Thesis
Through the story of Hagar in Genesis 16, Pastor Daniel shows that God sees every person — regardless of their status, mistakes, or circumstances — and invites them to trust His unseen plan rather than run toward what is familiar and comfortable. The name El Roi, uniquely given to God by a slave girl in the wilderness, declares that no one is forgotten or invisible to Him. Because God sees us fully, we can stop hiding, be still, and let Him do a new work in us — even in the middle of our most difficult seasons.
Key points
- 1
Taking matters into our own hands — instead of being still and trusting God — leads to greater pain and complication, as Abram and Sarai's plan with Hagar demonstrates.
- 2
God pursues people who are running from Him, showing up to Hagar — a slave girl the world deemed worthless — as the first theophany recorded after the Garden of Eden.
- 3
When God does not rescue us from difficult seasons, He often gives us a powerful revelation to hold on to — enough light for the next step, not the whole picture.
- 4
God hears the cries of our hearts even when we are not formally calling out to Him, and He names Hagar's son Ishmael — 'God hears' — to remind her of that truth for the rest of her life.
- 5
God's plan is far larger than any individual circumstance; staying faithful in a difficult season can break generational cycles and preserve purposes that stretch across hundreds of years.
- 6
El Roi — the God who sees — is the only name of God in Scripture given to Him by a human and received by Him, spoken by a slave girl in the wilderness.
- 7
The life we really want comes when we stop hiding from God and allow Him to see us fully — uncovered, with all our mess and mistakes — and respond to His presence with 'Here I am.'
Outline
Introduction: Hide and Seek in the Dark
Pastor Daniel opens with a story about his daughter's hilarious approach to nighttime hide-and-seek — needing her flashlight on and her dad beside her — as a picture of our need to know we are seen and not alone.
Big Idea: El Roi and Being Still
Pastor Daniel introduces the name El Roi — the God who sees — and states the big idea: because God sees, we can be still and know that He is God rather than taking matters into our own hands.
Abram and Sarai's Failed Plan
Reading Genesis 16:1-6, Pastor Daniel unpacks how ten years of waiting led Sarai to take matters into her own hands and how Abram's passive agreement — like Adam in Eden — allowed a culturally accepted but biblically wrong plan to bring massive pain to everyone involved, especially Hagar.
God Finds Hagar in the Wilderness
Hagar flees toward Egypt and the pre-incarnate Jesus — the Angel of the Lord — finds her at a well and asks where she has come from and where she is going, revealing that God pursues even those who are not looking for Him and confronts our instinct to run toward what is comfortable.
The Command to Return and the Call to Trust
God tells Hagar to return and submit, illustrating that difficult seasons are often where God does His deepest work; Pastor Daniel shares his own story of being stuck in a toxic church culture and learning to pray for revelation rather than rescue.
God Hears and God Promises
God names the coming son Ishmael — 'God hears' — and promises Hagar a multitude of descendants, showing that He heard her distress even without a recorded prayer, and that His plan stretches across generations in ways we cannot comprehend.
El Roi — The God Who Sees
Hagar names God El Roi, the only name given to God by a human in Scripture, and Pastor Daniel calls the congregation to move from hiding — hands over their faces — to a face-to-face encounter with the God who already sees them fully.
Memorable moments
Paraphrase
Because God sees, because God is El Roy, I can be still and know that He is God.
We have an opportunity to trust in what we see or to trust in the God who sees something we don't see.
When you are running, when you aren't even looking for Him, when you're not calling out to Him, He is in desperate pursuit of you leveraging everything that He has
Faith, friends, is the thing that rises up when we still sit in the tension and the uncertainty of the mystery
I don't have the courage to pull my hands down from my face and to look at you face to face and to let you see me for who I really am in all my mess, in all my mistakes
The irony about entering into the life that we really want on this side of heaven is it comes on the other side of getting really uncomfortable and going all in and going, God, here I am
Application
Pastor Daniel's challenge is personal and direct: stop hiding from God. Many of us, because of our past mistakes, family backgrounds, or long seasons of pain, approach God with our hands over our faces — unable or unwilling to let Him truly see us. But Hagar's story proves that God already sees us completely, hears the cries we don't even voice aloud, and is actively working a plan that is bigger than anything we can comprehend. The invitation is to do what Hagar did — have an honest, uncovered encounter with God and respond, 'Here I am.' That means bringing our real selves to Him in prayer, opening His Word to receive the lamp-light of the next step, and trusting that if He is not rescuing us from our current season, He is likely doing something in us through it that will matter for generations to come.
