Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Power Walk Ministries broadcast and thanks for joining us. Our current series is titled Relationships, Marriage and Family, brought to you by Reverend Paul Cannings. We're in volume two, titled God Sees You, and is based on the difficult position that Hagar finds herself in in the book of Genesis. Pastor Cannings unravels the lessons that we can learn from Hagar's incident and we also see the heart of God, His justice, His compassion, and His kindness through Hagar. Challenging us to not run from God but to Him, here's Pastor Cannings now with the lesson, Sought Out by God.

Dr. Paul Cannings: So Hagar is now totally caught up. Baby in her womb. Watch what Abraham does. Abraham put a bag on her back. What is he saying? You have to care for him. Now you have a day to find some place to take care of you. That's exactly what happens in Chapter 21. So now you are a baby mama and you haven't got a baby daddy and you are on your own.

How many times has sin taken us on our own? Sin dragged us out there and Satan has a way of saying, thank you for following me. I'm done now. God bless you and keep you. What happens then when you're the woman out of the house and the other woman is gone with your husband or your wife? What happens when you're now alone, thrown down? There's nobody. You got caught up and now you're thrown down. You're the woman that slept with this married man and he can't talk to you anymore. What happens then? There's no church house to run to. There's no Egypt to go to. She's on her own.

That is what you find here because she is thrown down now. Sarah says, I gave her into your hands, she is your wife, you just left her, you're going to do something with her. Abraham says, I'm not doing anything. I must admit this in my life. I don't like it when God takes a long time to talk. I really do. I literally say to God, God, why you wait until I'm like broke down and messed up and haven't got a place to go? And then you speak up. You could have spoken up a long time ago.

Here's the key thing. God is saying, I did speak up. I gave you 66 books to read, you just didn't do it. I gave you a church house to come to, you didn't go to it. I gave you a Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father, but because you were resourceful, doing pretty good, you chose now to go and pray. You're the one that turned me off. And when you turned me off, you're now way over here and you want to know, why isn't God talking to me? He says you haven't been listening. I had to empty your self of yourself before I could get you to listen to me, who is King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

Until you got no money, until you got a baby to take care of, until you got nobody left, now you can hear me. But before then, you were too comfortable to hear anything I have to say. Many of us, it's not that God isn't speaking. The world has made so much noise we can't hear Him until He strips us of what we got. When He strips us of what we got, that's when we listen. But when we got all these resources, we aren't listening to God. We're listening to God with a level of intelligence where we think we got it and God is going, no, I want you to listen to me where your thoughts mean nothing.

I don't want you to bring any stuff to this party. Just let me talk. Hagar is stripped. She's caught up, thrown down, but thank God He's willing to build her up. He's willing to build her up. Watch this story, folks. This is where I love God. I don't like how long He takes. Take me to a verse, take me somewhere. But I know you're talking, but just get me to hear what you're saying. Too much noise, Cannings. You can't hear me even if I took you to a verse.

Too much noise with your emotions, too much noise with your feelings, too much noise with your theological thinking. Too much noise. How much noise is in your life? I got the bills, I don't feel this right now. How much noise we got going on and we can't hear God? When is the last time you just come to a problem in your life and open up your Bible and keep going through verses? Get a concordance, get a major word in your problem, and get a concordance.

Today, you don't even have to do it the old-fashioned way of getting a concordance, going through the concordance, looking at the passages, going to the middle of your Bible, see what corresponding passages are there, and then do a study of it. How many of us do that when life has hit us the wrong way? If we're not there, that's how much noise we got that we don't go there. We aren't listening. But the minute life takes us to Hagar, we're hollering to God, come on God, where you been?

God, you know I'm hurting. We're fussing at God. And God is saying, if you just listened, if you just listened. Open up your ears and listen. Search for me. I said if you seek me, you'll find me. So I'm guaranteeing you finding me, but you didn't seek me. Hagar is broke down. Look at Chapter 16, she broke down. She's got nowhere to go, no place to run, and she's just gone. Look at verse seven. You got to see this, folks. Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water.

