The Beatitudes

We're going to turn to the scriptures now, and we're going to turn to Matthew Chapter 5. And we've been looking at these be attitudes, this sort of introduction to the sermon on the Mount for several weeks now. And so that's what we're turning to. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 1. Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.

His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. He said, blessed, the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blest are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Bless are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Bless to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. Bless to the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Bless to those who are persecuted because of righteousness. For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Bless to you, when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets, who were before you. Good evening. Please take a seat.

Welcome to the name of the Lord Jesus. Again, my name is Ben, if you don't know me on the staff team here at the church. It's good to have you, if you're at home. Welcome from me and good to see you guys here tonight as well. Joy to be among the brothers and sisters.

We are looking at the next beatitude as Pete said, blessed are the peacemakers. This is quite a tough 1. It's it's been quite difficult. It's prodded me in some uncomfortable ways. So I'm just going to ask for the Lord's help before we get started.

Our father in heaven, we thank you that you are speaking God who has given us ears to hear your words. And father, you've spoken to us because we need to hear these words. So I pray that if there's anything uncomfortable or difficult about tonight that you would convict us of our distance from you and our sin in our heart. But then you would also show us the lord Jesus and the Prince of Peace that he is. I ask in his name, amen.

Okay. Alfred Noble died in 18 96. And he caused a lot of controversy when he died because he left a lot of his wealth to the establishment of a new prize, the Nobel Prize. As we all know it to be. Now, in his will, he wrote this.

All of my remaining realizable assets are to be dispersed as follows. The capital converted to to safe securities, but my executives is to constitute a fund, the interest in which is to be distributed annually prizes to those who during the preceding year have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. So he wanted to celebrate those who had contributed to the greatest benefit of to humankind. And there are 5 categories he wanted to celebrate. 1 of which was this.

1 part, to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. So was born the Nobel Peace Prize. You might not know, but there have been 101 Nobel Peace Prize winners since 19 oh 1, which was the first year that the Nobel Prize were given. Some of the winners include Barack Obama, the European Union, Mother Theresa, and the Dalai Lama, as well the fourteenth 1, if you want it to be specific. Barack Obama said this, and is and speech of receiving the award.

I received this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations. That for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter and can bend history in the direction of justice. So to receive the Nobel Prize for peace is to have contributed towards humanity's highest aspiration according to Obama.

And achieved 1 of the greatest benefits to humankind according to mister Alfred Noble himself. So to be recognized as a peacemaker, it's a pretty good thing, I think. You can walk down the high street like this if you are given the Nobel Peace Prize, can't you? It is interesting then, isn't it? That immediately after this beatitude that Jesus gives us, He promises not honor.

He doesn't promise recognition or an award for our peacemaking. But rather, he promises persecution. He says, blessed are those who have persecuted because of righteousness, which means, in part, all of the stuff that he's just said, all of the all of the beatitudes constitute a righteous person. Therefore, blessed are those who who are peacemakers, blessed, sorry, persecuted by the peacemakers. And so Alfred Noble would say to you, well, how on earth can a peacemaker be persecuted Jesus?

I want to honor the peacemaker. In fact, I've created an award to celebrate the peacemaker and what they've done. Oh, and by the way, Jesus, this award has gone on to international acclaim. It's prestigious all over the world. Because peace is a celebrated virtue, isn't it?

All over the world? Wherever you go? Isn't persecution Jesus and division the exact opposite of what a peacemaker is trying to achieve. And why is it that Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace also said Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the Earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Would Jesus win a Nobel Peace Prize? For saying something like that? He's just surprising things that Jesus is saying. Why does Barack Obama get an award for his peace making? But the Christian piece making involve a sword and result in persecution.

I think it's because peace means more than Alfred Noble thinks it means. Peace equals oneness. In the bible's language, peace means oneness. I mean, there's an awful lot of stuff that goes along with that. But predominantly, it means oneness, the Greek word in this passage, blessed are the peacemakers.

