I remind you, as you're turning there, what has brought us here. We're going through the rules of happiness, the rules of happiness. We've come to number seven of these rules. We have not quite taken them in order. Somewhat, I've come to regret, as I've noticed in the latter part of these Beatitudes, a definite need for order, as I have beheld that that which is Verse eight, the purity and the pure in heart must come before that which is peace in verse nine. And we'll notice other connections like this as we look at Matthew 5, nine. We're looking at this now as a fulfillment of what God calls us to in the 10th commandment, that we are not to covet. If we are not to covet, we must have happiness deep down in our hearts. And these are the rules for happiness that we have come to. And so as you have opened up the Matthew five verse nine, you'll notice in the Bible's provided it's page 1,143. I do invite you to stand at the reading of this mighty word from this sermon of our Lord Jesus Christ. People of God, hear the word of the Lord. Blessed are the peacemakers for they should be called the children of God. Father, now go out, go out by thy spirit and bless this congregation. Make us peacemakers. Show us the beauty of our adoption, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. The theme upon which we will be looking at this verse as it is revealed by the Holy Spirit is that born again Christians are peacemakers. and thereby they are known to be God's children. I've entitled this sermon, Blood Peace. I did so because of the foundation in which we are peacemakers. I was looking at how the world makes peace. The world makes peace by war so often. We try with our negotiations. We try to be very wise in the way we approach other nations. We approach other people and we say, let's just have peace. Peace, but so often there's not any peace. And this has been true throughout all of history. I looked at pictures of survivors of the atom bomb from World War II that dropped upon Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And I saw their young girls with patterns of shrapnel across their faces. One which I looked at didn't live to be but 40 and died of cancer. They were within that ring of radiation that happens after such a horrid, weapon of war. I saw maybe this is a picture you've seen before. It's a picture from the Vietnam War. You have a little Vietnam girl running naked in the street and it's after what's called a napalm bomb and she lived to be 90. And she was able to tell her story. She said she saw the bombs drop. And as soon as there was the little cloud that went up from that napalm bomb, everything was on fire. She was on fire. Her clothes were on fire. And she said, I was running naked that day because my clothes were on fire and I had to rip it off in order to get relief from the chemical burn. This is how the world makes peace. And indeed it does cost some blood. There's justification for the atom bomb. You see, we say, think how many millions of lives we saved of American lives. It's hard to justify though, when you look into the face of the innocent, which suffered, and I would have you to behold into the face of the innocent today, the innocent one, which is more innocent than any child which has suffered, that you may have peace, Christian. Saints of God, you have peace today because of an innocent one which suffered, not merely innocent, like we would maybe talk about a child that was born, but that which was perfectly righteous. Wasn't just wanting in sin, but had a positive righteousness. by which he saw a demise for all of our sins, Christians. Our sins. He died. It cost blood. It was a blood peace. And it's this that we must talk about here today, because it's the foundation for this scripture. You are called, Christian, to be peacemakers, and I wanna tell you a little bit about that. I wanna tell you what that means, because there's some things that it doesn't mean. We need to define our terms here very carefully. But there's one thing you must always keep in mind, the face of Jesus Christ. It is he who bled that you may be a peacemaker. But what is this peace? Boys and girls, you know, I appreciate how you take notes and I try to help in your memory as well, if you're not a note taker. And so I've tried, I've only given you two things, two things to remember as we look at this. And this is appropriate, as you see, that it's blessed are the peacemakers, for they should be called the children of God. You can think about it in maybe some letters. We're doing letters in Revelation. And in letters, usually you finish a letter, and oh, you think about something else. You write P-S, right, postscript in Latin, right, after my main writing. I'm gonna say one more thing. Well, have that acronym, that PS be something that you remember as the two points, because I want to show you the product from blood peace, the product from blood peace. And that'd be my first point. You see the product from blood peace is the peace, which is the foundation of this compound word here in the English language, peacemaker. In order to be a peacemaker, you must understand peace, and so it behooves us to define the peace which is here. There's certain