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Genesis 16:1-15
16:1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children1 by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.2 5 And Sarai 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!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.
7 The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” 9 The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And the angel of the LORD said to her,
“Behold, you are pregnant
and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,3
because the LORD has listened to your affliction.
12 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.”
13 So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,”4 for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”5 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi;6 it lies between Kadesh and Bered.
15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.
[1] 16:2
[2] 16:4
[3] 16:11
[4] 16:13
[5] 16:13
[6] 16:14
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Genesis chapter 16, as we continue our study through the book of Genesis. Genesis 16. Most non Christians that I know when they think of the Bible, they think of it as a book of rules that we were supposed to follow, but that's really not at all what the Bible is about. And we see this clearly in this story because this story story is horrible. It's absolutely horrible.
Jeffrey Heine:There's no way around it. It is about slavery, sexual exploitation, barrenness, lack of faith, abuse, indifference. For the first time, we actually get to hear Sarai speak, and it's a complaint. For the first time, we get to see Abram and Sarai interact with one another, and it's a fight. This is one of those stories that you kinda wish your atheist friend didn't know about, but it probably would be one of the better ones for them to know about, because it shows that all of us are sinners.
Jeffrey Heine:All of us are sinners. There's one hero in the Bible, and that's Jesus. And the entire Bible leads us to him. And that's certainly what we will see in this story. So if you would read with me Genesis 16.
Jeffrey Heine:I'll begin in verse 1. 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.
Jeffrey Heine:It may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife. And he went into Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.
Jeffrey Heine:And Sarai said to Abraham. 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 me and you. But Abram said to Sarai, behold, your servant is in your power.
Jeffrey Heine:Do to her as you please. Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.
Jeffrey Heine:The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. The angel of the Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your off so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man.
Jeffrey Heine:His hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him. And he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. 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. Therefore, the well was called Bir Lehi Roy.
Jeffrey Heine:It lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abraham a son, and Abraham called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Jeffrey Heine:If you would pray with me. Our father, we ask that you would bring more than just clarity to this text. You would bring clarity with conviction by your spirit. You would indeed write these words on our hearts and that you would change us so that we might look more like you, Jesus. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So for Lauren and I's anniversaries, we're, we've been married 23 years. And, for each of our anniversaries, we take a long walk.
Jeffrey Heine:And what we do is we reflect on the past year and then we talk about what we would like to see different in the coming year. So on our 3rd anniversary, as we were walking and we were reflecting on what we wanted the Lord to do or what we wanted to do in the coming year, we decided that we wanted to have a baby. And, so that was our plan. And then the strangest thing happened. You kinda think, well, you make that decision and then you have a baby.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, that's the way it's supposed to go. And, Lauren didn't get pregnant that 1st month. And so we thought, oh, okay. Well, that's odd. Maybe next month.
Jeffrey Heine:And she didn't get pregnant the next month. And it led into a month and then another month and then another month into a year and then to another year. We found ourselves at first not at all being anxious about that. And we really didn't talk about it much. But then it came to the point that we probably, if you could've bought pregnancy tests in bulk at Sam's, we would've done it.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? We were always checking. We became like it became this constant anxiety with us, a constant conversation. We had or Lauren had procedures. We went to doctors.
Jeffrey Heine:People gave us helpful books and advice, telling us things that we needed to be doing differently. Sex became not about intimacy. It became about procreation. It took a toll on our marriage. Once again, this was very gradual steps as we kept going along this way, but soon we found this became a regular source of conflict with us, and something we talked about often.
Jeffrey Heine:After 3 years, Lauren did eventually get pregnant. And so, I know that we only suffered a hint, a hint of what many of you in this room are actually going through. And I know that some of you are daily dealing with the anxiety and the disappointment from not having a child, And we only experienced a small portion of that pain that you are experiencing in full. And I'm sorry about that. I know it takes a toll on you personally, and it takes a toll on your marriage.
Jeffrey Heine:Sarai was experiencing this. Sarah Sarah was experiencing some deep emotional pain. She's childless. And it had been 10 years since God had promised her that she would have a child. She was already old back then.
Jeffrey Heine:She'd probably already accepted the fact that she would never have a child, but then God comes and says, no, you really will. And ripped off that scab. Got her all excited again. Well, maybe I will. Only to be disappointed after 10 long years of waiting.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, she is way past the hope of having a child, and desperation is setting in. A desperation that honestly, we in this room would have a hard time understanding. Because in her day, becoming a mother was not an option. It was a duty. It was where women found their identity.