The word for peace is literally joining together into a whole. Blessed, in other words, are the together joiners. So that's completeness, isn't it? When you join things together, that's unity, that's togetherness, You might know the Hebrew word, shalom, which you say to each other, peace peace, shalom, shalom. That means rest, harmony, wholeness, fullness, goodness, all of those things.

So peace is not just a call to compromise, Alfred Noble, It's not just to kind of fragment or bend the boundaries to sort of let anything and everything go. Or you're saying something that's offending me. Well, Alright. I'll just not be so offended by it, and then we have peace. It's not that.

It's not peace by any cost either. I think we wrongly think of peace, we wrongly think of peace being achieved if 2 parties agree to turn their backs and go away amicably. That is not peace, according to the Bible. Peace is actually a call to holiness, to come togetherness, for unity, not to bend or fragment, not to just lay down arms, but to come together and be 1. You might have noticed also that this beatitude is the seventh 1, if anyone is eagle eyed out there, and notice that.

And Jesus is the master of aramaic. Pete was telling me that the beatitudes are almost like a rap in aramaic, the rhythm they have, and the way that their distributed. Jesus is the master communicator, isn't it? You'll know that if you know Jesus. This is the seventh beatitude.

He knows what he's doing. By landing this on the seventh 1. 7 is the perfect number in scripture. It means wholeness, doesn't it? It signifies finishedness, completeness, So we know creation, when God made the world in 7 days, it wasn't whole or complete or finished.

The full stop wasn't on the sentence until the seventh day when God rested. And so the peacemaker lands on the seventh beatitude because we through our piece making are to make a completed oneness. So unlike the Nobel Prize, as I've already spelled out quite a few times, the objective is not just fraternity between the nations. You've got a fence between them. It's not just laying down arms and saying, oh, we'll stop shooting at each other.

We'll stop spitting bullets at each other. We'll just coexist side by side. The objective is to unify somehow. To join together into a whole, that's what Jesus is going on about here. He also placed this beatitude after blessed of the pure in heart for they will see God.

And James helpfully explained for us last week, didn't he? That purity means an undivided heart for God. He said a pure gold ring is made of nothing but gold. A pure heart is made of nothing but love and desire for God. Purity means oneness And actually, so what Jesus is saying here by sticking it after this 1 is once you have a pure heart for God, you will then look outwards and want to be undivided pure in a sense with your brothers and sisters.

In fact, the outworking of a pure heart will be peacemaking. And 1 with God, I wanna be 1 with my brothers and sisters. So that's the bonus application of James' sermon. Last Sunday, he had 5 points. That's my sixth point, tagged on to his sermon.

Application, the pure heart will be peacemakers. Right. But being 1, yeah, that just means you all look the same, and you all come out with the same haircuts, and you all have the same beard. Isn't that right when Rory gets up? And then someone else gets up and Ben gets up.

Who's even preaching? It's just the bloke behind a beard, isn't it? Being 1 is not homogenization, where you just have a single mesh. There is beauty. I mean, you can't, at home, can't see.

Us, but we're a chaotic beautiful mess of people here. And we're all different, but we're 1 in Christ, aren't we? And this is not just a generic platitude, either. So you might think, oh, man. Just be 1.

Yeah? Peace love. Understanding. Just be 1. Just be 1.

Yep. That's more about passive tolerance of other people, isn't it? It's like, yeah, you do you, man. You do you, Paul Simpson. Whatever you've got going on over there.

The hat, I love it. You do you. Yeah. As long as you're not hurting anyone with your hat, Paul. Keep keep keep going with it.

It's not about that. Oneness is not a homogenization, and it's not just a meaningless platitude. It's about joining people together into a united body who've got the same head, who are going in the same direction, who've got the same values and objectives in life, who are walking alongside each other saying, come on. We're going that way. Let's go.

I know you're stumbling a bit here. I know you're falling a bit here. I know you're struggling, but remember, that's where we're going. And so if we take peacemaking to be all of that that I've just said, And if I can summarize it as this, actively joining people together into a united body. If that's peace, peace making, then I think we can start to see why sometimes you're not going to win an award for that.

