May 15 | Genesis Part 10
Discussion Guide
Hagar & Ishmael
May 15 | Genesis Series Part 10
Overview
As Genesis and the faith journey continues for Abram and his family, two scenes (Gen. 16 & 21) focus in on a slave girl, Hagar, and her son Ishmael.
In Act I, Sarai tries to take God’s promise of family into her own hands but it backfires, and it ends with pregnant Hagar fleeing to the wilderness. Here God meets Hagar, extends the promise to her, and protects Hagar by sending her back home.
In Act II, there is again more family drama. This time, Abram sends Hagar and Ishmael away into the wilderness at the advice of Sarai and approval of God. Almost at the point of death, God meets Hagar and Ishmael, saves them, and commits to be with Ishmael as he grows up.
God is a God who sees. God sees the immigrant, the oppressed, the forgotten. He journeys out into the wilderness to make sure the voiceless will not go unseen.
God is a God who cares. In the story, Ishmael’s birth is the result of Abram and Sarai taking the promise into their own hands, but God doesn’t treat him as expendable. God reaches out and is with Ishmael. With Jesus, “the strategy of Jesus is not taking the right stand on issues, but in standing in the right place: with the outcasts, those on the margins.” So too are we called to stand with, care for, and fight for the fatherless.
Finally, God is a God who promises. God makes a lot of promises, and Christ fulfills them. He has promised that He will be with his people as they make disciples, that those who believe will not perish, that the Holy Spirit will live in us and sustain us, and that one day he will return and bring a new heaven.
Questions for Discussion
In the story, Hagar is the unseen of the family: the immigrant, the slave, the woman with low status. For most of us there are different spheres of life where we are more seen or more unseen. In what context in your life are you the unseen? Where do you feel powerless, voiceless? In what context are you in or close to the center? Of attention, power, influence?
In the areas of life where you feel unseen, how can you embrace, experience, or sit with “the God who sees?”
In the areas of your life where you are close to the center, what can/does it look like for you to not take a stand on the right issues, but stand in the right place?
As a small group, are there small but meaningful ways that you could “stand in the right place” together? How could you support orphans, or adoptive parents, or single parents? Is there something God is calling you or your group to do this week or this month?
Close in Prayer
Before you end your time, pray, asking for the Spirit’s presence in the big and small stuff of life. Take some time to pray for other prayer requests as they come up.
