Hope Church LV Sermons
Be Happy :: Happy are the Peacemakers
We live in a world of conflict. If you go home today and turn on the news, much of what you see as news today is the reporting of conflict. Sometimes that conflict is nation against nation. It's estimated that since the birth of Jesus Christ, there have been over 14,000 different wars. The United Nations was born in 1945. In 1945, when it was born, it had the motto to have succeeding generations free from the scourge of war. And yet since 1945, there have been over 70 wars and 200 different international significant outbreaks of violence. We live in a world of conflict. Sometimes the conflict is race against race. There's a statistic of crime in the United States called hate crime. The United States Department of Justice estimates that 50 percent of all hate crimes in the United States of America are crimes, one race against another race. It's a racially motivated crime. We live in a world of conflict. Sometimes the conflict is neighbor against neighbor. Do you realize that this year alone, Americans will spend over $250 billion in just the costs of lawsuits against one another? 250 billion. You know what that means? That is 2 percent of the gross domestic product that we put out as a country. 2 percent of our GDP is based upon conflict. Us suing each other is neighbor against neighbor. Sometimes the conflict gets even more personal than that. Sometimes the conflict is husband against wife. George Barnard had an online research poll and in that poll, he concluded that 33 percent of all adults who've been married have experienced at least one divorce. We live in a world of conflict. And although conflict is the norm, it's the normal way of life for the world that we live in, it is not the norm. It is not the way of life that Jesus Christ has invited us into as followers of Jesus. He's invited us into something that is radical. He's invited us into something that is much different than that. If you have your Bible this morning, and I hope you do, I want you to turn to Matthew 5. In Matthew 5, we find recorded what is the longest single discourse in Scripture from Jesus. It's called the Sermon on the Mount. It's called the greatest sermon ever preached. And in this message, Jesus really begins to lay out for us this radically different way of life. We're studying through it as a church family together. Now he did it in one afternoon. We're going to do it in about 18 months, Lord willing. But we're just walking verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount together as a church family and discovering that what Jesus has invited us into is a radically different way of life. And I'm afraid today that much of the church in North America has settled for something far less than what Jesus has invited us into. One of the privileges that I have is to be able to travel across the country and to speak in different venues and environments and get a part of God's kingdom activity in other places. And in North America, one of the buzzwords in Christianity right now is the word relevance. Everybody's wondering how we can be more relevant to the culture that we're in. But I'm afraid we've missed the whole boat when it comes to relevance because when people talk about relevance today, much of what they're talking about is simply our methodology. They think that the solution to being relevant to a culture lies in our methods. If we'll just have music that is a little bit more stylistic or if we'll dress just a little bit more casual or if we'll create environments that are just a little more contemporary, then we'll be more relevant in our culture. And don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I think we should be about contextualizing our methods to the culture that we're in. But the solution to relevance today, it's not methodology, it's authenticity. You see what the world is asking is simply this, is what you've got better than what I've got. They don't want to give up another two or three hours of their week just to come experience the same things they've already got. They're looking for something different. They're longing for something that is real. And what needs to happen in our churches in North America is a revival of an authentic, genuine faith in Jesus Christ that spills out of our lives this radically different life Christ has called us to. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus opens this sermon with some statements that are so radical, so counter-cultural that we've decided to walk through each of them individually that they're called the Beatitudes. Makes them sound so pretty, doesn't it? The Beatitudes. Man, they're tough, right? When we really begin to read these Beatitudes and understand them, man, they call us to something that is far different than the normal Christian life. When we began the series, we gave you a definition of a Beatitude. I want to put it back up on the screen. Here's what they are. The Beatitudes are declarations of a radical way of life made possible in Christ resulting in real, unshakable happiness. Now, here's where the enemy's so deceitful, he says, "Oh, man, if you begin to live this radical Christian life, you're not going to have any joy. You're not going to have any fun. You're not going to have any pleasure." But Jesus said, "No, it's this life that I've called you to that really is what results in real, unshakable joy." So I want to begin reading in verse number one of Matthew chapter five. Listen, what he says, "When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and began to teach them saying." Now, I want you to read these Beatitudes out loud with me. You ready? Here we go. One, two, three. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." That's where we are this morning. We live in a world of conflict. And Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Raises some interesting questions. I want to ask too this morning. Here's the first one. What's a peacemaker? It's a peacemaker. It's not a word that we use a lot. It's not a word that was used a lot in the New Testament. As a matter of fact, in the entire New Testament, this is the only place this word is used. What is a peacemaker? Well, if we're going to understand what a peacemaker is, first let's try to get our minds a little bit around what peace is. I think often we have a misunderstanding of peace. Although peacemaker is only used once in the Bible, the word peace is used over 400 times in the Bible. It's used in every book of the New Testament except for 1 John. And when we hear the word peace, what often comes to our mind is the way that it's defined in most dictionaries. We define peace as the absence of war, or the absence of conflict, right? But it's possible for the bullets to stop flying and there still not be peace, right? I mean, two nations can stop fighting, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're experiencing peace. It just means you don't have to dodge the bullets today, right? So what is peace? Peace is more than just the absence of conflict. K author says that this Greek word peace is a word that signifies harmonious relationships. And here's what that means. Peace refers not simply to the absence of war, but to the presence of reconciled relationships. It doesn't just mean, okay, nobody's shouting anymore. The conflict is over. What it means is that the relationship has now been reconciled. That's peace. So with that, let me give you a definition of a peacemaker. A peacemaker is one who actively pursues reconciling broken relationships. One who actively pursues reconciling broken relationships. As a follower of Jesus, we should be about the radical countercultural activity of reconciling. We shouldn't just be sucked into the world of conflict. We should be pursuing the reconciliation of relationships. And as I was studying this verse this week, I had an interesting thought. This beatitude has possibly the greatest potential to immediately impact your family, my family, and our church as a whole. I mean, this isn't one of those truths you go, okay, Lord, I can't wait until over the next several weeks and months. You show me how I can begin to apply this. No, no, no. It starts right now. Hey, the application of this verse, it may fix something that happened on the car. I'm in the car on the way to church, right? How did he know that? I'll tell you how I know I come to church with my family, right? The enemy would love nothing more than to so upset us on the way to church in the car that we get. Man, we just saw steam and you're in the whole service. Maybe you came in just like that this morning. Maybe it's something fresh out of the office this week. Something happened this week at your place of business or your school and man, you're just steaming over and God wants to speak into your heart this morning and there's immediate application for you, a peacemaker. I want to give you four expressions of peacemaking in the life of a follower of Jesus. There are probably many more, but we only have so much time, so I'm going to give you four. Here's the first one. I must pursue peace in my relationship with God. I must pursue peace in my relationship with God. Remember last weekend we talked about being pure in heart and we said that the moment you come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, when you by faith trust in what He did on the cross, you are declared to be right with God and you are given peace with God, right? Here's what that means. My righteousness before God is not based on my performance. My righteousness before God is based on my position in Christ. That means there's nothing I can do today that will change the fact that I am a child of God, but you can be a child of God knowing peace with God and not be walking in the peace of God. You see, it's possible because of sin in my life not to change my relationship with God, to break my fellowship with God. And when my fellowship with God gets broken, I am to pursue peace, I'm to pursue reconciliation with God. You know what that's like, right? I mean, sometimes we're walking with God, but then we choose to kind of do our own thing and we get this area where it's kind of sin in our life and man, the Holy Spirit of God is pointing that right out in my heart to the point where it's not peace anymore, right? I'm wrestling with this thing with God and there's part of me that just wants to say, "God, would you just leave me alone for a little bit?" But he won't do that. You know why? He's the ultimate peacemaker and he's going to pursue reconciliation in that relationship with you to bring you back into intimate fellowship with himself. Last weekend I gave you three questions and I want to just highlight them real quick. I'm not going to expound on them, I just want to read them. These are questions to ask yourself about this issue of am I pursuing peace in my relationship with God? Number one, am I being honest with God about everything in my life? Number two, am I allowing God to speak into my life through his word? Number three, am I consistently examining the things that I allow to influence my life? And if you weren't here last weekend, you ought to go online and hear those