Are you? No one's going to knock on your door with the Nobel Peace Prize for that. And actually, sometimes you're gonna be persecuted for attempting that. You might even sometimes need a sword as Jesus says, to cleave people away from unhelpful things that are preventing them from joining the body. And it's why ultimately, it's not actually possible to live at peace with everyone.

Paul says this in Romans 12, if it is possible, As far as it depends on you and your efforts and what you're doing, live at peace with everyone. If possible, as far as it depends on you, and in Hebrews 12, make every effort not a given in scripture that we will be able to live at peace with everyone, but we have to make every effort. But even when we make every effort, sometimes that we do everything we can, peace as Jesus means it is still not possible, is it? We might not take up arms against someone and just starts spitting bullets at them. We might actually comfortably live with people and enjoy living alongside them, but it may still not be possible to have this completed seventh beatitude, finished, full stop after the sentence, oneness with them, unity that Jesus is talking about here.

And the reason for that is because there's no peace for the wicked. We say no for the wicked. I was chatting to Catherine about this before the service. This is something that we just say all the time. When you're really busy and someone drops some papers on your desk, the rest for the wicked, is there?

And we sort of joke about it and we sort of a moaning that we're, you know, we actually love the work and we're not keep it coming. Yeah. But actually, we say we say we say, oh, no rest for the wicked. But actually, it's a biblical doctrine no rest for the wicked. It's quite serious.

Biblical doctrine. It's mainly derived from these 2 passages in Isaiah. Aziah 48 verse 22, there is no peace says to the Lord, for the wicked, and Isaiah 57, verse 20. But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no rest, peace, no wholeness, no oneness, no unity, no harmony for the wicked.

Because there can be no unity of light and dark, 1 John 1 verse 5, says God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. And so there can't be any joining together of wickedness in God, can there? There's no light in the darkness. There's no darkness in the light.

They're separated. And so people who are wicked, who are dark, can't be united to him. We're fractured away from God. We're broken. We're now enemies with him, and we end up not wanting to be with him.

We go, well, that's different to what I am. I don't want to be next to that. And so, we turn away from him, and we want to be independent, and we want to be separated, but here's the problem, we were made to be 1 with God. We were made to share in the eternal joy of the father, son, and the spirit who were 1, and we were made to be invited into that and enjoy that. Not to be his enemy, and cut off from him.

And so it's no wonder is it that people who aren't 1 with God in this world burn out. It's no wonder that there's no rest in this world or satisfaction Yeah. New York is the city that never sleeps, is it? It never rests. It never finds that satisfaction that it's going afterwards, no matter the money that it has, the experiences that it offers to people, people in that city feel empty, restless, never peaceful.

They're like the tossing sea, God says. And the waves go this way, trying to find meaning and happiness and rest and peace but it doesn't find it over there. Alright. So we'll go over this way and try this. Oh, a little bit of peace.

Oh, no. It's not really peace. But let's try that again. Let's keep doing that over and over again, and then maybe we'll have peace. And all the while, the waves just kick up more and more of mud.

God says, and life gets messier. No wonder, that is the case for people in this world who have left the rest giver, the 1 who says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened I will give you rest. There is no peace for the wicked, says the Lord. There is no joining together, this sort of oneness with God and those who are enemies with him. And Woe to anyone who teaches otherwise, This is the bit that got me.

Maybe you're like me. Maybe you find this idea quite difficult and quite hard to believe. Maybe you're starting You've got questions, or you've got objections, and you're like, yeah, but hang on, Ben, what about this? Or what about that? Oh, aren't you being a bit too harsh here there, Ben?

And if that's you, then I want to say, I'm there too, I'm with you as well, because that seems to me no peace at all, none at all, no peace at all. What about a little bit? What about We need to hear what God himself says to us here in Jeremiah, chapter 6. They dress the wound of my people as though we're not serious. Peace, peace, they say, when there is no peace.

The wound of sin that God is talking about here is serious restlessness. It's eternal restlessness, it's war against God, is death cut off from the life giver, the rest giver, We're guilty with this wound before the Holy Judge. It's serious this wound. And God warns us that though our hearts want to say peace, peace, peace, look, it's alright God. Calm down God.

