Latest / HBCWestminster / 7.28.21 Empowered Session #7 Valerie Sahlieh

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7.28.21 Empowered Session #7 Valerie Sahlieh · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  For anybody who doesn't know me, my name's Valerie. I have been at the church for a lot of years. I'm married to a really cool guy, Henry. I have three adult children, two boys, and my daughter, being the youngest. I have two grandkids. One is 16 and is at kickback. They're supposed to be back this afternoon. I'm expecting him to be tired, and he's a boy, probably smelly.
• 0:28
  What a blessing that he has this church to attend and the kickback with all of the kids. It's just such a blessing that we have that for the kids. And then we have a six-year-old. I have a six-year-old granddaughter. She lives in Lincoln with her mom and dad.
• 0:54
  A little background on myself. I am self-employed. I live on and run a horse boarding stable. I'm a Christian life coach, and one of my favorite things to do, I'm a birth doula, which probably is my favorite out of all of them, and the least I get to do. So there's that. When we had the ministry meeting,
• 1:20
  I guess it's probably been a few months ago at this point, Hallie said we were going to be teaching on empowered women of the Bible. And she wanted us to give a picture of empowered women in the Bible and what empowerment looks like in a secular culture and what society tells us empowerment is, but then compare that also to biblically what empowerment means to us.
• 1:51
  And it is two very different things. I thought this was a great topic. I was really enthusiastic about it. And then in the meeting, she asked for volunteers who wanted to teach. And because I like the topic, I raised my hand along with the other ladies who have taught thus far. The meeting continued. We picked the dates that we could teach, and obviously I picked today. We prayed. The meeting ended.
• 2:21
  We all said goodbye. We went to the car. As soon as I got in my car, my brain started and it said, what in the world? What are you doing? Why would you volunteer to teach? You can't teach on anything. What are you going to teach on? You have no idea how to teach. And then it really dug in and actually said, you're not good at this. You're going to fail at this. This is a bad idea. Don't do it.
• 2:53
  That's okay, though. I think anytime that we're asked to step out into something that's bigger than ourselves, when we're asked to be bold, when we're asked to share God's word, fear comes over us. But that tells us we're on the right track. So it's okay. Fear is a good thing. But also fear is a liar. Unless it's dogs chasing you, that's different.
• 3:24
  So fear to share your story, it's fine. Just work through it. God wants us to share our stories. So I gave this message to God a few weeks ago. I believe that he will speak to people as he sees and as he wants them to hear the message. So let's pray.
• 3:56
  I'm going to start with prayer. Dear Lord, please allow your words to be loud, your words to be spoken boldly to each person, Lord. Please help me express the idea and the message that you've brought. May all that I do and all that I say be an honor to you, Lord. Amen. I believe when we're at our weakest,
• 4:29
  When we're at our most vulnerable, that's when God is at his best. My lesson is on Sarah, and Sarah, S-A-R-A-I, that's her name when the story begins, and Hagar. I think when we teach on Sarah, we have to also include Hagar, at least in this section. And a lot of us know Sarah's story. She's married to Abram.
• 4:55
  who also his name changes. If we read forward in chapter 17, he changes Sarah to Sarah and Abram to Abraham. He changed both their names when he restated the covenant and the promise to them about the futures. He promised Abraham that he was going to be the father of all nations, meaning that Sarah, as his wife, it says in Genesis 17, it says she shall become
• 5:26
  nations, kings of peoples, shall come from her. I didn't include in the lesson all of the significance of how their names changed and such, because this lesson needed to stay under 45 minutes. So we'll move forward. If you want more information on that, I can give you some direction to a couple of resources. But beginning in chapter 16, verses 1 through 3, says,
• 5:59
  the beginning account, it says, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
• 6:26
  So after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife. Sarah still stayed as wife number one, and Hagar would have been wife number two. But the problem that Sarah had right here is that back in Genesis 12, 7, it says, the Lord appeared to Abram and he said to your offspring,
• 6:54
  I will give this land, speaking the land of Canaan. So he's going to have offspring. Sarah hasn't been able to have any children. She's barren. And if you could imagine just a second her disappointment and her frustration in that. This isn't just a matter she didn't get pregnant and they're going to wait a little while and maybe they'll adopt or things like that. This is a big deal. This is probably her biggest calling of what she was supposed to do.
• 7:26
  She probably pleaded with God to give them a child much more fervently than the average. They didn't just want a child like any other couple, but they were looking for an heir to fulfill a promise from God. They would have understood that the promised child was to be their child, the child of both Abram and Sarah. But time passed.
• 7:53
  They were growing old and desperate. And I'm sure she felt, like I said, this was her thing. She was supposed to be able to do this. She couldn't, and her body just wasn't cooperating. So what did she do? She got really creative. She decided she was going to do the next best thing. The next best thing was to give her handmaiden over to Abram.