three questions explained and begin to ask yourself the question, am I pursuing peace? I think it's very significant that before Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," he said, "Blessed are the pure in heart." Why is this so important? Because my pursuing peace in all my other relationships is dependent on me walking in peace in my relationship with God. You see, it's the spirit of God that's going to speak into my life. It's the spirit of God that's going to bring direction into my life, to bring reconciliation in other relationships. And if I'm not walking with God and pursuing peace with him, then my heart is not ready to hear God speak into my life, to pursue reconciliation in the other relationships. Well, let me give you the second expression. I must pursue peace in my relationships with others. I must pursue peace in my relationships with others. You see, this expression of peacemaking is true in every one of our relationships. But what I want to do for the sake of time this morning is I want to narrow it to talk about one relationship, and that is your relationship to your brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul in the book of 1 Thessalonians said, "We are to live in peace with one another." You could say that this way, we are to constantly pursue reconciling relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, I want to ask you a question this morning, and I want you to answer about showing your hand, and sometimes just a little, you don't ever know what kind of response you're going to get in different services. But how many of you have experienced conflict with brothers and sisters in Christ before? Let me see your hand. All right. This is a pretty safe bet. You can put your hand down. How many of you have experienced conflict inside of a church to the point that you've seen it literally divide a church family? Let me see your hand. Now hold them up for a second. Hold them up. Don't put them down. Hold them up. Here's what I want you to do. Look around. There's our relevance problem. The world says, "Why do I need Jesus?" Man, you're telling me, "I need Jesus to come to church, and you guys can't even get along with each other." You can't even reconcile, "Why, I got that at home. I don't need to come to church to get that." Man, I got that at work. I got a barrel full of that stuff. That's not. You see, Jesus has invited us into something that's different than that. And one of the reasons we've lost our relevance in the culture is because we're no longer different. They see us and go, "Man, you're just like I am. You just got three hours more commitments a week than I got." Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Let me give you a life-changing reality this morning. Why don't you look at this on the screen? Because I have a relationship with God, I have a relationship with you. And it is impossible for me to be right with God and not be right with you. Now, I wrote that statement directly like I'm speaking right to you, but let me tell what you can do with it. You can turn to the person sitting beside you and say the exact same thing. You say, "I don't know him. Doesn't matter." Because you got a relationship with God, I got a relationship with you. And it's not possible for me to be right with God and not be right with you. John 14 and 15, those of you that have heard me teach for any length of time at all, you know that John 14 and 15 are two of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. I love John 14 and 15. And John 14 and 15, Jesus is laying out for his disciples this amazing life-changing truth. Here's what he's saying. The focus of your life is not obedience. The focus of your life is intimacy with me. And obedience is the overflow of intimacy. Five different times, Jesus says that, you see, so many Christians think that the goal of my life is to obey God, that's not the goal of your life. The goal of your life is to know God. And then obedience is the overflow of intimacy with God. What he's invited us into is not activity, what he's invited us into is intimacy. And activity is the overflow of intimacy with God. Five times, Jesus says, if you'll just love me, then you'll keep my commandments. And after saying that, five times, he then gives us this illustration of the vine and the branches. And he shows us what it looks like to abide in him and let his life be manifest in all of us. And then he makes this statement. This is my commandment. Now, it's important when you understand it in its context. Five times, Jesus has just said, what I've invited you into is intimacy. What I want you to do is know me. I want you to love me. And when you love me, man, obedience, keeping my commandments will spill out of your life. And then he says, here's what it looks like. You'll love one another just as I have loved you. You know what he's saying there? The first obvious expression, the first expression that I'm living in intimacy with God, that I'm pursuing peace in my relationship with God, is that God begins to spill out of my life a love for my brothers and sisters in Christ. So I want you to listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 5 verse 23. It's in the Sermon on the Mount, verse 23 of this chapter, we'll get there in about six months or so. Listen, what he says, therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. You know what God's saying there? He's not interested in what you want to do for him. If you're not in right relationship with your brother and sister in Christ, it's pseudo-righteousness if those relationships aren't intact. So here's