It's not that bad. They're not really at war with you, are they? They just don't know you. God says there is no peace for the wicked. And it gets worse as well because this fracture with God that people, the wicked have, is ultimately a fracture with God's people too.

You'll probably know this verse. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common, What fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Beliar?

What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols. Fracture with God means a fracture with God's people in the wicked as well. And now look, we can have relationships with unbelievers. We're not just in the little gated commune as Christians, are we?

And we just deliver rude driver can bring us a McDonald's, but after that, go away. Thank you very much. We can even love people who are unbelievers if you're a Christian. We can even be loved deeply by unbelievers. Some of my own family are unbelievers, and yet I share that family love and fellowship with them.

But what Jesus is saying is we can't have this completed seventh be aptitude, finished. All loose ends tied up at the end of the day, togetherness, oneness with people. I think we know that, don't we? No matter how much we want it, we cannot have this peace with people who are not at peace with God. Alfred Noble says the abolition of a standing army is peace, but Jesus just says, no.

You won't have this true peace as I meant it. This eternal, complete whole, beautiful oneness with someone until they are joined together with God. Therefore, we are persecuted because of righteousness. Because how many Christians have stood up over the centuries and been killed for preaching a repentance of sins in Jesus Christ. How many of us suffer fractuous relationships with friends, family, colleagues?

Because we have tried to explain in 1 way or another that they need to come and listen to God and find forgiveness in Christ. So what does God do then? Yeah. There is no peace for the wicked. Does he announce that terrible, awful, heartbreaking news, and then just close the book, shut up shop, draw stumps, leave it there.

As you turn to his creation and go, well, you didn't want anything to do with me. So it's fine. Go your own way. Have no peace. Obviously, he doesn't do that.

I actually want us to notice how god is even more uncomfortable than you and I about the fact that there is no peace with the wicked. I feel uncomfortable about that. God is infinitely more uncomfortable about it. Because listen to this, the God of peace sends the prince of peace with the gospel of peace to fulfill the covenant of peace, to bring peace to the wicked. That is what God is about.

Let me translate that for you. The God of joining together sends the prince of joining together with the gospel of joining together to fulfill the covenant of joining together to join together again with the wicked. Isn't that good news? That is what God loves to do, and that, as we know, is God, the Father, sending the son to die on the cross for our sins, so that through faith, our sins have been paid for by his sacrifice. We're now justified again.

And then this amazing passage in Romans, chapter 5, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ultimate peacemaker. There was no peace for us. Yeah. We need to remember that we at 1 point were the wicked.

If we're in Christ. Now, we at once were lost and separated from God. Ephesians 2 puts it this way, Remember, Cornerstone Church, that at 1 time you were separated from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreignness to the covenants of the promise without hope and without God in the world. So that's pretty devastating, separated, excluded, foreigners without hope, without God, not to join together, no peace for the wicked, but verse 13, Now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he, himself, is our peace Our joining together, he has made the 2 groups, 1, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.

So he has joined us together again with the father, and he's made us 1 with him. He himself is our great joiner, a togetherer. That's who Jesus is. And so, I love this. The angels proclaiming on the hillside to the Shepard when Christ is born.

What do they say? Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on those on whom his favor rests. Peace on earth, to those on whom is favorite rest. Here is Jesus, they say. The God, God, the son incarnate, and he's come to make peace where there was no peace.

You wicked people. Here is Christ. The peacemaker to bring you to God. That is the good news of great joy for all people. Christ, the prince of peace has come.

So at this point, Before we go any further, I'm gonna ask you, are you at peace with God? Are you joined together with God? Is that how you think of yourself? By the blood of Jesus. Because if not, then actually God says you are treating your wound as if it is not serious.

You're saying, peace, peace to yourself when there is no peace as God. That's not me, Ben speaking, bloke with a beard preaching, those are God's words. And so I wanna ask you, do you actually feel what the Bible describes here? Do you feel restlessness? Do you feel like those waves But are going over here.

No. No happiness over there. Let's try over here. No. No over none over there.

Do you feel like a foreigner in this world? Do you feel excluded? Like that Ephesians passage said. Do you feel like somehow something in your life isn't right? You're missing something.