things which it is not. There's some wicked peace. There's some evil peace, and that is not the peace which is blessed. It's not the peace which produces happiness. If you have peace in your life, but that peace has as its foundation not blood peace, but evil peace, your happiness will soon fly away. and depression will ensue. You see, it cannot be a peace which has a conquered or an accord or an agreement with the devil or with sin. Sin, Psalm 66, 18 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. There can be no agreement between sin and this peace. If you're making peace today, but the reason that you're peaceful is because you made peace with the sin that's in your life and you don't feel inside the heinousness of your sin, I'm telling you that peace is not gonna be long lasting. It's not a godly peace, it's not a blessed peace. But there can also be a peace where there's peace with Satan. You see, Jesus talked about this. He said, when a strong man is armed, he's able to keep his palace and his goods are in peace. But then when a stronger man than he comes with a bigger weapon or a bigger sword or a bigger army, then his goods don't have peace anymore. Christian, you need to know this. You're not as strong as Satan. Satan is a stronger man than you. Do you realize that? Do you realize that by yourself, in the weakness of your nature, you do not have by yourself, sinner, you do not have by yourself the ability to overcome Satan. You need something external to yourself. You need to tap into a blood peace to be able to beat him. But you see, this is how many people get peace. They make a deal with Satan. They say, listen, I won't touch this part of my life. This is my little pet sin. I'm gonna keep it in a box. And Satan, you can have this part of me. You can have this part of me as long as I can be happy, rich, you name it. What did he offer to Jesus? Do you remember? He offered peace, right? All the kingdoms of the world flashed before him. And he said, I'll give you all of these things. I'll give you the riches of all the kingdom. I'll give you the peace of the whole world. You want to be called the Prince of Peace? I got you. All the kingdoms will bow to you. They'll bow to you, but you must bow to me. What part of your life, Christian, are you bowing the knee to Satan? There's peace. I admit there's peace. There's peace in that secret place. There's peace because you're hiding it and no one can see. But what happens when you realize God can see? He sees it. He sees your secret closet. There can be no conquered between Satan and you, Christian. You need to flee from him and surrender all to Jesus Christ. Do not let even a piece of you remain for him. This peace cannot be based on lies. Oh, how the false prophets of old, they would preach, oh, peace, there's peace for you, Israel. And outside the gates is Assyria rumbling with their chariots, or some other great nation, which is the rod of God's anger. What did God say? God said, even because they have seduced my people saying peace, and there was no peace. You can't self-deceive, you can't have any self-deception that says you have peace with God, and you're living like hell. If you're living like hell, the peace you have is only with hell. It's not with the prince of peace. You can't bring about false evidence either. You see, this is something that we love to do. The Pharisees love to do it. Religious leaders, we love to do it. They love to do it in Jesus's day. They say, listen, hey, let me give you some evidence. I preach every Sunday. I preach and I mow the lawn. I do all of these things. And listen, I can hide away some of these other evidences I don't want you to see. I can hide away in my closet that I don't pray that much, that I don't really enjoy reading the Bible. I can hide that away and you know, it should be fine because look at all these things I'm doing. I do tons of things. Isn't this evidence? But the Bible says something different. The Bible says to the law and the testimony, to the Bible, if what you do does not speak according to this, let it not be. It has no light in them. Let your life be alighted by this Bible and you will find that it will alight in those secret places. It will alight in the soul that doesn't delight in reading the Bible. It will enlighten it and you will see that there's something wrong in the very deepest part of your soul. There is no peace. It's a piece on false evidence. It's not going to last very long. It's a worldly piece. Indeed. John 16 33 says these things I have spoken unto you that in me, this is Jesus speaking children in me, you might have peace in the world. You shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. You need blood peace, congregation, if you are to have true peace. This is the peace that is the foundation for being a peacemaker. And so let's talk about that. It's an internal peace. It's a peace that's inside of you. It's a peace based upon the knowledge and the grasping of Jesus Christ as your justification. This was talked about in the scripture in Romans 5.1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. through our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, there's a divine peace, and there is