my question this morning. Is there somebody you need to go to? Hey, maybe before this service is over, there's somebody in this room you need to go to. I didn't start. Blessed are the peacemakers. And listen, I want you to look real close. There's no fine print. No exception clauses, no disclaimers. Yours is not unique to anybody else's situation. We're to pursue reconciling. Let me give you one more verse on this one before we move on. Romans 12, 18, listen what it says, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men." You want to heap guilt on you today because sometimes you do everything you can do to pursue reconciling a relationship and the person just won't respond. There's only so much you can do. But listen, let me tell you what not to do. Don't use this verse as a cop out. Well, I don't all I can do. Let me encourage you to find out if you've done all you can do. How do you do that? Well, two things. Number one, ask the Lord. Number two, ask somebody else who's objectively removed from the situation. Here's what's happened. Here's what I've done. Is there anything else I can do? Because you know what? Sometimes somebody else will see something that you don't see. That's the whole book of Proverbs seeking wise counsel. But when you've legitimately done before the Lord and a source of counsel, all you can do, then that's all God's saying here about peacemaking. So as far as it depends on you, pursue peace. Number three, I'm to pursue peace in my and others relationships with God. I'm to pursue peace in others relationships with God. Listen to what Paul says to some Christians in Corinth. Second Corinthians chapter five, look at it on the screen. He said, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things have passed away, beholden you, things have come, verse we're familiar with. And all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself. You see, the whole mission of Jesus was reconciliation. He reconciled us to himself through Christ. And then listen, gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God. You know what that means? One aspect of peacemaking is sharing with others how they can experience peace with God through a relationship with Jesus. You know what that means, right? Now sharing my faith, that's not evangelism. The program of the church, no. And it's not the duty of a good Christian, no. It's simply the life Jesus has called me to. It's the life that he desires to live through me, a life of reconciling others in their relationship to God. God desires to use you to bring people to him. Number four. I'm to pursue peace in others' relationships with others. You see, sometimes there are relationships around us that are broken. And sometimes we say, well, that's not my problem, right? I'm not touching that. Listen to what Paul says to the Ephesians, chapter four verse one, "Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called." You know what he's saying there? Live the different, unique kind of life that Jesus has invited you into. Paul says, man, I'm begging you. Don't just live the same way. Let Christ live differently through you. What does it look like? Look what he says. With all humility and gentleness, it's important words. Not as a know-it-all, not with a spirit of arrogance, but with all humility and gentleness, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent. That word being diligent means do everything within your power to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. You hear what Jesus is saying there? Not only am I to seek reconciliation when I have broken relationships, but I am to follow this is important, the leadership of the Holy Spirit of God in reconciling broken relationships around me. That's so important. I'm going to say it a second time, all right? I'm to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit of God. Listen, not every situation is your business. The Bible speaks about meddlers and busy bodies, right? That's not what I'm to be. But there are situations. Remember what I said at the beginning? Why is it so important that I pursue peace in my relationship with God? Because it's the promptings of the Holy Spirit that are going to lead me in reconciling other ways. If I'm not walking in peace with God, guess what? I'm in no place to listen to God speak into my life, to help bring reconciliation between two brothers, maybe that are related to me. Maybe God's putting me in that relationship to be the source of reconciliation for them. But as the Holy Spirit of God prompts you and wooze you, man, we're to seek reconciliation. Let me quickly, this morning, give you some common obstacles and we don't have time to really expound on all these, but I want to just mention them. There's some obstacles to peacemaking and we could really do about 150,000 of these, but I'm going to just give you four quick ones, all right? Here's the person, an unforgiving spirit. You see, sometimes we think we've been wronged and we deserve to be offended, blessed God, right? You just don't know what they did to me. If you knew what they did to me, you'd understand why I feel the way I feel. Paul said in Ephesians that we're to forgive, just listen, as God in Christ has forgiven us. Let me ask you a question. Is my forgiveness and your forgiveness before God deserved or undeserved? Answer out loud. You know what that means, right? I don't forgive them because they deserve it. I'm to forgive them because it's right. You see, man, I don't know, I can't do that exactly. Remember where we started? These are made possible in Christ. This isn't me. There's no way I can