The God Who Sees

Well, good morning. How's everyone doing today? Good. I could say hello to those on the webcast as well. I'm not Mr. Mollier, if anybody was wondering that, but it's good to know I'm the backup of the backup. Mr. Jones had to reach deep into the bullpen today, but it's a pleasure to be here with everyone. Since we had no sermon, I feel like I have a little bit of leeway to tell some stories on Mr. Jones, right? You guys are okay, because he's not here. And he asked me to be here, and I'm behind the lectern, so I...

We go way back with Joy and David knowing them before they went into ministering things when they moved to Cincinnati, as I'm sure he's shared some stories. He blazed the path for the ministry training program, being the first trainee hired. And the church learned a lot through how to improve the program through Mr. Jones. And so I was blessed to be able to follow in his footsteps and go into the ministry and the trail that he kind of helped blaze.

But in Cincinnati, that year that he trained in Cincinnati, he was given the assignment to organize the feast site and to oversee and coordinate the feast site there in Cincinnati. At that point, it was a small satellite site. We tuned in in Cincinnati for the feast into the webcast location and things like that. Didn't really have a family day, didn't really have any other activities, no children's choir. It was a satellite site.

And the Joneses, you know their hearts now, they wanted something more. And so they wanted to blow it out into a full-fledged site with speakers, family day, and that was their vision. And Laura and I, living there in Cincinnati, bought into their idea and their vision. And so I was thinking and was feeling moved to offer our assistance because it's in our backyard. We know what's going on there. And so I was a little hesitant to ask my wife because this is where we live, right?

And she's a beach girl, so she loves going to the beach. But when I approached her and said, would you, I feel moved that we should stay and help the Joneses out with the site. And she goes, I've been thinking the same thing. And so that was it. And so we stayed back. But that's not the whole story. So at that point, I was given sermonettes in the local area, and Mr.

Jones knew that. And so I figured I'd probably help him out with the sermonette during the feast. And the schedule came out, and knowing Mr. Jones, he put me down for my first ever sermon that I've ever given. And my recall back to him was like, I don't do this. What are you doing?

And if you know Mr. Jones, as you've gotten to know him, this is one of his phrases, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. And that's what he told me. And so my first ever, this is a little history, a little trivia for the day, ever given a sermon was at the Feast of Tabernacles in 2012. That's a little bit odd, a little bit of an odd way to approach sharing God's Word in a sermon format. But that was my start, and it's all because of your amazing pastor. So make sure you give him a little bit of a hard time for me when you see him, because I always give him a hard time, and he owes me again now.

I'd like to start off with a little bit different than we normally do. I'd like to get some input from the audience on helping me answer some questions. So as we go through life, we come across these major questions of life that we ponder, that maybe keep us up late at night, that we wonder about. And I'm sure you, just like me, have wondered some of these big questions of life.

And I need some—does anybody feel comfortable to throw out a couple—just a question. One of those real big things that you ponder, or that you know others in society around us ponders today. Anybody brave enough to help out a fellow visiting pastor? Why am I here? That's a great one. Right? And not just within the church, but within society. Why does God allow suffering? Why does God allow suffering? Yeah, that's—I mean, we see how much people are struggling in life today. Why does God allow that? And even when there's really good people, it seems like, right? And yet they're struggling. That's another one of those really big questions. Anybody else? Those really big questions of life.

Yep. What is my destination for—or not destination—what does God desire for me? Am I becoming what he wants me to become in life? For the kids in the room, it may be, where are we eating after church today? Or did you bring the snacks, Mom? Those are those big questions of life. Anybody else with one of those really big questions of life? Does God exist? These are some of those really big questions. I appreciate it. Thank you for helping me out.

Some of you did better than some of the congregations back home when I shared this. Some of them really left their pastor hanging. But out of the billions—this is one of those questions, too—out of the billions of people that exist in the world, does God even know I exist? That's a question maybe you've pondered at times in your life, or maybe as we've grown in knowledge and understanding God's way, we have that answer. Does God know that we exist? But maybe your neighbors, maybe somebody you've gone to college with or school with, have asked that question because maybe they know you're a religious person, that you have God in your life, and maybe they've asked you, does God really exist?

Does God really know that I exist? In the book of Genesis, we have recorded for us an account of a woman we normally don't consider too much too often in sermons, but here, captured in the midst of the story, we find a powerful reminder of one of God's incredible attributes. And as we consider from time to time who God is, we can be very thankful that this is one of God's amazing qualities.

So in the time I have with you this morning, we'll explore the reality that we have a God who sees. We have a God who sees. As we continue looking at this, you may be wondering what I mean by this aspect. Let's begin exploring the topic in the beginning of our Bibles in Genesis, Chapter 12.

Here in Genesis, Chapter 12, we have the calling of Abraham to leave his homeland and to follow God.

I'm going to give a little bit of background, a little context to what we're going to get into with the subject today. Again, the heart of what we'll get into in the Scripture that will draw our focus is in Genesis, Chapter 16. But I want to lay the framework and the groundwork for this starting in Chapter 12, because there's some important aspects as we consider that we serve the God who sees that I want to kind of lay down and lay this foundation for us to build up on today, but starting here in Genesis, Chapter 12 first.

Genesis 12, in verse 1, it says, Now the LORD had said to Abram, Get out of your country, from your family, from your father's house, to a land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation. It's one of those promises that God told Abram. And he says, I will bless you, and I'll make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. Not only was God going to bless Abram, but he was going to be a blessing for others as well.

He says, I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. 75 years old. That's quite a life that he had lived in this location. He had most likely had a career and family that lived there as well.

This was his home. This was his comfort zone. This area that he was in for 75 years, and yet now God is calling him out to walk away and to go in a new direction, and Abraham in his faith followed God. There was a famine in the land when he first approached and was in Canaan, so he traveled further south to Egypt where he stayed for a while.