Without hope, without peace, without good. God, the good news is if you're hungry for peace, if you thirst for want this with God, if you feel poor in spirit in your morning, then you will you will have seen through these sermon series we're doing in the beatitudes that God has made a peace offering for us, through Jesus, which is available for you, if you hunger and thirst, if you mourn, if you feel restless, Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. But there's a warning as well. This is something that we need to deal with, seriously. Don't deal with your wound as if it's not serious as God.

Jesus said, settle matters quickly with your adversary who's taking you to court. Do it while you're still together on the way or your adversary may hand you over to the judge. And the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown in prison. So you, if you're not at peace with God, are on your way to court. And here is Jesus walking alongside you, pleading with you, will you sign the papers?

I've I've I've signed the papers in my blood. Your name is written in my blood. Will you sign it? Or will you get to the court having not signed those papers with your signature? Yes, I will accept this pardon.

I will go on with you. Are you at peace with good? The peacemakers, when you have peace with good, you become a peacemaker. This is Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17. My prayer is not for them alone.

I also I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be 1 father. Just as you are in me, and I am in you. So here is Jesus praying to the Father and what is his request? His request is for oneness, for unity, for peace between those who believe in him through the message of the gospel, And he says, father, just as you are in me and I'm in you. I mean, I haven't got time to go into that, but that is crazy, isn't it?

The oneness that God has, the father has with the son, that's the oneness he wants us to have. Goodness me. Right? Well, we can chat about that later if you want. But Who is this true 1, this, available to according to Jesus?

When he's praying this prayer. Those who believe in him through the message of the gospel. He says, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be 1. That's who this peace is available to. So how do you become a peacemaker according to Jesus?

You make Jesus believers, who believe in him through the message of the gospel, you share the gospel You share the love of Christ. Effectively, you build the church. You could translate blessed of the peacemakers as this, blessed of the church builders, because that is the peace making that Jesus is talking about here. Father, all those who believe in me, who come into the church because they've heard the gospel, who have given their lives to me, who have countersigned that document that I have written in my blood, all of those father, I pray that they will be 1. I pray that they will have peace.

So blessed are the church builders. That's the project Jesus is working on. That's the joining together he's interested in. That's the peace, the Nobel peace prize, the Jesus peace prize that he would give out are to the church builders. Now this is I thought this was quite funny.

You might have seen this before at the end of the Corona Chronicles. Hey, there's our logo. There it is animated. And what is that showing? That is peacemaking happening before your very eyes.

Let's watch it again. This is Matthew 5, verse 9. Bless of the peacemakers. Corner the stone church kicks in. Brilliant.

So when you see that, you'll think of this beatitude now, because that's what it means to be a peacemaker, to be a church builder, to bring people into the family, And then because of Christ's prayer that we would be 1 and have peace, we're 1. The words peacemaker, by the way, only appears at 1 other time in the whole bible. It's in James chapter 3. And in verse 18, it says this. Peace makers who so You sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

So the fruit of the peacemaker, the fruit of the church builder is a harvest of righteousness. That's not gonna win you a Nobel Peace Price. Alfred Noble is not gonna knock on your door. Taras isn't gonna win a Nobel Peace Price, is he? For Trinity Church Minsk.

But actually, Trinity Church Minsk is the prize of Christ. And he is going to delight in that church forever. Because there are some blokes preaching the gospel, and people coming to know the Lord Jesus and being made 1 in Him. So blessed are they for there will be called Children of God, Sorry, there you go. Less of they for they will be called the Children of God.

Very briefly, before we get to the application, this is a short point. The blessing on the peacemakers. Why is it a blessing to be a peacemaker? Well, children reflect their parents, don't they? Some some of you, that might be more concerning than others.

Look at Steve Sibbs. Children look like their parents. They look like them, so we will look like God, we'll look like him, we'll act like him, and I think that's a blessing, isn't it? Because 1 day all of creation is gonna turn to us and look at us and go, they are the children, of God, they are behaving like their heavenly father. And that will be a blessing.