• 8:22
  Hagar would have a baby for her. That would fix it. It wasn't really that uncommon back in those days for that to take place, but the problem is God wasn't in this plan. She was trying to fix things that weren't hers to fix. She was trying to change things that were not for her to be doing. She actually said in verse 2, she said, behold now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, and it's interesting to me that it never crossed her mind there was a reason for that.
• 8:54
  She just assumed that she needed to fix that. She was so desperate, I suppose she thought that God needed her assistance. So she took it upon herself, like I said, she was going to solve this one way or the other. Only in doing so, the problems really started. Because almost immediately as Hagar conceived, we pick up in verse 4.
• 9:25
  And it says, and he, Abram, went into Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress, because now she was better than Sarah. And Sarah said to Abram, may the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me.
• 9:58
  What in the world did she think was going to happen? She thought that all of the feelings of frustration, the disappointments, the desperations, that as soon as Hagar got pregnant, all of that was going to go away. It actually multiplied it for her because now she's not, she's still wife number one per se, but now Hagar is conceived and Hagar has contempt for her because now she's better.
• 10:30
  I don't know how she thought that was going to work out any other way than it did. She just complicated the whole thing, and I still think it's very interesting because she's the one that planned this. She designed this for Abram to have a child with Hagar, and the moment that her plan came to fruition, because they're human, it all turned to a mess. We see in verse 6, it says, but Abram said, Sarah.
• 11:02
  behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. Then Sarah dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. So here she is again, Sarah, fixing it, dealt harshly with her. So she couldn't have children, found a way to have children, now didn't want that children. So here she is.
• 11:30
  trying to fix everything all over again. But she had what she wanted. She just wanted all that she wanted, and she wanted it to be the way she wanted it. And I'm not sure that we're so much different than that. We want what we want, and we just want it to turn out the way we want. And then we're surprised when it doesn't. We'll read on in verse 7. It says,
• 11:59
  by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarah, where have you come from, and where are you going? Obviously rhetorical, because he would have known. And she said, I am fleeing my mistress Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. That's a huge calling.
• 12:29
  I think running away would have been the easy way to handle things. Now she has to go back. The angel of the Lord also said to her, it will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you're pregnant. You shall bear his son, Abram. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction.
• 13:02
  he shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. And why wouldn't a child out of this situation, why wouldn't he be compared to a wild donkey of a man? Because this whole situation was a mess. Verse 13, so she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her.
• 13:42
  You are a God of seeing, for she said, truly here I have seen him who looks after me. Therefore the well was called Berle, I can't pronounce that, Berlehiroi, lies between Kadesh and Bered. Hagar bore Ishmael. Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. Take note in verse 13 because it says,
• 14:16
  So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God of seeing. For she said, truly here I have seen him who looks after me. So even through all of this, Hagar still had faith that the Lord was looking out for her. He saw her life. He was still looking out for her. She was in a tough situation. She had done as her mistress told her.
• 14:44
  The plan worked as it was supposed to. She became contentful, and now she's told she's going to bear a child. His name is Ishmael, who the Lord said, by the way, will be compared to a wild donkey of a man. She was in a tough place. Wrong page. What she does know, even in the midst of all of this, what she does know and what she says is that her God,
• 15:28
  is the same God, our God. He's the same God, and he's the God who looks after her as he looks after us. We move ahead just a little bit, and we see in chapter 17, and I skipped a bit through there, not that it's not important, but ultimately, I want you to see that God is still keeping his plans and his promises.
• 15:58
  So if we skip ahead to chapter 17, verses 15 through 21. And God said to Abraham, As for Sarah your wife, you shall not call her name Sarah, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, she shall become nations. Kings of peoples shall come from her.
• 16:29
  Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, O that Ishmael might live before you. And God said, No, but Sarah is your wife. She shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him.
• 16:57
  as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father 12 princes and I will make him into a great nation, but I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. So even after all of the wrongdoings, their misdeeds, their misgivings,
• 17:29
  their second guessings, their fixing things, God is still doing all of the things he intended on doing from the beginning. He is still taking care of things. He even gave a blessing to Ishmael, and he has a blessing and a covenant with Isaac. And here he reiterates that promise to them, and we know when we read further, Sarah does conceive.
• 18:01
  when she's 89, he's 99. She is well past childbearing years. In chapter 1, 1 through 3, it talks about the birth of Isaac, and it says that the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised, and Sarah conceived and bore Abraham's son in his old age. At the time of which God had spoken to him, Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him.