Jeffrey Heine:You either had children or you were a complete failure. Just look at look at how verse 1 is worded, and we're just gonna through this text. I'm just gonna kinda walk through verse by verse through this text. Look how verse 1 is worded. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had born him no children.
Jeffrey Heine:It doesn't say that Sarai had no children. It says that she had born her husband no children. She had failed him. She was a failure as a wife. It's a little harder for us to understand this in our time, being so removed from that culture, but during this time, a woman's only value was in her ability to have children, in particular, to have sons.
Jeffrey Heine:In the ancient near east, a woman's one great avenue to really living a fulfilled life was to bear sons. And there was enormous pressure, not just by your husband, but by the entire community for you to have sons. Sons were needed for protection. This was a tribal culture. And usually, the largest tribe won.
Jeffrey Heine:And so you needed sons that could grow up and defend. You also needed sons in order to make a living because you needed people working in the fields, people taking care of the sheep. Your children were also your retirement plan. There were no mutual funds for sheep. You were depending on your children to take care of you when you were older.
Jeffrey Heine:I tell our kids all the time that they are our retirement plan. They better take care of us. They already use that against us at times. They will remind me, just remember, I'll be taking care of you someday. And it's true.
Jeffrey Heine:They will. Now today, we don't have children for those reasons. We don't have children for our security or our financial stability. Like, they are the opposite of giving you financial stability. But we do struggle with the same things as Sarai.
Jeffrey Heine:Do not for a moment look down on her culture and see it as somehow as being primitive compared to yours. Every culture places ultimate value on something. It says, if you have this, you're somebody. You don't have this, and you're nobody. In America, in our culture, it's beauty or your education or how much money you have.
Jeffrey Heine:Just think if if a tall, blonde, gorgeous woman with a beautiful body comes in interviews for a job, alongside other equally trained women who are not as beautiful, who gets the job? It's the same one who got invited to all the dances. We value beauty. And so while our modern culture might not look down on a culture, or might look down on a culture that puts so much value on having children, having sons, and see it as primitive. Sarah would look at our culture and say, yeah, but at least I didn't struggle with eating disorders.
Jeffrey Heine:At least I didn't feel the need to spend endless hours in the gym, not for health, but so that I might look beautiful. At least I didn't eat kale. Alright? We become obsessed with these unrealistic standards for beauty because if you're that, you're somebody. If you're not that, you're nobody.
Jeffrey Heine:Every culture has something they place ultimate value in. In Birmingham, it's what neighborhood do you live in? Or what sports do your kids play? Don't you think it's odd? Like, never in the history of man have people ever put signs in their yards just to tell people what sports their kids play.
Jeffrey Heine:But but it's commonplace in our culture. We don't think anything of it. It's the cultural air we breathe. But every culture clings to something, says, you're this, you're somebody. You're not this, you're nobody.
Jeffrey Heine:In other words, every culture has its own definition of barrenness, what it means to be barren. Let me ask you. What makes you feel barren? What makes you feel significant? What makes you feel secure when you have it, but you're really anxious, just about even the thought of someday losing it?
Jeffrey Heine:Here's the ironic part of this story. We all know, we're gonna get to Hagar in a moment. We all know that Hagar was a slave, but Sarai was equally a slave. They both are slaves. Sarai was a slave to the expectations of her culture, and her slavery was every bit as crushing as Hagar's.
Jeffrey Heine:This is one of the themes of the Bible that the Bible teaches clearly is that every person is in bondage to something. Every person needs to be freed. Sarai, in her bondage, she is desperate, and it leads her to go to her husband with a proposal, since she can't have kids. She says, well, Abram, what if you have kids with Hagar? Why don't you use Hagar as my surrogate?
Jeffrey Heine:Now hear me. There's I've I've heard this taught so many different ways, but there is no way around this. This is sexual exploitation. Hagar, here, is not treated like a person. She is treated like a piece of property.
Jeffrey Heine:She has absolutely no say in the matter whatsoever, And Abram agrees to it. Do you see a pattern here? A barren land is what drove Abram to Egypt the first time. And now a barren woman is what drives him to an Egyptian servant. But Abram doesn't know how to deal with barrenness.