But I actually think the main blessing of this work is actually in the fruit of it. It's being in the family, seeing people be united in Christ. As we're peacemaking, we're not given another reward later for doing the job. It's not like we do the job and then we get paycheck, the paycheck is the fruit of the job. It's seeing people come in.

It's being 1 with 1 another, isn't it? Isn't that a joy? I think we found this last year difficult, haven't we? Because we haven't been with each other. And I think imagine what it would have been like if we were totally cut off from the church.

If we weren't able to log in on lines and watch a sermon or hear anything, if we weren't able to come and be amongst the body of believers, that would have been devastating for us. Routed met here for the first time in ages on Friday. I've actually heard that it was pretty crazy, off the wall bike. Rohri, Kenneth, had so much energy and was bouncing around all over the place, I've heard. But from multiple different WhatsApp channels, people pinging me with messages saying, what a great time rooted had?

Because they were back together amongst the brothers and sisters. So blessed are they for they will be called children of God, The blessing is in the fruit, your peacemaking, you're bringing people together, and therefore your children of God. So right, what does this mean for us? Jesus actually gives us 2 very practical applications for this peace making, this 1 making. He says in verse 43 of Matthew chapter 5, You've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your father in heaven.

So here's the link. Bless of those Bless of the peacemakers for they will be called Children of God. And here, those who love their enemies and pray for them, are the children of the father in heaven. So there you go. Peace makers, love their enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.

And Jesus actually teaches us how to pray, doesn't he? So here's a prayer. I want you to pray. Think about someone who who is not at peace with God, and therefore not at complete peace with you. And pray this for them, our father in heaven, would your name be hallowed in their life?

Would your kingdom come in their heart? Would your will be done in them? Give them their daily bread, forgive their sins, for they do not know what they are doing, lead them not into temptation but deliver them from the evil 1. That is peacemaking. That is praying to bring them into peace with God through Christ and so also by extension into the body.

Into this oneness. So I want to say, can you think of 1 person to pray that for? Maybe tonight as you go home or lie in bed? That's the first thing. Prey to be a peacemaker.

Secondly, peacemakers are lovers. We love people. We serve them. Here's verse 16 of Matthew 5. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds.

And glorify your father in heaven. So we must love people with such good deeds that they cannot help but turn and glorify God. That is the other way that Christ wants us to be a peacemaker, to be a church builder. So we need to keep the acts of kindness up. Maybe think about who's not in the church now.

We've gazelled each other, and it's been glorious. Let's keep doing that because I personally have loved it, and it's been amazing. But maybe also let's start thinking, who doesn't know Christ who we could share Christ's love with? Who could we do something for? And in doing it, start a conversation, or just show them that Christ loves them.

They're valuable. Finally, I just wanted to say that if you are in the body of Christ, I hope you can see that it's a precious thing that Jesus has given his life for. It's a precious treasure to be in the body of Christ. So if you have a quarrel with another member of the church or another member of the body, then I wanna plead with you. Do whatever you can to be reconciled to that person.

Christ has not brought us together just so we can have dividing walls of hostility between us still. As I said at the beginning, this doesn't mean like we all grow beards and look the same. That doesn't mean we all share the same opinions about things. We might have to disagree to disagree, disagree to agree. We might have to agree to disagree.

But as far as it depends on you, live at peace, live in oneness, togetherness with other people. So In summary, true peacemaking is church building, and we join Jesus, the prince of peace, as he brings the gospel of peace to fulfill the covenant of peace to make peace with the wicked. Let me pray. Father in heaven. We give you so much thanks that when you turned and you looked at the world and you saw wickedness and division and hostility, You didn't leave us as we were, but instead you sent your son to make peace with us, to destroy the wall of hostility between us by his blood on the cross to bring us back into relationship and win this with you so we can be 1 with each other as well.

Thank you father so much for that. Help us please to be peacemakers to invite people to come and hear the gospel of what Jesus has done, so that we would be 1 with them. And father, I do pray, help us to be passionate about this? Help us not to think of peace as just living amicably with people, but would you help us to be as moved as you are And want to be a peacemaker as you are. We pray in Jesus name, amen.