And then in Genesis 13, we see him journey back to the Promised Land of Canaan. So if we'll flip ahead to Genesis 13 and verse 1, we'll continue the story. The neighbor went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot went with him to the south. And then in verse 14 it says, And the LORD said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, and so to kind of give a little bit of background.

So Lot and Abram had huge flocks. They had servants that were looking after their households and their animals. And they couldn't live too close together, as you know. And sheep need to eat, and they're trampling on each other's grounds, and it's creating some strife. So the two families, Abram said, Well, Lot, you choose where you want to go, and I'll go the other direction. We'll separate our families out a little bit. There'll be more peace this way.

And we pick up the story in verse 14. It says, And the LORD said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, Lift up, lift your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, and westward. For all the land which you see, I give to you, and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if a man who could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered.

It's another one of those promises that God gave to Abram that he internalized and knew that God was faithful to follow through. And so here we have one of the promises, again, that God gave to Abram. Verse 17, he says, Let's skip ahead a couple of chapters to the beginning of chapter 15. Genesis 15 and verse 1. After these things, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Another huge comfort from our heavenly Father to Abram, saying, Verse 2, but Abram said, And so, He was Abram's most trusted servant, and he acted as the household administrator for Abram.

And if Abram, according to custom, if Abram were to die without a son, his eldest servant would become his heir. So obviously, this is weighing heavy on Abram's heart. Verse 4, and he says, O Aazzar, he's saying, will not be your heir, God is saying to him. But one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. Then he brought him outside and said, Look, look now towards heaven, and count the stars, and if you were able to number them, and he said to them, so shall your descendants be. So here we have another promise to Abram, that he will be blessed, that God will guide him, that God will make him a father of multitudes, innumerable multitudes.

And verse 6, and it says, So God has now given him multiple promises, told him these things that would occur, and we know, and he was faithful to follow God in all his ways. And so the wait for the promised son begins and continues in Abram's and Sarai's life. He knew that him and his wife, they weren't getting any younger, 75 years of age, they're getting up there in age, and yet the heir has still not come.

There was no doubt that Abram wanted a child, and the desire was great for Sarai as well. And as the months turned into years, questions of doubt must have began to enter into their minds. So with no fulfillment in sight, Sarai began considering other human options to bring an heir to Abram, losing sight that God is faithful to fulfill his promises. We don't have recorded in Scripture the dinner conversations that Sarai and Abram had. We don't have their walks while they tended their flocks and while they looked and talked and interacted with their servants. We don't know the tears that were most likely shed because of one's heart being sore and wondering will we ever have children.

God has promises, but it's not happening. Years are going on. God said it, but now years have passed. We don't have recorded the conversations. We don't have recorded the emotions behind here. And yet Sarai is beginning to figure out other plans, right? And we'll see that here in Genesis 16, in verse 1. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Haivar.

So Sarai said to Abram, See, now the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please go into my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram hated 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 after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.

Sadly, Abram also found human reasoning, just like Sarai, to be the answer, in that he did not resist this plan that his wife presented to him. Abram had lived in Canaan, as it says, for ten years now, after God had given these promises, and still no heir to follow and to begin this multitude, this numbering of multitude that God had promised. He could not see any way that God was going to fulfill his promise to Abram, to make him a father of a great nation. Abram was struggling, and his wife was also struggling as well. In verse 4, 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, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judged between you and me. So Abram said to Sarai, Indeed, your maid is in your hands, due to her as you please. And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. Now there, I mean, just put yourself in the middle of this environment. Put yourself in a household.

Maybe you're one of their kind of high-ranking servants. You're watching this all unfold. The emotions, the decisions, and maybe you're even casting your own like, Wow, I can't believe they're doing this. The plan that Sarai came up with, that Abraham consented to, was not one that, as we can see and we know in Scripture, was well thought out.

It wasn't what God had planned for them, but yet, here it is. And now, strife enters in to the mix here. Hagar is dealt harshly with, and Sarai pretty much runs her out of town. She has to flee. She has to feel she has no other option. She's now pregnant with Abraham's son, her child at this point. She doesn't know he's going to be a son. And she flees. She runs. Verse 7, it says, Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness by the spring on the way to Shur.

And he said, Hagar, Sarai's made, where have you come from, and where are you going? It's one of those Bible questions that we see throughout Scripture. God asking a question that He already knows the answer to. She said, I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand.

Then the angel of the Lord said to her, I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so they shall not be counted for multitudes. So now Hagar has a promise from God that, through her son, they'll be innumerable. Again, they will become a great multitude. And the angel of the Lord, verse 11, said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son.

You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. The Lord has heard your affliction. And He goes on to describe her son. He said, He shall be a wild man. His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And then she called, and this verse 13 is getting into the core, and this is our key verse for today. Then she called the name of the Lord, who spoke to her, You are the God who sees.

For she said to him, Have I also here seen him who sees me? Hagar addresses God as El-Roy in the Hebrew, which means the God who sees or the God who sees me. God saw what had happened to Hagar. God understood how she would have felt to be disowned, to be dealt harshly with. He also saw the part that Hagar herself had played in having contempt for Sarai, and God saw how Abram and Sarai's role in all of this played out as well.

It's interesting what she actually said, not only in that name of God that she shared, but also the thought that she thought right at the end. From some other translations, the New Living Translation says, Have I truly seen the one who sees me? The easy-to-read version says, I see that even in this place, God sees me and cares for me. The English Standard Version says, Truly here I have seen him who looks after me. And the New International Version says, I have now seen the one who sees me.