a divine original. All three persons of the glorious Trinity are co-workers in this peace which has been authored by God. God the Father, he's called the God of peace. He bruises Satan underneath our feet, church. He gives peace. He creates peace. He maintains peace. He preserves it, and he perfects it. The Son is called the Prince of Peace. He is our prophet. He preaches peace. He is a priest. He purchases peace. He is the King. He proclaims and proclaims and preserves peace. He commands it. Christ is our peace. He masters all the storms of the troubled soul. And the Holy Spirit, well, the fruit of the Holy Spirit is peace. You see, this blood peace is one which the Father from all eternity had elected some unto salvation by means of a Redeemer. And that Redeemer was sent into the world, and the Redeemer came and poured out His blood, a willing offering for sinners. And the Holy Spirit goes out and applies the benefits of this blood and affects a blood piece. This blood piece has as its fruit or its products. There's that pea that we were getting at children. This blood piece has as its product, a soul piece. Some people can talk about it experientially. They talk about a lifting up. the burden off of their soul. And so you have John Bunyan using that imagery in his story of Christian with the burden upon his back, which kept him hunched over. But when he had it lifted off, and we'll get to that, children, as we read through that. As he is lifted off, he's given that burden off of his back to another. He's able to stand up straight. There's this soul peace. stand up straight. There's certain things which are the products of this soul peace, of this blood peace in the soul. It's a submission to God. You'll know that is Islam, right? Islam, it means submission to God. Theirs is a false God, but we have the true God and there is a true manner in which we can say that true religion is submission to Jehovah I Thought I thought about Elvis I was reading first Samuel and seeing Abigail as such a great example of this you might remember Abigail She was the one remember David and he ended up marrying Abigail, right? But that was later before she was married to another remember his name right it meant A fool, okay? And so she was married to a fool. You don't even gotta know his name in the Hebrew, because he was, he was a fool. She was married to him, he just slandered David. Did something awful to David. And David was coming in revenge of his name to slay him. And so Abigail, as David is coming with his mighty men, Abigail comes and says, listen David, I believe, I believe in the promises which Jehovah gave you. I believe in the promises that he's gonna make you king. Remember, he wasn't quite king yet. Saul was still making havoc, right? And said this, I believe you're gonna be king. And what's this gonna be to you? When you're king and you're mighty and Jehovah's put the crown upon your head, what's my foolish husband gonna mean to you then? Don't take revenge, let the Lord take revenge. and this amazing woman and David knew she was amazing. He said, blessed be you woman. that would come and keep my hand from shedding blood when I should be leaving this into the hand of God. It is God who takes revenge. And she was, I mean, I realized the gravity of what Abigail was saying. She was saying, David, the Lord's gonna punish my husband. The Lord's gonna take the blood that he deserved to be mallowed in upon my husband. And in that day, I know the Lord's gonna do it. In that day, just remember me, pray for me. And I love, David turns around, and drunk, foolish husband is drunk that night, and she lets him sleep. He gets up in the morning, kind of hungover, and then Abigail tells what happened. I prevented your murder today, but I'm telling you that Jehovah has something against you. He's gonna smite you. And that very moment when Abigail told him, the Bible says his heart became like stone, and in 10 days, he died. He died like that. And David hears about the death and David says, send for Abigail, send for her to be my wife. And such a tender hearted thing, which he did. And then what happens? Abigail, this is just her heart. Every woman aspired to be an Abigail. She said, no, I don't have to be his wife. I'll be the foot washer of the servants of my Lord. And yet David did not make her a foot washer of his servants, but took her to be his wife. This is something which happens when you can submit to God, that you can submit to him killing your husband. You can submit to God in giving you a new husband and you would even submit to him if he made you the foot washer of the servants. of your Lord. This is something that happens with soul peace. It's a product of blood peace. There's valor as well. And men, you should identify with this. We sing about this. Psalm 60 verse 12 says, Through God we shall do valiantly, for he it is that shall tread down our enemies. For by thee I have run through a troop. Imagine this. And by my God have I leaped over a wall. And you can see, you can hear the valor, the courage, as you have this peace with God. You can say, let us be like men and take the city. Take the city for our God. You have this willing to take risk for the sake of