Jeffrey Heine:He feels like he has to do something himself about it. He can't trust the Lord about it. And once again, Abram is being led by fear and not by faith. And can we all be honest here for just a moment? Can't you understand why they did it?
Jeffrey Heine:It'd been 10 years. Just how long is the appropriate amount of time that you're supposed to wait for the Lord? 10 years is a long time of waiting. At some point, don't you just have to take things in your own hands and do it yourself? How long are you supposed to keep trusting, waiting for God to keep His word?
Jeffrey Heine:As horrible as this situation was, I mean, it was actually commonplace in this day. If a woman couldn't have children, she could force one of her slaves to have children for her. This was culturally accepted, and no one in their culture, except for Hagar, would have thought that there was anything wrong about this, but that doesn't make it right. Fear is what is driving this decision. For Sarai, it was fear of not measuring up to other women, fear of possibly losing her husband, Fear of being seen not just by her husband, but but by her entire community as useless.
Jeffrey Heine:For Abram, it was the fear of being old and still not having an error. And he feared, probably, honestly, being in this relationship with Sarai, and the turmoil, and the grumbling within their marriage, and going into another month, and another month, and another month in such turmoil. But ultimately, the fear that was underneath every one of those fears was the fear that God wasn't enough, that God would not be enough for them, that God was not a man of His word, a God of His word. And if they wanted to be blessed, well, they were gonna have to work for it and bless themselves. Now there are literally a 1000 ways that we can apply this to our lives.
Jeffrey Heine:Let me just mention 2 really quick. For those of you who are single, sex outside of marriage is culturally accepted. You do that and not anybody in our culture is gonna bat an eye against that perfectly legitimate in their eyes, Yet, it clearly goes against God's word. God said, wait. Wait until marriage.
Jeffrey Heine:And if marriage never comes, trust that I will be enough. Are you gonna take God at his word? It's also culturally accepted as a norm, and that we need to seek our security through financial means, and that we should pursue wealth. Yet, God has told us to be generous with our money. What we do with our money shows where we have placed our trust.
Jeffrey Heine:So where have we placed our trust? Are we trusting in God, or are we trusting in our wealth? The bottom line is this. It's the question we keep hitting in Genesis. Are we being driven by fear, or are we being driven by faith?
Jeffrey Heine:Abram and Sarai are being driven by fear at this moment. Let's see what happened. Sarai's plan worked. Yay. Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm sure it brought so much peace in that household. So much happiness. I mean, no. Like, Hagar gets pregnant, instantly Sarai regrets it. That was a bad decision.
Jeffrey Heine:Instantly. We read in verse 4 that once Hagar is pregnant, she looked with contempt on her mistress. Can you really blame her? Can you? We don't know if this was a look of, well, look who can have a child and look who doesn't have a child.
Jeffrey Heine:Or whether it was a look of, I can't believe you did this to me. We're not sure what that look was, but but Hagar finally had a little bit of power, and she was using it. Can you blame her, the way that she has been treated? I can't imagine how intolerable that household became. You know, a servant wasn't even supposed to look their master in the eye, but I bet that Hagar started looking at Sarai.
Jeffrey Heine:And I bet, you know, when Hagar was asked to do something, she might have said, oh, I'm I'm sorry. You know, carrying your husband's child, I probably should rest. Can you imagine the tension there? It finally becomes intolerable. Sarai has enough of it, and so she storms at her husband.
Jeffrey Heine:And we read this in verse 5. And Sarai said to Abram, may the wrong done to me be on you. I love that. It was her idea. I mean like, but may the wrong done to me be on you.
Jeffrey Heine:I gave my servant to your embrace and when she saw that she conceived, she looked on me with contempt. This is really tame in English. Really tame in English, but let's just say that Sarai is ticked, and in Hebrew, her speech is vulgar. The word that we have translated as embraced, actually means between the legs. Sarai is screaming.
Jeffrey Heine:I just threw this woman between your legs, and you are glad to have her. May God judge between us. She's ticked. And by the way, this is the first time we ever see polygamy in the Bible. Goes well, doesn't it?
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. Anytime polygamy is ever mentioned in the Bible, it's presented in a negative light. And when Sarai is done screaming at Abram, notice how Abram responds. It honestly, it makes me wanna just grab him by the shirt, and beat him. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:It is callous and cold. It's hard to believe. Verse 6, he says, behold, your servants and your power. Do to her as you please. I mean, if the if this were to happen today, this would be Sarai coming home to yell at Abram as he's laying on the couch watching TV, saying, how could you?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, I know it was my idea for you to sleep with her, but how could you? And Abram's like, would you just leave me alone? Do whatever you want with her. The great Abram. It's not one of his finer moments here.