There's this intimacy in what Hagar is saying to the Lord and how she references him in this way, knowing that everything that had occurred, knowing the decisions that her mistress had given her, that her Abram had consented to, the damage that it brought in, the hurt, the embarrassment, all of these things that God saw Hagar. His eyes were on her, and she has now reflected and knows that she sees the God who sees her as well. Verse 15, So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore Ishmael.

Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. All of this is quite the story that we have recorded here, isn't it? Now, we can read through this account, and if I had a whiteboard up here today, we could start a list of all the craziness of the story, right? We could create a tally of everything that went sideways for Abram and Sarai and Hagar. We could critically analyze the decisions and the lack of faith.

We could go through and say, well, didn't Abram remember all the promises? That would be one of those things we would write down on our ledger. We could talk for quite a while after services today about this mess they created and then had to deal with. It is quite the mess. It could be really easy just to keep the focus on Abram, Sarai, and Hagar, but miss an important aspect that I believe that wants us to learn from this passage. I think we have each, at times, grown frustrated or confused as we've waited on God to deliver us from a challenge in our life for something that didn't go the way that we thought it should.

I'm not going to speak for anybody else in the room, but I'll speak for myself. I've asked the question, God, why haven't you fixed, fill in the blank, the situation? I've made the statement, God, this doesn't make sense. I've also asked the question, why did you allow this to happen? Just the truth of living life, right? We've all had encounters, we've all had challenges, we've had things that have gone sideways in our lives, and at times we've asked God some of these questions because we know He's the God who sees.

We know He's the God who provides, He's the God who loves us, and yet when we hit challenges in life, sometimes these are the questions or the statements that enter into our mind. We know God wants to deeply bless us as we commit our lives to Him and follow His ways, and we know God wants us to live full and abundant lives, blessed lives.

We know this. So it's really hard at times when we go through tremendous difficulty or the challenges that we go through just don't make sense, just like it didn't make sense to Abram and Sarai. And at times, I think we've all tried to take matters into our own hands, right? Anybody...or maybe I'm the only one that's tried to fix my problems.

I put fix in quotes, right? I've tried to fix many of my problems, and some of the times my fix also goes sideways, just like we've read here in this Genesis account. Sarai's plan did not go the way she had planned, and then when Hagar showed contempt for her, she mistreated Hagar to the point that she ran away.

Imagine the difficulty. Here's a servant of Sarai's, one that she trusted, one that loved her. They had this relationship probably unlike anybody else in the household, and yet something, a plan that Sarai came up with, now has created this hurt and this division, and Hagar feels the only option I have as a pregnant mother now to leave everything that I know and to run.

I cannot imagine the raw emotions that would have been on display in the middle of this entire mess between the three of them, the hurtful words, the looks of disgust, the shame, the embarrassment and guilt, the ugliness of the entire situation. Just put yourself in the middle of this mess.

But God also saw everything, right, that occurred. He saw it all. He saw the promises, and He knew the way that Abram and Sarai were faithful to follow. He saw the way that Him and Lot split, did not create strife among them. He saw those good conversations, right, when they sought after the Lord and they continued to serve Him. And He also saw the ugliness of this entire situation. And He continued to guide and work within the situation. We see in Scripture that God is omniscient, which is defined as all-knowing, infinite knowledge, universal knowledge, complete or unlimited knowledge, or perceiving all things.

From the illustrated dictionary of the Bible, it's talking about omniscience, it says it refers to God's superior knowledge and wisdom, His power to know all things. God is the Lord who knows our thoughts from afar. He's acquainted with all of our ways, knowing our words even before they are on our tongues. He needs to consult no one for knowledge or understanding. He is the all-knowing Lord who prophesies the events of the future, including the death of His Son and the return of Christ at the end of this age.

So let's consider a few verses to build this framework for this understanding that I just mentioned about God being omniscient. Let's turn to Proverbs 15 and verse 3. We could just read through the account in Genesis and know that God is one, and we can read through the promises. God is one who keeps His promises, and we see these promises laid out throughout Scripture.

But I really want to drill into this aspect of God being the one who sees. Because sometimes we can lose sight of that as we go through our own difficulties. We look around society, right? They're struggling. Many struggle because they don't have a source of truth in their life. They don't know where to go to find the right answers.

Is it with our government? Is it with our schoolteachers? Is it with our leaders? Is it with our pastors? Where is truth? What is truth? People are searching. People are desiring a way to go forward. And at times we can get wrapped up in everything going on and wonder, does God see everything? Does God see all the hurt? Does God see all the suffering? Does God see me and where I fit in His whole plan?

Proverbs 15 and verse 3 says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. God sees everything. His eyes are not hidden. He doesn't have blinders on to certain aspects. And often we focus on that He sees the good that we do, and He sees the good that others do. But you know what? He says He sees the evil too.

He sees the sadness. He sees the brokenhearted. He sees those making poor decisions as damaging their families. He sees it all. He sees everything. Let's turn back, because that was Proverbs 15 and verse 3. Let's turn towards the beginning to Psalm 33 and verse 13. Psalm 33 and verse 13. Consider again, continuing in the same train of thought. Psalm 33 and verse 13. He says, The Lord looks from heaven. He sees all the sons of men. He sees everyone. From the place of His dwelling, He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth.

He sees everybody who has ever existed in any country, everywhere on this earth. He fashions their hearts individually. He considers all their works. Again, He sees the good. He sees the bad. He sees all the works that are going on in this earth. Staying in the book of Psalms, let's turn to Psalm 139 and verse 1. This is the Psalm of David. David truly understood, as we see throughout Scripture, God's plan, God's Word. He understands His relationship with God, all of our relationship with God. This is another aspect that David reflects on in the relationship that God has with us.

Psalm 139 and verse 1. It says, For the chief musician, a psalm of David, O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thoughts afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not one word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and you laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot obtain it.