the kingdom. Why? Because what is your life? What is your life? If God desires to take your life, let him take it. As long as I'm giving glory to Christ, there's a peace to be courageous in you. This is a product of a blood peace. There's also a purifying peace in the soul as well. We sing about this in Psalm 119, verse 165. Great peace have they which love thy law. And Isaiah 32 17 says, and the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness, that beautiful parallelism that you are first purified and then made peaceable. And that's why I see in this chapter, Blessed are the peacemakers, but Jesus had an intent to say first, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Purify your hearts, Christians, be ye holy. And then as you're more like Jesus, you can be more like him as a peacemaker. Are you a peacemaker? Some of us are not naturally so. The natural man is not a peacemaker. To be a peacemaker, it must have as its root that blood peace of your justification. But you'll notice when you start reading your Bible and perhaps you're doing it at work or other places, people see that peace in you and they want to come to you. They want you to help them in their life, that you can affect from your inward peace with the Savior, from the Savior's blood shed for you, outward peace. And this is true. And this is what Jesus is getting at. Blessed are the peacemakers. We have a lot of things we can do with our time. Lots of things. What are you doing to make peace between man to man? woman to woman, husband to wife, sister to sister, brother to brother. How are you making peace man to man in your life today? Are you praying for your family? Are you doing it? Is there peace in your family? Is there peace in your extended family? Do you have these elements of outward peace. Because once you have that inward peace, to be a peacemaker, it must work its way outward. It must not be kept underneath a bushel. It must be lighting the world. You're called to be a peacemaker. What are you doing with social media? So often I see this and I've been guilty of this. That's why I've seen it. You start the fire. You go and you get your matches and you light the fire and you run away as it's burning and you're just loving what it's producing. It's producing the fire of anger and the fire of distrust, but it's not producing any peace. You need to be working in your life these pockets of peacemaking. because it's by that that the world knows Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. And so how can you do this? Well, I wanna give you some instructions on this. You can see it very clearly in the scriptures. It's everywhere. Hebrews 12, 14, follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. I wanna say that again. Follow peace with all types of men. Kings, poor men, rich men, black men, white men, all types of men, working men, homeless men, women, children, all types of humanity, make peace, follow peace, without which no one shall see the Lord. Church, your lack of peacemaking is causing the world to be blind. to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you would do more for peacemaking in your life, the world would see more of Christ. So how can you do this? You can do this in your family. It's called the bond of peace in Ephesians four. Without this, Everything drops in pieces. Peace is like a belt that ties together members in a family. It's a golden needle that knits together the family individuals and they do not fall into pieces. We should endeavor that our houses should be houses of peace. Congregational peace as well. This body, this body is light to a very dark, dark world. When there is sweet harmony in this body, it's like a beautifully tuned instrument that gives most beautiful music, chiming into a most music-less, joyless city. We can be perfectly joined together in the same mind. That's how we start there. 1 Corinthians 1.10 says so. If there's just one jarring string, you musicians know this. If just one string out of five is not right, the whole thing is out of tune. And so one bad member in a church endangers the whole. We must be at peace among ourselves, it says. 1 Thessalonians 5.13, is there peace in the congregation? Another peace is national peace. This is what has enabled countries around the world to know Jesus Christ, that there's peace in a nation. Think about Scotland, where we descend from. It was a peace in that nation, peace which was brought together under one confession, one manner of worship, one body willing to die for the sake of King Jesus. which we have the peace we have in this nation. The peace was brought across the shores into America. Is there peace today in our cities or our country? We see rioting in the streets. Peace is the best blessing of a nation, but yet America is losing it and perhaps has already. Peace brings plenty along with it. We have the riches we do in this country to be able to send out missionaries because of a somewhat relative peace we have here. Our nation really has always been embattled in some conflict, but it's not really reached our shores, right? Except for the Civil War. I mean, maybe with Mexico, right? But other than that, I mean, ever since then, there's been all