Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and we recently started a series where we're asking a very simple question: What does God reveal about himself through the names that were given in Scripture? The names of God reveal his character, and they help us see who God is more clearly. And you know this as well as I do. The more you see him clearly, the more you understand him, you trust him, you worship him, and you live for him. And today I want to introduce you to another name of God. We've looked at Elohim, we've looked at El Shaddai. Now, a name that only appears once in Scripture, but the truth behind it, oh, it's powerful. And it's the name El Roy, E-L, and then Roy, R-O-I. It means the God who sees me. And I think what makes this name so powerful, of course, it's attached to God, so that's why it's powerful, but the circumstance surrounding its introduction in the Bible is a very unlikely character. If you have your Bible, turn to Genesis 16. Last week we looked at Genesis 17 and I am God Almighty, El Shaddai. One chapter before. We're introduced to a woman named Hagar. And Hagar is an Egyptian servant. She belonged to Sarai, Abram's wife, or Abraham and Sarah. I'll use their names interchangeably. It's an old habit. Just church kid, you're so used to both names. But Abraham, Abram, Sarai, Sarah. At this point, God has already promised Abraham descendants. But Abraham and Sarah still have no child. Sarah becomes really impatient. She decides to take her uh mistress or her handmaiden and give her to Abraham. And he produces a child. That child is Ishmael. Kind of a sticky situation. The attempt is to produce the child that God had promised, and they were tired of waiting. Hagar gets pregnant, has Ishmael. Conflict erupts between the two women naturally. Sarah begins to treat Hagar harshly. Hagar runs away. And if you could just imagine the scene for a moment, you put yourself in Hagar's shoes. She's a servant, she's a foreigner, she's pregnant, she's mistreated, she is upset, boss lady, basically. Her Sarai, she's the matriarch of it all. You've got Abraham sort of stuck in the middle. And really, like, what is he doing? You know, you're you're not his finest moment. Now she's alone in the wilderness. From a human perspective, Hagar is one of the easiest people in the story to overlook because we're focused on the ones that God has made the promise to, but she's not overlooked by God. He knows the real story, he knows what went down, he knows what Abram and Sarai have done. And Genesis 16, verse 7 records this moment. Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to shore. He said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from, and where are you going? And she said, I'm fleeing from the presence of my mistress, Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said to her, Return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority. Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your descendants, so they'll be too many to count. It's a remarkable promise. The angel of the Lord says to her, Behold, you are with child, you bear a son, you'll call him Ishmael. Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction, he will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, so it's gonna be a little wild. He will live east to all of all his brothers. Verse 13 Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her and said, You're a God who sees. That right there. You are a God who sees. For she said, Have I even remained alive here after seeing him? I love a few things about this. First of all, the word found. The angel of the Lord, he he finds her, he goes after her and sees her. Verse 7, found her by a spring of water. Tells us that God knew exactly where she was and went to her. She's out of Abraham and Sarah's sight, never out of God's sight. God can find his people everywhere, and he can make promises and do what he said he's going to do at any time. And then after the angel of the Lord speaks to her and gives her instruction, she says, You are a God who sees, or you're a God of seeing, is the direct translation. That is Elroy, the God who sees me. And there's an amazing detail here. Maybe you've never seen it before or never even thought about this, but Hagar is the first person in Scripture to give God a name like this in response to a personal encounter with him. And I think it's significant that she's not Abraham, not a man, not the matriarch, you know, the leading lady like Sarah. She's not a king, not a priest, she's no child of a great leader. She is an Egyptian slave girl sitting alone in the wilderness, and yet the God of heaven sees the person everyone else would have overlooked. And here's the key truth: if God would notice Hagar, if he would take heed of her and see her, come on. You, as a Christian, you're never invisible to God. People might overlook you, they might misunderstand you, they might forget the things you're carrying, they might never know the private battles you're fighting. God does. El Roy sees you. You may walk into a room full of people and still feel completely alone. But there's never been a moment of your life when you are actually alone because God has never lost sight of you. He is El Roy, the God of seeing. Now, we need to be careful here a little bit, because God sees you has become one of those Christianese phrases that you see a lot. I always call this K-Love theology, you know, positive, encouraging, K-Love, you know, the radio. Nothing wrong with being positive, encouraging, but it's like God sees you and God sees, and we turn God into this kind of kid on the playground that's like running after us and he's hoping to get to us. And there's songs about like he just couldn't stand heaven without you, and he just had to run after you. And all of a sudden, it kind of puts us in the elevated position, and