Jeffrey Heine:Abram needs a savior. We read then that Sarai did whatever she pleased. She dealt harshly with Hagar, and this is not talking about words. The word harsh here, harshly, is the same word that's used when we get to Exodus, to describe what the Egyptian taskmasters did to the Hebrews. Sarai abused her, and as a result, Hagar had no choice but to run, and she ran.
Jeffrey Heine:It's it's hard to imagine a more destitute person than Hagar here. She has been enslaved, sexually exploited, and abused. Her entire life has been hard. It's been cruel. She's been tossed around from powerful person to powerful person.
Jeffrey Heine:No one has ever stood up for her. She was pharaoh's property at one point, and pharaoh just gave her away. Gave her to Sarai. And to Sarai, she was nothing more than a tool to be used and then abused by her. And Abram did absolutely nothing to protect her.
Jeffrey Heine:He slept with her, impregnated her, and then refused to take care of her. So now she's just on the run, and she's a pregnant fugitive. An image I have of Hagar and the Hagars of this world, Lauren, this last week, she came back, she was traveling somewhere, she was on First Avenue North, it was at night, and she said, I just saw the most heartbreaking scene. Said, A van pulled off, and the van doors opened, and a group of girls got out, and then just dispersed, all on First Avenue North. She's not, maybe, maybe there was legitimate reasons for this, but I don't think so.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm pretty sure those women didn't get there by choice, but that there's They have been the victims of people who have power over them. Sexually exploiting them. And hear me, Birmingham is a hub of sexual exploitation in this country. These are the Hagars of the world. She's on the run because nobody's looked after her.
Jeffrey Heine:She's trying to get back to Egypt, and there she meets a stranger. We read this in verse 7. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, The spring on the way to shore. This is the first angel that we have in Genesis. So this is the first angel we see in scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:But this is not an ordinary angel. This isn't an angel of the Lord. This is the angel of the Lord. And in the Old Testament, whenever you read the angel of the Lord, this usually is the Lord Himself who's come down in some kind of human form. The word angel just means messenger.
Jeffrey Heine:We know this because even when the angel of the Lord spoke, he spoke in first person as if he was God. And Hagar also refers to him later as being God. And so we should really understand this is the Lord himself who's come and is speaking to her. And he comes down, and notice he finds Hagar. He found her.
Jeffrey Heine:He didn't bump into her. It wasn't an accident. The Lord was looking for her. No one else cared about this woman, but the Lord did, and he sought her out. Like a shepherd leaving the 99 and going after the one, the Lord looked for her.
Jeffrey Heine:And then notice he calls her by name. We read this in verse 8. He says, and he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? I I know that might not seem like a big deal, but nowhere else in the Bible does God ever call a woman by her name. And not just in the Bible, but in all of ancient near eastern literature, whatever deity is there, never calls name.
Jeffrey Heine:I know your name. He calls her by name here. He does not address Sarai by name or Rachel or Rebecca or any of the matriarchs, And although everybody else has forsaken her, God does not. And he speaks to her gently He says, where have you come from? Where are you going?
Jeffrey Heine:He knows these things. He even mentions Sarai, and he knows that she's a slave to Sarai. He knows these things, but he wants her to talk, and he wants her to be heard. Then the Lord tells her that He's going to greatly multiply her offspring, and then tells her to name her child Ishmael. This name is significant.
Jeffrey Heine:Ishmael means, God hears. And her son's gonna be a reminder, that no matter how bad things get, whenever she looks at him, she will be reminded, God hears me. He hears me and he listens to me, even when no one else does. And then God, he gives a prophecy over Ishmael. He, the angel of the Lord says, your child is going to be a wild donkey of a man.
Jeffrey Heine:I love that description. You're gonna be a wild donkey of a man he is. This would have been an enormous comfort to her. Basically, what what the Lord is saying is, you've been powerless your whole life. You've never had control over your own life, but know for your child, no one will control him.
Jeffrey Heine:No one will ever have power over him. I can't think of anything that would have been more of a comfort for her. Then knowing that the cycle will be broken and that her child is gonna live a completely different life than she lived. Her son will not be anyone's property. He will be powerful.