the battles are elsewhere and it makes us feel very peaceful here. Peaceful here in our states, in comparison to some of the images, which I talked about in the beginning of napalm bombs and atomic bombs, which tear apart children. He maketh peace in thy borders and filleth these with the finest of the wheat, we sing in Psalm 147, 14. Peace makes all things flourish. This is what we sing about in the Psalms. And this is what we need to be affecting in our nation for the sake of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. There is no national peace without acknowledging Christ as King. And we need to be working unto that end. There is a day coming. Oh, how I love talking about that. I've sat with Dr. Bogue, and I've talked about the peace coming in the future, that glorious time where the gospel will be victorious. It's gonna be a wonderful thing, but it starts now, with us working now for that peace, home, congregation, and national, and then it'll be like domino effects across the world. But this is what it means, that happiness of a peacemaker. And so evaluate yourself today, church. How much time do you have set apart for peacemaking? I wish there could be an app on our phones. You know how you got screen time? If you have an iPhone, you have screen time and it's like, you spent this much time looking at the screen this week on average. I wish we could have like the peacemaker app. You know, you spent this much time, this percentage of your time is spent peacemaking this week. What would our averages be? What's your screen time average? Seven hours or so per day, maybe, right? What is your average on peacemaking? One, two minutes? You need to look into your heart and start actively looking for peacemaking. We want to give it to counselors today, don't we? Here, you take the problem, children. You're all counselors. This word of God enables that to be so. You are to be edifying, building one another up. That is counseling at its core. Building one another up unto the peace, which Jesus Christ calls us to. Let this be. You notice that in verse nine, after blessed are the peacemakers, now we have an understanding of what this peace is. This peace based on blood peace, but has products which reaches out into our world. We now see the second half of this verse. For they should be called the children of God. We have That which is the status status from blood peace. So boys and girls, if you got the P now you get the S right status from blood peace. What is the status? You are called something. You're named something. Children of God. I don't wanna just gloss over this. Naturally, we're not the children of God. Jerome said we're not born God's children, but we're made to be God's children. This is indeed the case. We have this sense, of course, which we can say, well, we're all his creatures. Yes, in that sense, you can call yourself a child of God. A creature of God would be more appropriate. But you cannot say you're a son of God in that you have the benefits of sonship. This you don't have as a mere creature. Otherwise, you would have it as a frog or a pigeon. But indeed, they do not. Only those who are children of God. And let me tell you, this is not, this calling of God, this shall be called, this is not just like, oh, a special name that's not really true. This calling is effectual. It makes you a son. It makes you a child of God. Will man settle his whole estate? Will a father give his whole inheritance to his pigs? Nobody give it to his son. He will give the pigs acorns, but he won't give them his jewels. By nature, we have the devil as our father. You are of your father, the devil, Jesus says in John 8, 44. A wicked man may search the records of his father, and he will find only one estate, which he is given, that of hell, where he will join his father. But if you look into the records of heaven, Christian, you will find your inheritance. And it's here called, you will be called the children of God. There's two things that this means. If you're a child of God today, let me tell you what this means. It means that you're adopted. Oh, this glorious truth. I love adoption because it tells about the gospel. It also tells about being made. You notice it shall be called children of God. You're made children. Another way we can say that children is you're made fit for grace. And so I want to speak about these two things about this adoption and how sweet it is to the believers ears to know that you are adopted. There's something that happens during adoption. You're translated from one family to another. You're born into one family. The father that you have there is a devil. but you're translated or you're moved into a different family. And this is the first thing that you have in an adoption. You're moved, Christian, into a family. This family is the family of God, or as Augustine called it, the city of God. You're moved from one wicked, city of destruction to the city of everlasting glory in Jesus Christ. God is your father. Christ is your elder brother. And the saints are co-heirs. The angels are your fellow servants in this wonderful family. Adoption also has something to say about a legal process as well. There's a legal freedom from all the