God is this pandering parent who just hopes the kids will be his BFF. That's not biblical. We do not reduce the God who sees to something just sentimental. It's fine to put it on a coffee mug. You want to post on Instagram about El Roy, that's awesome, no problem. But it's not like God is dipping in and being like, hey, I just noticed you're having a hard day. Here's a little K love for you. The biblical doctrine that God sees you is way bigger than that. When Scripture says God sees, it's it's like Psalm 139, verse 1. David says, Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know me. You know when I sit, when I lie down, you know when I get up, you discern my thoughts from afar, you know my mind. David goes on to say, even before a word is on his tongue, God already knows it. So this isn't like God dipping and being like, hey, just checking in, you doing good. It is God saying, I know everything about you. Everything. So there's nothing casual about it. It's his omniscience, omniscience, all-knowing attribute, his omniscience on display. He knows everything about you, loves you, cares for you, brings conviction upon you. He knows the tears, the prayers, the pain, the desires, the neglect, the efforts, the failures, the fears, all of it and everything in between. He sees every detail and still loves you. And Hagar discovers that in the wilderness. But there is another side to El Roy and him seeing, and that's why I don't want you thinking this is some casual kind of little check-in by God, hoping you'll notice he's your little buddy. You gotta understand God seeing you means not just comfort, but but confrontation. He sees what no one does, your secret sin. He sees what we scroll, what we look at, what we say, what we think, the words we use when no one's around. He doesn't just see what has been done to you, but he sees what's happening inside of your heart, your emotions, your motives, your pride, your bitterness, every other sin, mine too. And he can see into our heart and he can see our actions. And this is convicting to think that God sees what we text, what we scroll, what we watch and listen to and think. He knows and sees us when no one else does. And many times our experiences will expose those things and people get to know us, but in the end, there's still things that you and I we don't tell anyone. Or we would never dream about telling anyone. He sees it. He sees the resentment that you've learned to hide behind the smile. He sees the unconfessed sin. He sees the pride that we disguise as confidence. He he hears the complaints and the discontentment in our hearts, all masked as just, you know, I'm just expressing myself. Hebrews 4 13 says, No creature is hidden from his sight. All are naked and exposed to the eyes of him who we must all give an account. That's El Roy, too. So his name shouldn't just bring comfort to you, it should bring conviction and invoke a healthy fear of God. One of the great temptations of sin is the illusion of secrecy. No one knows, nobody saw, no one will find out. What they don't know won't hurt them. But the Christian must remember there's no such thing as secret sin with God. You might hide it from your spouse, your parents, a pastor, a boss, a coworker, a friend if it's a pastor from the congregation. We cannot hide anything from God. El Roy is both the God who sees us in our pain and the God who sees us in our sin. And so, how should we respond? I think there's three steps here. Number one, stop believing you're forgotten. Enough of that. Your feelings are real, but they aren't always telling you the truth. Feelings about being unseen doesn't mean you're actually unseen. God knows exactly where you are. If he noticed an Egyptian slave girl named Hagar, believe me. Believe the word. He notices you, he cares. Therefore, number two, live like God sees you. Not just with confidence that he loves you and he cares for you, but with integrity that who you are is when nobody's watching and God sees it. For the Christian, even when nobody's watching, we would say, My God always is. So let the reality of El Roy produce holiness in your private life. Third, bring your whole life to him. What's the point in hiding when he sees it all? Stop hiding from the God you cannot hide from anyway. Bring him the pain, bring him the fear, bring him the sin, tell him the truth. He already knows it. And you'll find great comfort in that. So let's ask the question we've asked at the end of every episode. If God is, and then we say his name, if God is Elohim, El Shaddai now, if God is El Roy, how should that change the way I live today? Here it is. If you're watching on YouTube, this will be on your screen. If God is El Roy, I don't have to fear being forgotten. I don't have to pretend when I'm hurting. I don't have to live one life in public and another in private. I can walk through today knowing that the God who sees everything I face also sees everything I need. And there's nowhere I can go where his eyes are not upon me. He is Elroy. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thank you also for giving to For the Gospel. All of our resources are free and available to you on our website, forthegospel.org. Also, if you're not already, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X. If you want to sign up for emails, we'll send out free resources. We'll keep you posted on the ministry. You can do that on our website and just register your name and your email address. If you feel compelled by God to support this ministry, we are 100% donor supported. We're reaching millions of people every single month around the world, both in Spanish as well as English. And so thank you for doing that. If you want to partner with us, you go to forthegospel.org. Just click give, and all the information will be there. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel, yes.