile at when they say happy Mother's Day.
Because God loves you. Wherever you're at, God has found you. God has heard you. He has seen you.
(36:53):
But what he wants most of all is for you to see him too.
He wants you to have that experience.
Every year we celebrate our moms by giving out gifts.
And some of you moms may be saying, you guys forgot because we didn't do it.
(37:15):
I'm actually going to call the kids to come up and help me out here because we do have,
we didn't forget you moms.
we did not forget our mothers i'm gonna go kids that's a call for you i know some of you have
fallen asleep on me because it's a grown-up sermon but i'm gonna ask the kids and the kids at heart
because you know what there's some of us who are still kids no matter how old we get i'm gonna ask
(37:38):
you to come and help so that we can wrap this up but we have gifts over here and i'm told i have to
walk a maze and i'm sorry i'm gonna go off camera for a minute
someone said no I'm not
I have
we have the church
(37:59):
has gifts and so
if I can get you young
people to please
just dump the gifts right there and pick
them up
see even dads don't have it all
together but
you know what he loves me too
but if you would take these gifts and pass these out to the moms
(38:22):
and be able to stand on your own,
pass out all the gifts to the moms.
So if you were a mom,
I don't care how good you feel you are of a mom.
If you're a mom, would you hold up your hand
so the kids know who to bring these out to?
(38:44):
We give you gifts to remind you that we love you, that we honor you.
Yep, if they're holding up their hand, just take them out.
But we also want to give you gifts to remind you that God loves you too,
that you don't have to be the perfect mom to be perfect for us.
(39:05):
You hold up your hand and they'll get to you as quickly as possible.
But God has a gift for you, just like he had a gift for Hagar.
His gift for Hagar was a son who was going to have descendants and become a great nation.
God's gift to you is to be part of his great nation, to be part of his family,
(39:26):
to be able to cross over into that promised land and spend eternity with him.
We've still got a few back here on this side.
I've still got at least one over here.
(39:46):
And then we got some more.
As we're wrapping this up,
can I give a special Mother's Day prayer?
I want to pray for the moms in our lives.
If we could bow our heads.
Father in heaven, we thank you so much
that you are a God of family.
And Lord, we thank you that you have blessed us with mothers.
(40:07):
And Lord, yeah, we know that all moms are not perfect.
In fact, the Bible says that none of us are.
But Lord, you have given them for us because they are the perfect mom for us.
We thank you for these moms.
We ask for your blessing on these moms.
And we ask, Lord, that you would show your glory to the moms here today
(40:29):
so that they always have this reminder of your love for them
and your desire to be in a kingdom filled with moms forever.
we pray this in Jesus name
Amen
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