laws of the former family. In Satan's family, you had all of these laws that said, sin, and ye must sin, and nothing but sin. But in the family of the Lord Jesus Christ, he says in Psalm 45.10, and we sing about this, forget also thy father's house. Run, run to be with your husband. Oh, what a better law there is there. There is a law of freedom. He who is spiritually adopted has now nothing else to do with sin. He's not a slave of sin. Ephraim shall say, what have I to do with my idols? We read about in Hosea 14.8 when Elder Shipman was bringing us through that. A child of God has indeed to do with none of Satan's enemies, but only now with the enemies of the new family, the enemies of God. He is in battle with them. He is freed from sin. He's not freed now from duty. So that's something we need to be careful of. We can say we're freed from sin, but we're not freed from the new laws of the new family. This is the freedom which we now have to obey Christ. And what does it amount to? Blessedness, happiness, indeed. So there is this legal freedom There's this legal law, which we're no longer attached to and which we do become attached to as part of the new family. Adoption also consists in a legal investiture. Now let me explain this children. When you become part of a family by adoption, you become just as much a son as a biological son. You become just as much a daughter as a biological daughter. And you have all the benefits given unto you for that. It's a beautiful thing. There's privileges which this spiritual adoption gives us. We're given a new name. He who is divinely adopted assumes a new name. We're no longer a slave and the slave of Satan, but now we're a son. We're no longer a sinner. We're now a saint. This is the name of honor better than any title of Prince or King. Oh, I remember reading forward in Revelation and we'll get there next week. Revelation 2 17. to him that overcometh, I will give a white stone. And in the stone, a new name is written. You've been adopted believer into a new family. It's a wonderful thing. The white stone signifies remission. The new name signifies adoption. That's what we're talking about here. You should be called the children of God. This new name is written to show that God has all the names of his children. and they're written into the book of life. Oh, this is a beautiful thing. And that second privilege of adoption is inheritance. Inheritance. That's part of that legal investiture. One day mom or dad's going to die. There's going to be a will and it'd be right on that. What you get, that's your inheritance, right? They're going to say, I leave you the crock pot and you know, some other things that you may have and it'd be a beautiful thing to you. What do we get from God? When Jesus died and there's that blood peace that we now have, what's the inheritance that is red? It's the making one and heir of all the glories of heaven. All the glories of seeing Jesus face to face. It's going to be absolutely amazing. And that's why we had to talk about that. When we talked about the pure in heart, seeing God. Oh God, in adopting us for his children, gives us a glorious inheritance. It's called in Colossians 1.12, the inheritance of the saints in light. It's not able to be described. I can just describe it as light. It's a glorious thing. He not only adopts us, but he calls us, shall be called children. This has something to say about making us fit. You who have spent time in the army, you know, you were made fit for duty. You were know the inspection that was done. They checked to make sure, you know, your body was right. You didn't have too many broken bones. You needed waivers. If you had certain things wrong with you to be fit for duty, you had to be trained. and be fit for the fight. And so you were trained for battle. There's something similar here as you are called to be children of God. God makes children. He fits them. He makes them suitable for his grace. When God makes any of his children, he stamps his image upon their heart. You're made to look like Jesus. This is more than any living man can do in adoption. This is more than even any man can do in biological, making them sons and daughters. You may make something near and dear to you in likeness, but there won't be the same spirit, won't be the same pureness, which Jesus makes in children. God is making you see children fit for sonship, fit to bear his name. He prepares and sanctifies them for this privilege. He changes their disposition. He flies off the ruggedness of their nature. He makes them not only sons, but saints. They are of another spirit. They become meek and humble. They're partakers of the divine nature. Are you changed? Are you changed? That's what I'm asking here today. If you're a child of God, there's certain things that is evidence of this to be so. Because if you do not have this divine imprint, then you are none of his, you're fooling yourself. But if you have it, you can revel that your inheritance will be given, that you have a new name. And so I wanna speak of a couple things of what it looks like to be this child, this child that you are called to be. Peacemaker, you must have a tender heart. Do you have a tender heart today? