Hearing the Voice

Father's Day begins with tenderness for every kind of father, for the ones who stepped up, for the ones whose children did not come biologically, and for the ones grieving a first Father’s Day without their dad on earth. A song called “Rooftop” gives the picture that carries everything: “Jesus, you sat on the rooftop. You looked over heaven’s gates. You came and you sold it all just to have me.”

A hospital room becomes that rooftop when Jordan, a young man with days to hours to live, asks the kinds of questions suffering brings up. Jordan asks why bad things happen to good people, why his disease is taking him when others are coping better, why wars get started in God’s name, and why God allows pain instead of stopping it. The honest answer is, “I don’t know.” Human selfishness causes real damage, and sometimes bad stuff just happens without rhyme or reason.

The cross answers Jordan’s fear about hell with something deeper than terror. The cross is not mainly the pending damnation of brokenness. The cross is love. God did not create people just to wait and see whether they would get it right. God made people to love them and to be with them because that is the desire of God’s heart. The resurrection means redemption, which means suffering is never the place where the story stays stuck.

Genesis 21 gives that same gospel through Hagar’s eyes. Hagar has been enslaved, used to bear a child, rejected, sent away, brought back, and then thrown out again into the desert with bread, water, and her son. Sarah’s jealousy sends Hagar into a wilderness where the water runs out and a mother cannot bear to watch her child die. Hagar sits on the edge of heaven and cries.

God hears Ishmael. God speaks to Hagar. God opens her eyes to a well that was near, and God says the story is not done. Abraham and Sarah can do whatever they want to do, but Hagar and Ishmael belong to God. God protects Ishmael for the rest of his life, not by removing every danger, but by being with that little family in the wilderness.

Hagar’s story says that suffering does not win. The cross shows God’s love, the resurrection shows God’s redemption, and God remains a good parent who does not leave suffering people to figure it out all by themselves.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. The cross speaks love first. [33:02] The cross is not treated as God’s threat hanging over human brokenness. The cross is presented as the promise of God’s love over an entire life. Fear may ask whether failure has the final word, but Christ crucified answers with a love that moved toward the broken instead of away from them. [33:02]
• 2. Honest faith can say, “I don’t know.” [30:49] Mature faith does not have to turn every wound into a neat answer. Jordan’s questions are honored, not dismissed, because suffering often asks more than human wisdom can explain. The humility to say “I don’t know” can become a holy place where love stays present without pretending to solve the unsolved. [30:49]
• 3. Hagar meets God in rejection. [41:34] Hagar’s life carries the weight of being used, cast out, and left with nothing but a child and an empty container. God meets her there, not in power or comfort, but in the wilderness where survival looks impossible. The overlooked woman becomes a witness that God sees the discarded and speaks future over those others have thrown away. [41:34]
• 4. Suffering never owns the ending. [44:00] Hagar still suffers, and Ishmael still grows up in the wilderness, but suffering does not get to name the whole story. God’s redemption does not always erase the desert, but it opens eyes to water and gives strength for what comes next. The resurrection declares that pain may be real, but it is not ultimate. [44:00]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [26:06] - Father’s Day Blessing and Grief
• [27:43] - The Rooftop Song
• [28:39] - Jordan’s Hospital Rooftop Conversation
• [30:49] - Honest Answers to Hard Questions
• [32:31] - Seeing Love at the Cross
• [35:55] - The Gospel of Hagar
• [38:10] - Hagar Sent into the Wilderness
• [40:02] - God Hears Ishmael Cry
• [41:34] - Hagar on the Edge of Heaven
• [42:51] - Redemption Meets Hagar’s Story
• [44:00] - Suffering Will Not Win
• [45:36] - Closing Prayer

Bible Reading

Genesis 21:8-21 [38:10]

“The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.’ And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, ‘Let me not look on the death of the child.’ And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.’ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.”

Observation questions

1. In Genesis 21, what do Sarah, Abraham, Hagar, and God each do once conflict breaks out around Ishmael and Isaac? [39:30]
2. What details in the passage show how desperate Hagar’s situation became in the wilderness before God spoke to her? [40:02]
3. What does God actually say to Hagar, and what does God provide for her and Ishmael in that moment? [40:18]
4. What kinds of questions came up in that hospital-room “rooftop” conversation about suffering, death, and God’s ways? [30:06]

Interpretation questions

1. God hears Ishmael, speaks to Hagar, and opens her eyes to a nearby well. What does that suggest about how God responds to people who feel forgotten, cast out, or at the end of themselves? [42:51]
2. Hagar’s story does not end with instant comfort or an easy life; she and Ishmael still live in the wilderness. What does that say about the difference between God’s presence and the removal of every hardship? [43:29]
3. The cross can be seen mainly as threat, or it can be seen first as love. How does seeing the cross as God’s love change the way a person faces guilt, fear, and even death? [33:02]
4. There are moments when the truest answer is “I don’t know.” How can that kind of honest faith be more loving and more faithful than offering quick spiritual explanations for suffering? [30:49]

Application questions

1. When suffering raises hard questions in real life, is there a place where the group has been tempted to force neat answers instead of honestly saying, “I don’t know”? What would humble, loving presence look like there? [31:00]
2. Hagar sat far enough away that she would not have to watch her child die. When has life felt that desperate or helpless personally? What helped, or what kind of care was most needed in that season? [41:34]
3. God opened Hagar’s eyes to water that was already near. Is there a need right now where it might be hard to see the help, provision, or next step in front of you? What might “opening the eyes” look like in that situation? [40:44]
4. Jesus did not move away from broken people but toward them in love. What helps a person actually believe that God’s heart is to love and be with them, not merely test them? [33:26]
5. Some people carry fear that their failures will have the final word. Where does that fear still show up personally, and how might the love of Christ begin to answer it? [32:31]
6. Suffering is real, but it does not get to name the whole story. What part of life right now feels stuck, and what would it mean to trust that this is not the end of the story? [44:02]
7. God is a good parent who does not leave suffering people alone to figure life out by themselves. What is one concrete way to lean into God’s presence this week, and what is one way to offer that same steady presence to someone else? [45:00]