David is talking about his relationship with the Almighty. He's talking about the God who He serves. David himself serves. And he's saying, You see me. You know all my coming and going. You know everything I'm doing. You even know the thoughts before I even speak them. This is the God you and I serve as well. Let's turn to Matthew as well, Matthew 10 and verse 29. Because Jesus also speaks to this aspect. Of being all-knowing and all-aware. Matthew 10 and verse 29.

And he has his own little bit of a twist, a little bit of another angle to view the subject from. And Christ shares here, Matthew 10 and verse 29. He says, Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin, just two small birds, sold for not a lot of money. And yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will. He goes on and says, But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. That's an amazing, like, from being a kid growing up in the church, that's one of those I always thought, like, God knows exactly the count of hairs that I have in my head. Not only that, but everybody in this room. That's amazing, because as a Father, as one that's part of my job, I think in my household, at least it's fallen on me, is I get to clean the beater on the vacuum in our house. When it gets, like, clogged up with a whole bunch of hair from two ladies who also live in our household. I don't know if any other guys have ever had to take a vacuum apart to use scissors and cut the hair off the beater on the vacuum. And things. It's amazing how much hair is on that vacuum beater, isn't it? And God knew every single time one of those hairs fell out and got caught up on that vacuum and wrapped around. And He knows how many hairs are still in my wife and daughter's head. I know they're theirs, because mine are just simply not that long. I know that. But then some of us guys in the room, I used to have a much fuller head of hair, and God, it might have been a little more challenging for God to count that at that time. It's easier for Him now.

But even if we were able, somehow today, to count the hairs on our neighbor's head, if we could start counting them right now, by the time we'd get finished, we'd probably already be off. Because by that point, something had probably fallen out, another hair had started growing. It's one of these boggling things of God again, right? But He knows exactly the number of hairs on our head. That's how intimately He knows us. That's the way that He looks at us. That's the way He sees us.

Christ says, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Then He says, do not fear, therefore, for you are more value than many sparrows. Again, Christ affirms that we have a God who sees looking after our lives. Nothing we encounter in life catches God by surprise, even though in life's events, we ourselves are sometimes caught by surprise. God sees exactly what is happening to us every second of every day.

And that is just, again, mind-boggling that we have a Father that loves us that much, and He knows everything we're doing, even when we're asleep and we're off in dreamland. He's still looking after our lives. Many of our audience, because they're traveling from out of town and know this about me, but let me back up a little bit.

You know your pastor, Mr. Jones, he serves as one of our camp directors for one of the pre-teen programs now here in Colorado. Well, I myself serve as one of our teen camp directors at Pinecrest in Missouri. And we just finished up. The church has another full season of camps, and it was a good season.

A lot of fun things happened all over the United States. The reports are coming in, and they're going to be shared in the e-news here soon about the adventures and the blessings that we were able to receive. But I want to share, as part of this illustration and part of the story, what's happened this year at Pinecrest, which is really neat.

As we go through the summer in the Midwest, the pop-up thunderstorms that hit us all the times. I don't know if Colorado has the same pop-up. We got hit the other day yesterday driving. They saw a storm coming over the mountains, and then it just opened up and everything. But these showers come out of nowhere, and usually within 45 minutes they blow through. The sky turns blue again, and we go on with our day. But on this particular day, we had a few pop-up thunderstorms and one pretty big one that hit right about dinnertime.

And so we have everybody in the dining hall. We're enjoying the meal, and I'm watching the radar, and I can hear the thunder. And I know the storm, and I'm looking at it. It doesn't look too big of a deal. It will probably pass by the time dinner's over. And so dinner's beginning to wrap up, and it is just pouring cats and dogs out. So it's great to be inside for dinner at that point instead of out.

But instead of having the hall, because we had an activity over at the gym afterwards that we were all going to be part of, I told everybody, well, just hold tight. I don't need anybody out in the lightning, anybody running over. And so the campers are all just hanging out, the staff's hanging out.

We're all just talking, and we're just enjoying waiting for the storm. We're enjoying waiting for the storm to fully pass, and all of a sudden the power goes out. That's what we get sometimes in these Midwest thunderstorms, you lose power. And so I'm standing there wondering if it's going to flicker back on here in a couple minutes or, well, in a few seconds, but then the seconds turn into minutes, and the campers are all...

We still light out. It was still probably 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock in the evening. We still had plenty of daylight, so it's not completely dark in there. And so we're just sitting in it, and the campers are still talking and enjoying their time. And then one of the staff members come out from the kitchen, because now the kitchen's shutting down. So it was a blessing that we could go ahead and eat prior to that, because we were done eating.

And I said, so, power outage. How often this happened? She goes, not too often, but she goes, you probably don't want to know how long it was out the last time. And as a camp director, I said, no, I do not want to know how long it was out last time.

I don't need those thoughts in my mind right now. And so we were standing there waiting for it to come back on, and it's still out, and we were trying to figure out what are we going to do, because our gym is really dark. It has a couple of doors, kind of like yours here, which is a window in it. No windows in the rest of the gym. It's really dark when the power's out or the lights are off. And so I knew it was not the greatest place to go. And so we're just hanging tight, and we're going through our evening, or the rest of our time there.

And in the evening each night, we finish up with a campfire and a camp song. Like, we pick one of our hymns from our hymnal, and we sing it every evening during camp. And it's an amazing hymn. Oh, I left my phone. Can you bring my phone up? It's in my pocket on the outside. Sorry. I got to pull the hymn up.

Give me just a second, please.

Because prior to camp, we go through, and I go through, and I try to pick one of our hymns that ties into our theme.

Each year, we find a...

It's hymn number 119. And little did I know how fitting it would be at this moment. And so we usually finish up our day singing this hymn, but because we can't really go anywhere, we just pivoted. We did our campfire talk, and we're going to go ahead and finish dinner right now with this hymn that we normally would sing, hoping that it will clear the power comes on. We can then just flip our activities for the night, do the gym, campfire will be done. But hymn 119 is, Teach Me Thy Way, O Lord. And what was amazing in this is verse 3 and verse 4. It says, When doubts and fears arise, teach me thy way. When storm clouds fill the skies, teach me thy way. And we'd already sang this song two other nights, and so this was going to be the next time we were going to sing it. He says, in the hymn, Shine through the rain, through the cloud and rain, through sorrow, toil and pain, make thou my pathway plain, teach me thy way. Verse 4 says, As long as my life shall last, teach me thy way. Where ere my lot be cast, teach me thy way. And this was our theme for this year in a nutshell. It says, Until the races run, until the journey's done, until the crown is won, teach me thy way. And so we're singing this hymn in our cafeteria, and as you know, a cafeteria which bounces off the walls. We're singing it acapella because we don't have any music, and a good friend of mine was going to lead it, acapella, but I know he can't carry a tune. So I quickly ran up to him and pulled out my phone, and we got started on the hymnal app, got started on the right note. And the noise of the room and the joy and the lyrics, I'm like, this is the perfect time for God to bring the power back on, right? We're singing a praise, lifting up his name on high, recounting his words and everything. Power didn't come back on. That's Mike Felt's vision, right? That'd be awesome, right? Nobody would forget Pinecrest that year that God brought the power back on as we sing praises to his name. Well, we pivoted again. The storm has passed. Still no power, and we're brainstorming what we can do. And somebody had a power inverter in their car, and we had LED lights and some strings hooked up in the gym. So we went ahead and strung up some lights, and we went ahead and hadn't made enough light that we could be in the gym safely. And so we pivoted over, and we went to the gym, and no power, no air conditioning. They had some neon Frisbees that would glow in the dark, and they set up some neon volleyball so that somebody brought a volleyball that glows in the middle. And so we tried to make the best of our evening, and we're enjoying it. The night's continuing to go on. It's sweaty, with a sweaty, hot mess in there. Still no power. And now the camp director of mine is, you can put yourself in my shoes for a moment, starts to kick in, like, how long is this going to be?

Because we've got campers, we've got staff members, some of them are probably dehydrated from all day's activities, so I know water's important. So I pull our staff together, and we're starting to talk about the plans for the night, because now we've got to eventually get to bed, get settled in. And in that moment, we had sent one of our drivers off to buy about 300 bottles of bottled water, because the power outage was pretty locally contained.

The whole camp was out, but the local area of six, seven, eight miles away still had power. So the local Walmart had power, and so I said, we'll go and just start buying water, because the most important thing is we need water for the evening to make sure everybody stays hydrated. And so while he was gone doing that, just after he left, I addressed the camp and told him the plans for the night, pulled everybody together. We're going to wrap up, and we're sitting there, and I've got them on the floor, the campers, and we're talking about the plans.

Still no power. They know we have no air conditioning back in the dorms, and so there's some mumbling about that. Without power, the camp actually doesn't have good water pressure, so any pressure in the lines are still there, but as you flush toilet to use the water, the pressure drops, right? And so I told the campers, no showers tonight. And then the grumbles really start coming. Laura says it must have been how Moses felt in a small sense, right? With the Israelites. Because they're like, no showers, and they're all smelling each other and saying, this guy next to me really needs a shower.

But I told him when the grumbles started, I said, would you rather have toilets or showers? And then they're like, okay, I see the logic here. We'd rather have toilets. And so we're talking about the plans. We're going to get water for you. We're going to go back. We're not going to be able to do dorm parents tonight because they're just going to be sitting in the dark with a flashlight shining on their face, which is always kind of weird. And so we're just settling in. I'm just finishing up, and I'm about five words from the end of a dressing camp and breaking off and everybody going back to their dorms and us continuing to figure out what we're going to do for the night.

Five words from the end. I'm literally in my mind, last sentence, last breath, and the power comes on. And the shouts arise, as you can imagine. Because I just laid out the bad scenario for the night, not knowing how long this was going to go. And the relief for a poor camp director not having to worry about what we're going to do in the morning for food or for other toilets or showers.

Or I was even thinking, well, we have a lake. At least you can get into your swimsuit and just do one of these things if we have to get to that extreme. But the power came on, and the shouts arose. Later I heard that some of the campers in that exact moment were actually praying that God would bring the power back.

And so it's these amazing ways that God sees the life we go through. I know this was a little bit of a lengthy story, but set the stage that in this moment, the way that God was seeing the camp, the way that He was seeing us, the way that He was seeing His children, the way that He saw us praise Him in the dining hall, yet said, not yet. And even some of the campers later reflected that, yeah, that would have been awesome if God brought the power back on in the dining hall while we're singing.

But they said, we actually saw the resilience in ourselves going to the gym and making the best out of the situation we had in front of us. It wasn't ideal, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world either, right? And sometimes that's what we have to go through in life. Our situation's not always our ideal. It's not what we had in our mind.

It wasn't the plan that we drew up that morning when we left with our kids in the car, and this is how our day's going to go. But yet God is the God who sees. He's the one who knows us intimately. He's the one that is right there with us when our plans start to go sideways. And He knows the perfect way to continue to support, encourage, and care for us.

Turn to the front of our Bibles with me to Exodus 3 and verse 7. We're going to read just a few verses from the beginning of Exodus here, of when God is sharing His plan of how He's going to bring His people out of captivity, out of the horrible situation that they're in, the oppression, the weightiness, the sadness of everything that they're going through.