Did she call for God? Was there a prayer meeting? No. Did she say, God, would you help me? No. Why would God show up here? Watch it carefully. The angel of the Lord spoke to her. Most theologians would say that's Jesus. That's Jesus showing up because he doesn't ask God for permission, he's not representing God, it is functioning like it is God. So they say it's Jesus. So right at this spring, without any invitation, the angel of the Lord shows up and starts the conversation when Hagar is now needing to be built up. She's got nothing.

How many times you come to church just because it's Sunday and God hits you? How many times you open up your Bible and it falls in the right place and God speaks to you? How many times have God just showed up? Did we listen? The thing about Hagar is this is an Egyptian. Do you know how many gods Egyptians worshiped? Do you know when Moses was in Egypt, why he's dealing with the Nile and the calf and all these everything? He's dealing with them because they worshiped them.

Anything that moves they see God in it. So they worshiped anything that moved. They worshiped the frog. They worshiped anything. Here is a woman that came from a pantheistic culture that is not saying she is saved by the blood of Jesus and she signs, whoa, I know Abraham's God works. I've seen him talk to this God. I'm listening. When God talks to you, do you listen? The thing that Hagar has on all of us is she listened. In the worst of her life, she has no more food left, she's by a spring, son getting ready to die.

How many single women have gotten here? Broke, trying to make it work, need somebody to help them, but got nobody. Stuck. That's where she is and she listens. God shows up, she listens, and He said to Hagar, you think that your situation was bad and I wasn't around because it was bad. Your situation was bad because people were making sinful decisions, but I was always there. I just don't hook up with sin. But I have always been there. I could tell you the whole story.

I tell you what Sarah did, I could tell you how she treated you, I could tell you what Abraham did, I could tell you the whole story. Why? God is everywhere all the time, fully there, all the time. It's not like God is over here a little bit, over there a little bit, here a little bit. No, God is completely in every place, all the time, fully everywhere, knowing everything. He doesn't need Hagar to tell him nothing. So many times we go to God and, God, let me tell you what happened here.

God is going, why you informing me? We go to God and we want to quote verses. I wrote the verses. But God is saying, hey, let's talk about now. Are you interested in now? Could we work through now? The fact that we're having this conversation means I kept you, I preserved you. Would you listen now? I gave you this baby. Would you listen now? Because this baby, the descendants of this baby, rescued Joseph. Helped God's covenant to work through Joseph because of the Ishmaelites.

Do you know where you get oil from today? Descendants of Ishmaelites. Because God says, I had a covenant with Abraham, so I'm going to bless you. Sometimes even in the worst scenarios, even when things are really bad and you think it's hopeless, God said, I already factored that into your life. I already knew the circumstances you're going to be on right now. I'm not worried about where you are right now. I'm worried about whether or not you will listen.

I factored all that in. I knew this was going to happen, but would you listen? Are we listening to the voice of God? Is it so important? We would listen to Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and they're just talking and pontificating and we listen for hours. When God is speaking, why is there so much noise? We can't even pray without going to sleep or losing our trend of thought. We can't pay attention because He's not Lord.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Pastor Cannings. What a comforting thought that God knows every detail concerning us and He's pleased when we continue to put our faith and trust in Him. Please visit us online at powerwalkministries.org to secure your copy of this series or to leave a message to connect with us. You'll also find a copy of Pastor Cannings' book, Disciples in the Making. It will help you grow in spiritual maturity to handle relationship challenges that we all face. If you'd prefer to call us, our number is 281-260-7402. That's 281-260-7402. Or log on to powerwalkministries.org.

Dr. Paul Cannings: One of the hardest things in ministry is not actually doing ministry when God has blessed you to be this equipped, but it's to get the resources to get it done. Oh folks, that's the hardest. We've stepped out in faith because we believe that. But we pray that God will touch your heart to partnership with us. You could do that simply by going to our website. It is a secure website and pressing the donate button. And on that button, you will be able to become a partner with us and we will seek to bless you for being a blessing to us. I pray that God will move on your heart to be our partner. God bless you.

Guest (Male): Please visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. Our mailing address is Power Walk Ministries, PO Box 920517, Houston, Texas 77092. Let us hear from you today. And now remember, just as God kept His covenant with Abraham, we too can stand confidently on all of His promises to us in His Word.