• 18:31
  who Sarah bore Isaac. So let's stay stuck in just this one story. If you consider it a testimony, if you can look at it that way, God is the God of impossible for Sarah and Abraham, and God is the God of seeing, and the God of who looks after us in Hagar's case. When we see these three people, Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar,
• 19:06
  When we see where they were at in their life and what a mess they had made of it because they were helping God, God still orchestrated it. He took all of their ill-conceived plans, all of their self-made workings, and he designed it into exactly what he wanted it to be. He is the God of seeing. He is truly the God of impossible. And these women
• 19:36
  Sarah and Hagar, they only became empowered when they realized they had no power. They only had their faith. God is the same thing today. He's the same God as he was then. He's the same God today, and he's still that God. When we read the Bible, and we read it as a story, we read it as the story of these three. That's one way, but if you could
• 20:12
  Consider for a minute if Sarah was giving her testimony and what that would sound like. They've testified to what happened. It's been written in the Bible. The Bible words never change. But how can we bring that story to relevancy of today? How can we get people to understand what that means to us today? Because people don't always want to believe the Bible. They will say,
• 20:40
  You know, it's a fairy tale. It was written by men. It's not real stories. It's just made-up stuff. I believe that the words of the Bible continue forward through us. It continues forward through us when we share our testimonies, when we give our testament of what God has done in our lives, because this is what Sarah's done and what Hagar's done. This is a story of what God's done in their life.
• 21:13
  And I think that we underestimate the value of sharing our testament. When you look at the value of what Sarah shared, she said no one would believe this, and yet we do, because she shared it as her testimony. She testified to it. I found in an excerpt of a book, I can't find the reference of the name of the reference yet.
• 21:41
  But it's just a paragraph out of it. And it says, skeptics may debate the validity of scripture or argue the existence of God. But no one can deny your personal experience with God. If you tell someone how God worked a miracle in your life, how he blessed you, transformed you, lifted and encouraged you, or perhaps even broke and then healed you.
• 22:09
  No one can argue the debate of that. When you share your Christian testimony, your new identity in Christ, you go beyond the field of knowledge and into the realm of your relationship with God. So I'm going to share my testimony, and the reason I am is for that reason. People can deny the Bible. Like I said, they can say it's written by men.
• 22:44
  They can say all of the things. They can deny whatever they want to, but they can't deny our testimonies of what God has done in our lives. John 4 39 says, many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all I ever did. God knows my testimony. He knows all I ever did. Revelations 12 10 and 11.
• 23:15
  and I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of God and the authority of Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives even unto death. So I'm going to dive really deep into details.
• 23:48
  of my testimony, I'm going to give you the highlights, the prominent points, I suppose. What I do want you to realize from my testimony is the before, the during, the broken, and how God has dramatically changed my life. It's part of the reason that I chose Sarah and Hagar, because I can identify with them.
• 24:18
  in making a mockery of things, and then humbly they relied on God to put it all back together to save them. So I want to do my best in giving you a clear picture for context without minimizing it, but also not glamorizing. I do want you to see the impossible distance that God brought my life. A Bible verse that has spoken to me for quite some time is Samuel 7, 12. And then Samuel took a stone,
• 24:54
  set it up between Mizpah and Shem, and called its name Ebenezer. For he said, till now the Lord has helped us. I actually have a stone set up in my backyard. Henry and I placed it five or six years ago. It was that important to us, and it was till now God has brought us this far. He has helped us this far. So here we go. When I was young, between the ages of five and ten,
• 25:26
  I was sexually abused by an older sibling. I say sexually abused, but along with that comes the emotional abuse, which in turn, down the road, turns into self-abuse. After this sibling grew up and moved out of our home, this particular abuse had stopped. Along with this, my father was an alcoholic, which had a huge impact, a huge negative impact on my life.
• 25:59
  By the time I was 12, I had become a chronic runaway, this landing me in jail numerous times, a foster home on one occasion for a time. It led to all sorts of situations that I, even to this day, don't even believe that I was involved in. This was all taking place at this point between the ages of 12 and 15.
• 26:33
  go to school in the morning, and then run off in the afternoon with friends or a boyfriend in whatever direction seemed available at the time. My parents had to bring me home on numerous occasions, many times at their own expense. I spent four weeks in jail when I was 13 because the courts knew that I was just going to run away again. So they decided to keep me.
• 27:08
  It was 13 in an adult jail. After those years, somewhere between the ages of 13 and 15, I spent a lot of those years searching for what I thought a relationship was supposed to be, even at that young age. It sounds ridiculous, but I was definitely in search of something, searching for love everywhere that was wrong.
• 27:42
  By the time I was 16, I'd become pregnant. I had my oldest son two months before I turned 17. I was clueless how to be a parent. I barely knew how to be 17. So being a parent was a far stretch. By the time I was just past 18, I'd become divorced. So now I'm clueless in being a parent, divorced, and a single parent. Still searching out.
• 28:21
  answers to what I thought life was supposed to be like. Still led to a lot of really bad situations. Fortunately, somewhere in all of that, I met Henry. And even with that relationship, I did all that I thought I needed to to make that relationship work. I just became very much a people pleaser, a husband pleaser.