And He's beginning to share this vision, this plan that He has. Exodus 3 and verse 7. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I'm not trying to compare a power outage at camp, a three-hour power outage at camp, to what the Israelites were going through.

It's night and day different. But how many times has God seen the events that we are stuck in? And through His mercy and grace, He decides to deliver us from this difficulty.

And we know on a spiritual level that God has already delivered us from our sins, placing us on a new and much better path to go forward towards His kingdom, and another spiritual intervention that He has done in our lives. But going on in verse 8, He says, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.

Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out from of Egypt.

Not only was God fully aware of everything that His people, the Israelites, were going through, but it's time for Him to act.

He is now going to intervene on their behalf. We serve a God again who cares deeply for all of us and all of humanity.

All of us in this room right now, God is intimately aware of and caring and guiding our steps in life, but He's also intimately aware of everything, everyone beyond these walls.

The sorrow, the hurt, the confusion, the mistrust, the placing of hope on things that are going to fail, He sees it all.

And yet, He continues to guide each person's steps. And over time, He has a plan, and that will still affect all of their lives in the future.

But yet, man has over time and continues still today, again, to have a focus on and put their trust into false gods.

Let's look at just, let's look at one. Maybe one, because that illustration ran a little bit. Let's turn to Psalm 115 in verse 1.

I want to bring this in here because we know that society has no problems putting their hope and trust into false gods.

Most of them do not have a little idol on their mantle that they bow down to. Most people in society around us, they don't go that path.

But they, and we, have the challenge in front of us not to make idols out of other things in our lives.

We may not physically bow down to our jobs, or our wealth, or our families.

But these are aspects that we have to consider as we continue forward, because many people in the Bible, and even still today, put their trust into false gods.

And notice how God defines these false gods, how he describes them. Psalm 115 actually gives us, there's several passages we can turn to because idolatry is rampant through the Bible, and the silliness of it is also described in Scripture. But let's just look at Psalm 115. He says, not, Psalm 115 verse 1, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory, because of your mercy, because of your truth.

Why should the Gentiles say, so where is their God? Has anybody ever maybe said that to you, or you've heard that reference to someone else who's a Christian, someone else who's following God, and saying, Why are you struggling? Why are you suffering so much if your God is looking after your life? I've heard some people make those types of comments to others in a mocking sort of way, and that's what the writer here is saying. Why should the Gentiles say, so where is their God? But then he answers it, saying, But our God is in heaven, he does whatever he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the works of men's hands. They have mouths that do not speak, eyes they have but do not see, they have ears but do not hear. I mean, this is just the joke of it all, right? Knows they have but they do not smell, they have hands but they do not handle, feet they have but they do not walk, nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them. So is everyone who trusts in them.

They said there's multiple examples of imagery in the Bible of descriptions of false gods having legs but not be able to walk, mouths but can't speak, can't do anything. Yet people, and we even ourselves, can sometimes fall into the trap of putting trust into false gods that do not see us, that do not love us, that do not have arms that can help us or provide a way of escape. These scriptures can make us laugh at times because of the imagery used here, right? They have ears, little idols of wood or stone, surrounded by gold, precious in the sight of its owners, yet can't do a single thing for their lives. The scriptures can make us laugh a little bit at this imagery. And while we know that idolatry is obviously a sin and vowing down to fake gods is not something we do, the question still must be asked. Do we take things into our own hands, trusting that we can be our own gods? Do we think too highly of our own wisdom or abilities and forget where all truth, knowledge and ability comes from? Do we think if we put the right people around us, we put the right amount of effort or planning, if we purchase the right amount of supplies, we could do anything on our own. This is an easy trap to fall into as we live the life God has given to us and we make daily decisions. It's the false idol of pride to believe that we can take matters into our own hands, forgetting that we serve a God who sees and directs our step.

We know that the God who sees is the only God who has a plan for humanity that encompasses everyone who has ever lived. We'll look at just a couple scriptures as we begin to wrap up. John 3 and verse 16.

Often, the one we turn to, and many of us know, if you like baseball games, there's sometimes a guy holding a John 3-16 sign or a lady holding a John 3-16 sign up. It's widely known through Christianity and through society, but it is one of the sources of truth that we go to often because we can never forget that this is the God we serve and what He gave up, not just for us, but for all of humanity. John 3-16. For God so loved the world... No, it doesn't say, so God loved the United Church of God, or so God loved the Israelites, or so God loved His people, so God loved Abram. It doesn't say that. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son in the world to condemn the world. Jesus did not come to point to people and say, you're out, you're out, you're out. That's not what Jesus came to do in His life, but that the world through Him may be saved. God has a plan and a vision. His eyes are on the good and the evil. He has a plan for all of humanity, as we know and we recount as we're approaching this fall-away season again. We know that He does not desire that anyone miss out, but that He'd rather bring many sons and daughters to glory in His family and Kingdom.

Let's turn forward to 1 Timothy 2 and verse 3. 1 Timothy 2 and verse 3.

Because we do have a God who sees, we have a God who cares, and a God who loves. And we have to remind ourselves that He also sees everyone else around us and wants us to view them in the way that He views them as well. We can call us fate a spade. We can call sin a sin.

We can call lifestyle wrong, because God defines it that way. But we also must remember that He sees everyone for the potential that they have. Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 3. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved. That's God's desire, all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. It's an amazing aspect that we must consider that, as God says, this knowledge of the truth has been brought to us.

And it's a miracle, as we know. When our minds are unlocked, it's as if God puts a physical key in our mind, turns it, and suddenly the doors open. But in this way, it's a spiritual key and lock. That things that we didn't understand at some point in our life suddenly begin to make sense. And He has a plan, as it says, Paul says, in due time to open the minds of everyone. Our due time is right now. Because God has performed that miracle, He's opened our minds.