Jeffrey Heine:He will be free. In verse 13, we read that 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. For the first time in Hagar's life, she was seen for who she was.
Jeffrey Heine:Not seen as property. Not seen as just a surrogate mom. She's seen as a person created in the image of God, one who has infinite value and dignity. For the first time in her life, she felt protected, safe, God looking out for her. She names the well where they were Bir Lehi Roy, which means the well of the living one who sees me.
Jeffrey Heine:And that's really what this story is about. The Lord sees. He sees every hurt. He sees every neglect. He sees every tear shed in loneliness.
Jeffrey Heine:And he sees it for both Hagar and Sarai. We're gonna look at Sarai next week, But he sees them both. Hear me. There's not one area in your life that the Lord does not see, and there is not a place on earth that the Lord will not go in pursuit of you. And hear me.
Jeffrey Heine:As God's children. We need to see the people he sees. Church, we need to go after the people who the world does not notice. The people who are neglected, then the people who are powerless. And we need to make sure they feel safe and protected.
Jeffrey Heine:We need to extend the love of our father towards them. We need to leave the 99 and go after the one. That's what God's children do. They look like their dad in doing this. Let me ask you.
Jeffrey Heine:Does this story as we've been walking through this, does it remind you of any other story that you come across, Perhaps one in the New Testament? Perhaps a story of a destitute, powerless woman. One who'd been divorced many times. Having to live with a stranger to make ends meet. She goes and she meets a stranger by a well.
Jeffrey Heine:The stranger seems to somehow know everything about her, yet is not repelled by her. Just like the Lord pursued Hagar, the Lord pursued that woman at the well, and Jesus went out of his way to find her. It's almost as if, and I know this isn't the right language, but it's almost as if the Lord can't help Himself. Something you see throughout scripture. It's almost like he can't help it.
Jeffrey Heine:He sees a powerless person, and he's gonna go there. He sees an oppressed person, he's going to go there. It seems like his eye is always looking for the person that the world has neglected. God is a God who sees, and his church needs to be a church who sees. Sees the hurting, sees the broken in this world, and pursues them with the same passion that Jesus pursued us.
Jeffrey Heine:God is the God who pursues those whom the world has forsaken, and that's the good news of the gospel. It's always about the gospel. God comes to our brokenness, and he brings healing. God will never leave us. God will never forsake us.
Jeffrey Heine:And the reason he will never leave us and he will never forsake us is because he was actually forsaken for us. And we see this on the cross. All of us have sinned. All of us deserve not God's love, but we deserve his wrath, But his wrath was not poured on us. His wrath was poured on his son, Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:On the cross, Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus was forsaken for us. Jesus was punished for us so that we would never be. Hear me. In light of the cross in light of the cross, no one here can ever doubt that God will do whatever it takes to be with you.
Jeffrey Heine:Whatever it takes, God will do it to be with you. He will not forsake you. He sees you. He hears you, and he asks that you would trust him. Does that mean that everything's gonna get better for you?
Jeffrey Heine:Not necessarily. I mean, we heard that in John's testimony. We see that here with Hagar. The Lord tells Hagar to return to Sarai. Please hear me.
Jeffrey Heine:If you're in an abusive relationship, this isn't God saying, go back to your, you know, abusive relationship. This is a very particular word for Hagar, but He sends her back into a horrible situation. We don't know if Sarai quit the abuse, but things were certainly tense. But now, through all of this tension, she had hope. Yes, Sarah, I still hated her.
Jeffrey Heine:Yes, she was gonna be kicked out 13 years from now. The tensions will be bad for the next 13 years, but she had hope. She knew that there was a God who loved her, a God who cared for her, a God who heard her, a God who sees her, and a God who's working all things together for her good. A God who has a plan for her life, and that changed everything for her. Wouldn't you love to have that hope?
Jeffrey Heine:It's available for all those who trust in Christ. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, you have pursued us with a relentless passion. You would do anything in order to have us. You even gave your life.
Jeffrey Heine:You were forsaken so that we might never be. Thank you, Jesus. And I pray that all of us in this room would live a life that reflects that. And if anyone has not called out to you, may they do so today. Tomorrow is never the day for salvation.
Jeffrey Heine:Today's the day, and may we call out and trust you, Jesus. And we pray this in your strong name. Amen.