• 28:58
  doing all the things that I thought I needed to do in order to be loved. We lived together for a year or a year and a half, and then we were married in 1987. We had two more children. We had our second son in 88, and then we had our daughter in 92. So at this point, I was married, divorced, married, and I have three kids.
• 29:31
  At the ripe old age of 26, I still didn't know how to be a parent. I was trying. I thought that I'd found what things were. I thought I found that life, that's what it was supposed to be like. But God wasn't in it, so it wasn't what it was supposed to be like. Henry and I had a lot of problems. We argued crazily. I thought I was doing things that needed to be done the way they were supposed to be done.
• 30:02
  but all still under my power. And I really thought I could manage it. But things slowly started falling apart. I pushed against all the boundaries of my marriage, all of the imaginable ways. And if there were a way to sin against God or to sin against my husband, I had done that. He was not a saint. We were a mess.
• 30:37
  We were both walking on our own accord. We blamed each other. We blamed life circumstances. For the first 10 years of our marriage, it was just pretty much a disaster. And we had these three kids. I can say that I probably made more poor choices and more bad decisions that led to so many consequences that led so far-reaching into my future.
• 31:14
  I can't even really speak to those at this venue, I suppose. I was still very much a broken person, looking for the answer to be put back together, still not seeking out God. At the lowest point in all of this, I think I was 29 or 30, I left my home.
• 31:50
  I left my husband, and I left my children. I remember somebody giving me a little piece of advice. Obviously, they were not Christian, because what they said was, just do it like ripping off a Band-Aid. Quick and painless. It was anything but painless. But I didn't know what to do. I didn't know. Things were not working, no matter what I was doing. It was during this period of time.
• 32:32
  I very clearly remember God talking to me. Henry had given me an ultimatum, and he said, be home, I think he said like 10 o'clock, be home by 10 o'clock Friday, or that's it. He'd had enough of my shenanigans. He was finished. Me being me, I waited until 9.45. I don't know why. And I called him. And the reason I called him...
• 33:10
  It's because I could hear this quiet voice in the back of my head, and I could just hear it telling me, it kept saying, Val, there's nobody that will feel about your children how he will. There's nobody who will feel about your children the way that you do besides him. Mind you, I've already gone through a divorce once. I had one child from a previous marriage. I was on track to have three kids singly from a previous marriage.
• 33:50
  And I said, okay, I'll try. And I just remember the quiet voice telling me, get up, go home, call him. So in the nick of time, sillily, we talked all through that weekend. We were working at putting things together. Through all of this, there were a handful of things that had come to light that he...
• 34:28
  I was pretty disappointed. I was disappointed. It was so hard. It was a very difficult time. We'd had a very horrible argument one afternoon. And I just remember sitting on my bedroom floor. I had my eyes closed. I had my hands over my head. I was just sobbing because it was not working. Finally, I'd come to the end of me. And I just...
• 35:07
  felt an overwhelming presence. And I cried out to God. I said, I don't know what to do. I just need help. I don't know what to do anymore. And it's probably the humor in my head, but I heard God's voice tell me, you're right. You don't know what you're doing. Look at what you've done so far. It was truly a mess. But I remember that moment when I opened my eyes, the sun was still shining.
• 35:48
  I had an overwhelming peace. And I believe that God took that moment and he said to me, I'll take it from here. Just let me do this. And he said, okay, I'm done. He said, I don't promise that it's going to be easy, but you can do it. Just let me take over. And I did. And I think from that day forward, yeah, there was hard things. We've been through a lot of difficulties, but God has saw me through it.
• 36:26
  I've managed a sense of peace through crazy times. Between Henry and I, we lost three of our parents. My mom is still here. We've raised our children. We've lived with a cancer diagnosis for many years. God has blessed my life beyond belief.
• 36:55
  brought me an impossible distance from where I came from. I think when I compare my story with Sarah and Hagar, and I see what a mess that they made things, and I think, thank God that he is the same now as he was for them, because he saw me through all of the really difficult struggles. He's been here.
• 37:34
  I tried to battle things on my own, and that just wasn't going to work. Tying it all together, I think the empowered women in the Bible, they're the same empowered women of today. The power we have as God, it's not being powerful at all, but it's realizing when we've made a mess of things that we need to be humble, we need to ask for forgiveness, and we need to look to God to be our power.
• 38:09
  And I challenge you guys to share your testimony. Sharing your testimony makes you free. You're free to share what God has done in your life. It's how that we can lift each other up. We can not be worried that people are judging us. To be empowered is to be free, and to be free is to be honest. And we are most empowered when we are at our weakest.
• 38:43
  He is our empowerment. It is not us. Unlike what culture would tell you. Culture would tell you that you can do it. I'm telling you, you can't. Our empowerment comes from God and God alone.