We are going forward with His truth and with His knowledge in our heart. There's going to come a time in due time. Others will have this miracle performed. And maybe they were keeping Sunday as their Sabbath with all sincerity in heart. And all of a sudden the keys turn, the miracle performed, mind open, and they'll say, I never put the two together. Saturday's a Sabbath. That's where I'm going now.

This is the God who sees each of our lives and He can see and understand what we're going through. You can add in your notes 2 Peter 3 and verse 9, because it wasn't not just the Apostle Paul that understood this, but also the Apostle Peter. Again, 2 Peter 3 verse 9 says, The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but His long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

That's God's plan. That's what He wants for not only us, but for everyone, is to not only have this miracle performed, this key turn, this knowledge, this ability to understand the things that we see and understand right in front of us, but then to change one's heart, to recognize where we stand before God, the God who sees, and to modify and to turn away from our past and to repent and to turn to God.

This is the plan He has for everyone. And while we are tremendously blessed to have a God who sees our coming and our going, our waking and our sleeping, He knows the desires we have for our hearts. He knows where we want to go with our life. He also sees all of humanity in a similar lens. The situation that Hagar was placed in was an extremely difficult place and one that none of us would want to encounter.

A camp power outage? Nowhere near the same level of severity, but still for a camp director, not something we would want to go through for an extended period of time.

But the common element in whatever we face in life is that we have a God who sees. What we read at the beginning of Genesis is not the end of the story for Abraham and Sarah. It's a snapshot of time when they were in the middle of their struggle and did something that God did not want them to do. But through their walk with God, they continued to grow in faith and grow closer to God.

Let's close in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, and we'll read in verse 8. It's important for us to remember not only for Abraham and Sarah's life, but also for our own life. At times, we are faithful and we're sitting here today. We've made changes in our life.

We were walking a new path. We may have left jobs that caused us the need to work on the Sabbath. We may have walked away from Christmas parties and family gatherings on those things. Just like Abraham and Sarah left their homeland, we have demonstrated our faith in making changes in our life and following and seeking after God, just as Abraham and Sarah had done in their life.

But then we get to Hebrews, chapter 11, which we know and is referred to many times as the faith chapter. And we can't lose sight that Abraham and Sarah are listed right here still on their journey with God, that their race was ran. They finished it strongly. Even though they were missteps, we could have created a ledger today of all their missteps and the silliness or the absurdness of their choices. But here in Hebrews 11, verse 8, we see their story again. It says, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith he dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose maker, builder and maker is God. Abraham and Sarah's vision went from this big picture of the following understanding of God to a very narrow focus and poor decisions at one point, but that was not the end of their story. Their vision blew back out into the vastness of their faithful walk with God because their vision stayed on the kingdom and they knew that their God would lead and guide them to the end.

And he did. But it's not just Abraham who's listed here in the faith chapter, verse 11, mentions Sarah. By faith Sarah herself, and we could insert a little bracket and say, after all of her mistakes, after all of her poor choices, after all the damaging things, after the word she said to Hagar, after, just keep going with it.

By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised. We serve an amazing God who sees our coming and our going and the way that we live our life. He sees the good choices that we've made to follow Him more sincerely and completely, and He's seen our missteps at times that we make.

But yet, by faith, others before us have gone forward to finish their race strong, and our God sees that we have that same potential as we go forward. So I hope that this was a way to bring some encouragement to those who maybe are struggling or maybe will struggle in the future or maybe have struggled in the past to help make sense that we serve an amazing God, a God who sees.

Thank you, Mr. Phelps. I bet nobody told you we had a sermon discussion when they asked you to be the speaker today, did they? All right. One little housekeeping thing. I don't know if anybody's missing one, but I found a silicone rain lane in our aisle. It's probably a woman's, but it's an Enso brand. It doesn't have a size on it. So if you're missing one, come see me. It might be from the other congregation that meets here on Sundays, but we'll leave it alone if it's not one of yours. Otherwise, I'll have it with me. And what else was I going to say? We're doing the sermon discussion right after services. And oh, there's coffee and snacks downstairs. Go downstairs, take a U-turn to your left, and there will be coffee and snacks in there if anybody would like some.

And if you would all please rise, we'll turn over to hymn number 190. It won't be long now. And then we'll have another out-of-town prayer giver. That's always weird when you walk up to all these guests in the congregation and you're like, this is crazy. We just met, but maybe you could give a prayer for me. Maybe.

So if you would all please turn to hymn number 190. If you have a hymnal, we'll sing It Won't Be Long Now, after which I'd like to ask Mr. Mike Hauck from the Chicago Illinois Congregation to come forward for the closing prayer. Illinois, not Illinois, sorry. Hymn number 190, It Won't Be Long Now.

It won't be long now, till the world is at peace, till troubles have ceased, it won't be long.

It won't be long now, till the beauty we see, for the whole world will be, it won't be long.

The Lamb will be so weak, well with the fire, the record will lie down with the gift, the wolf and the bear will no longer be mild, little child, it won't be long now.

It won't be long now, till all people join hands, the many of them, it won't be long.

It won't be long now, till the children will smile, and the Lamb of the fire, it won't be long. The Lamb will be so weak, well with the fire, the record will lie down with the gift, the wolf and the bear will no longer be mild, little child, it won't be long now.

The Lamb will be so weak, little child, it won't be long now, it won't be long now.

The Lamb will be so weak, little child, it won't be long now.

The Lamb will be so weak, little child, it won't be long now. One of the blessings of traveling to different areas is to get to meet those who are our extended family in a church and to be able to strengthen each other. We ask you, Lord, to guide us and to help to bring your words into our lives and to help us to see how to grow into what we're supposed to be.