live this way, but as I die to myself and allow Christ to live in me, he threw me, can forgiven ways I never dreamed possible. How do you know that? Because he's already done it, I've experienced it. He forgave me when I didn't even deserve it. And he wants now to do that through me into the lives of others. Unforgiving spirit. Number two, oh, this one's good. We could spend some time taking up the offenses of others. You know what I found? God gives me the grace to forgive when somebody's offended me, but I can't find a promise where God gives me the grace to forgive when the offense is somebody else's. But I'm real good at picking up somebody else's offense and throwing it on my shoulder, especially if it's my family. You know, somebody offends your wife or your kids. I'll shoulder that up and I'll carry that around, right? And if I'm not careful, I become a champion for the maintaining of that broken relationship instead of a peacemaker pursuing the reconciliation of that broken relationship. You've taken up any offenses that don't belong to you? Number three, controlling the tongue, ouch. Man you take a relationship that's broken with your mouth. You can be a source of reconciliation or listen. You can be gasoline on a flaming fire. The writer of Proverbs says it this way, a perverse man spreads strife and a slander. He separates intimate friends. You see why all these other relationships are dependent upon me walking in peace with God? Because if I'm not walking in fellowship with God enjoying his peace in my life, guess what? There's no way I'm controlling what's coming out of my mouth. I need the Holy Spirit of God to do that, right? Force a lack of compassion. Lack of compassion. Remember when we talked a few weeks ago about mourning, blessed are those who mourn, and we said mourning is a brokenness before God that is born out of time spent and fellowship with him. And we said there were two expressions of mourning in the life of a Christian. One was conviction where we respond to God about our own sin. The other was compassion, where we see the effects of sin on the lives of others and we're moved to compassion because of that. But you know what happens? If we're not walking in peace with God and fellowship with God, we don't sense compassion. Hey, you realize 95% of the people who live in Las Vegas according to a survey are lost? 95% of the people in Las Vegas say that they have no religious affiliation at all. You know what that means, right? If they died tomorrow, they'd go into a Christless eternity. Are we passionate about pursuing their reconciliation to God? Well, that's what a peacemaker is. Let me close back in the second and final question. What's the promise to those pursuing peace? Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." It's an interesting phrase because it's not only future, it's passive. Here's what that means. It's not that I'm going to call myself God's child, but it's that somebody else in the future is going to call me a son of God. Well, that raises the question, right? Who's that? Who's he talking about? Well, I think there are two applications of this. Number one, I think there's an immediate promise. There's an immediate promise that Jesus is making here, and here's what it is. Peace making provides evidence to the people in my life of a genuine relationship with God. You see, when I'm allowing Christ to pursue peace through me and reconciling broken relationships, you know what it is? It's a testimony to the world around me, to those at my office, to those at my school, to those in my neighborhood, that you know what they'll say, "Man, that guy's got something I don't have." That must be one of those Christian people. That's a Jesus' form. I think what he's saying here is, "Man, when we begin to live this out, people around us will begin to say in a firm, "Man, they've genuinely got a relationship with God." You know why? Because it's different than what they're used to seeing. Jesus said it in John 1335, he said, "By this, by this, all men will know that you're my disciples, by your love, for one another." It's radical. This pursuit of reconciling relationships is so radical that it gives evidence. It's the greatest demonstration of the difference Jesus makes in the life of a person. The way we handle our relationships. But I think there's also an ultimate promise here. This is not only talking about something that's going to happen on earth, those around us will notice and say, "Man, that's different." I think he's talking about a promise that won't be fulfilled until heaven. And I say it this way, peacemaking is pleasing to the Father because it so reveals Christ in me. Say, "What do you mean by that?" Well, let me give you an illustration of what I mean by that. This week, my family spent a large part of our week at a basketball gym. We have two boys that play basketball. The oldest son Caleb, his season is over. Our younger son Elijah, his season is about to be over next week. And so this was the last week of the season. They had five games, Monday night, Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday. Five games this week. So man, every time I walked in the door, we were getting in the car to turn around to go to a basketball game. And Elijah, this is his first season to play basketball. He's played other sports. He's never played basketball before until this year. And so he's had to kind of learn the game, and he's been learning the game as the season has gone on when he first started the season being a seventh grader on a seventh and eighth grade team who'd never played before. He