We thank you, Lord, for today. We thank you for the beautiful weather we're going to receive tomorrow during our wedding. And we'll just ask you to watch out for all of us. In Christ's name, amen.

All right, if you go ahead and be seated, Sam will grab the microphone. If Mr. Phelps will come back up here.

Fifteen minute sermon discussion.

That was not me, just so everybody knows.

So the easy part is the sermon, I understand. This is where I come under fire, right? This is where you guys get to just...

You're going to hold me down a little bit.

I've done this before. We haven't done this in our area in Michigan yet.

But in California, where my brother's a pastor, he has done this.

I was about to say he threw me under the bus on this one because I didn't know what was coming. But now I've got some practice. But don't... Just don't take it easy, because I'm still not very good at this. Like Mr. Jones, I'm sure, is. And the other speakers in the area have done this a few times.

Check, check. Sorry, I don't know what happened there. It just was crazy hot.

Maybe just a little bit more, Brad?

Okay. Alrighty. Any questions, comments?

I have one. You brought up John 316.

And I think most everybody remembers who Tim Tebow was. And he made it famous to have the John 316 in his eye black.

But what I found interesting was when he went to the college national championship, he wore John 316 in his eye black. That was the first time he had worn it. Because leading up to that, he had Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Going into the championship, he thought... He was praying about it and he said, You know, I should be using John 316. It's the very foundation of my Christian belief. So for that game, he wore John 316. And 90 million people googled John 316 after that game. 90 million? I never heard that. Tim Tebow would later say in an interview, he said, How did 90 million people not know John 316?

That's why we don't ever make... I try to remove, in my vocabulary, sharing a message. We've all turned to this, or we all know this passage. Because the truth is, we've got kids in the back, kids up front, that may have never opened up their Bible and turned to it. We may have a new person, like one of the 90 million, who joined us for their first Sabbath ever, keeping it, sitting in our midst. And so I try not to use that, because it can kind of speak over people's heads in that way. But yeah, 90 million. I never knew that. I never had heard of John 316, or knew what it said.

Oh, you guys are being so nice to the out-of-town pastor.

We've got a lot of Pinecrest alumni that are here in for the weekend, and we've served with over the years, and I know they're not as nice to me as maybe those here in Colorado. No, I'm teasing! You guys know I'm a joker.

I love that little kiss, huh? That's awesome.

Hi, my name is Alicia Erwiller. I'm visiting a town for the wedding. I live in East Texas right now. I just had a little comment about it's really easy, and you probably touched on this in the sermon as well, but something that's been resonating for me a lot recently is how easy it is to think of answered prayer as only when our prayers go the way we want them to. And that doesn't mean that God didn't see us or that He didn't hear us or that He wasn't answering the prayer. It's just that the way it turned out was how it needed to turn out as opposed to how we wanted it to go. Yeah.

No, I appreciate that comment because that is one of the things as we go through life and as we grow in faith, we recognize that sometimes God says yes to those prayers, sometimes He says no, and sometimes He says not right now. And that's hard, though, to navigate through some of those different things because of the severity or the weightiness that we're going through. If we could have been at those dinner tables with Abram and Sarai, I think there would have been some prayers saying, God, please bring us a child, please bring us a son. And that didn't come for a lot of years. I mean, I imagine ten years. After God had made these promises, and we know that Abram was faithful to trust God, but there's still no answer. And so I appreciate that with you. Sometimes it's not just those answered prayers, and not just those times that God is answering and looking at us. He's there all the time, always aware.

Thank you. My name's Jacob. I'm from Chicago. I appreciated putting in perspective of Abram and Sarai as a modern family that we could kind of see, rather than this distant kind of different social structure that is very different. And that makes it easier to see that. We were having a discussion earlier this morning about prayer and prayer requests and prayer request lists. And we were having kind of a discussion of how to maintain some degree of caring for your neighbor and those that are on prayer requests. And maintaining a... Because sometimes prayer requests lists can get very big, and you may not know everyone, and it can feel distant, and that you may not have updates on people. Do you have any advice on how to maintain a balance in praying for people without it becoming a numbing effect, if that makes sense? Yeah, I guess this just kind of brought that to my attention today. And I don't know if this is normal, but we have a lot of other people who have worked through this same question in their own lives, too, and I'd love for others to maybe share some of their advice on this subject, because as we recognize, we're part of a huge family, right? Scattered around the world, we get prayer requests from different continents, different cities here within Colorado, different areas of the states, and the challenge is in front of us, because we could pray... We could spend all day, right, going down that list and praying for everybody, and then what else do we pray about, what else? And it could almost, at times, seem like overwhelming to have that list in front of us. And so I don't know... I have some ideas, but I was going to maybe see if some others would chime in, maybe on things that they've developed in their own lives, or ways to help navigate this, too. Well, first of all, I appreciate the question and the comment. That's... I think... A lot of us battle that. It's like, do I just rattle off this long list of names and not really mention their condition? And, you know, then you start to forget about people, and I think from a prayee standpoint, as someone a couple years ago that was receiving lots of cards and prayers, I felt... Because I've had that struggle, like, well, how... I forgot about so-and-so. I haven't heard anything in several months. How are they doing? Oh, they got better, or they passed away, or they're still struggling. And I felt like it was important for me to give regular updates, because I knew there were people that were praying and they were wondering. I do think it's... I think some people feel like it's a burden. They don't want to ask for prayers, they don't want to update, they don't want to bog people down, but I know that people want to know, and they want to pray, you know, about what the current situation is. So I think it's important, as someone who's asked for a prayer request, to give, you know, updates so people know.

Yeah, and why this kind of came up in the sermon today that made me think more is, I imagine being in that camp of Abrams' camp, and that is your world, to a degree. Like, this is your community, this is your neighborhood, and...