wasn't playing very much. He didn't get much play in time. But as the season progressed, he began to play a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. This last Tuesday night, I think it was, had really his best game of the season. It was a game where we got ahead early a little bit, and so some of the younger guys got to come in and play a little bit earlier than normal. And he got in the game early and started doing really well, so the coach left him in. By the end of the game, he'd had his best game, had eleven points, nine rebounds, four assists or four steals and three assists, and just had a great, great game. And you know, as a dad, I'm sitting over like, yeah, that's good. I taught him all that, you know. It was to that point where by the end of the game, all the other boys, the older guys on the team, they were kind of wanting to even carry. If you felt that moment, they wanted to kind of carry him off like, yeah, man, he fight, he did his great. So that was awesome. But there was one point in the game where we got pretty far ahead to the point where they actually put in guys that hadn't hardly played at all this year, a couple of the younger guys that hadn't played very much at all. And one of these young guys that got in the game, and it was his first real game experience and first thing he did was kind of make a mistake. And he's kind of, you know, running up the core a little bit dejected, and I look up and I see Elijah, man, and I just run him full speed to catch up to him. And when he catches up to him like a season pro, you know, like he's been out there all is like, he puts him, pants him on the shoulder and he says, man, it's all right. We'll get him next time. And it was at that point that everything in me went up and I wanted to stand up and scream, that's my boy, you know, because I saw in him in that moment the values that reflected what we were trying to teach him to be as a young man, one day in heaven, the Bible says we will be brought before the father. And he will say, well, not that's my child, not because we perform well. But because he so saw in our lives the reflection of his life. And there's no greater reflection of his life than peacemaking. Let me show you in the Bible when we're finished Colossians chapter 1 verse 19. I told you that this word in the Greeks only used one time in the New Testament in the noun form, but here it is in the verb. Look what it says. "For it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to himself." Listen, having made peace through the blood of his cross, you know what that means, right? The whole mission of Jesus. The whole reason he came was peacemaking. It was to reconcile a relationship. My relationship with God had been broken because of sin. Jesus came as a peacemaker to purchase my redemption and to reconcile me to God that I might be forgiven of my sin and be given a relationship with God. And when you and I allow Christ in us to pursue the reconciliation of broken relationships, listen, you cannot be more Christ-like than that. And I think what Jesus is saying is one day, the Father will say, "That's my child." Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Let's pray. Father, we bow before you this morning, and God, we pray right now that you would speak. Lord, beyond the words of a sermon, beyond the words of a talk, God, would you speak? Holy Spirit, would you take your word and press this truth into people's lives this morning? As you sit before the Lord this morning with your heads bowed in just a moment, we're going to have a time to stand and sing a song of worship. And when we stand and sing, it's an opportunity for us to respond, and we have some of our pastors and prayer volunteers that are going to be here at the front, some are going to be over at the side. And they're here. If God's spoken to you this morning and you need to talk with someone, maybe you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You've never been forgiven, you've never been reconciled to God. When we stand in just a moment to sing, you feel free to slip out of your seat to go to one of these pastors or prayer volunteers and say to them, "I need God," and they will show you from the Bible exactly how you can give your life to Christ and be saved. Maybe you just need to talk with somebody about anything, something else. You go to one of them and they'll open God's word, and they'll speak truth into your life this morning. For the rest of us, this opportunity to respond is to really respond to what you've heard God say this morning. Don't let this just be something that goes in one ear and out the other. What's God saying to you today? Are you pursuing peace in your relationship with God? Is there any area of disobedience that you're kind of just keeping over there and saying, "God, just leave me alone about this right now"? Are you pursuing peace in your relationships with others? Is there somebody this morning that you need to go to to make something right? Hey, when we stand and sing, if you need to go to somebody in this room, you just go to them. Are you pursuing peace in others' relationships with God? Are you sharing the gospel that people may be made right with God? Are there some relationships around you that are broken and God's speaking into your heart, man, I need to be a source of reconciliation between that brother, sister, and Christ? What's God saying to you today? Here's what I'm asking you to do. Respond. Let's respond to it. Holy Spirit of God, have your way. Speak to our hearts. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. [BLANK_AUDIO]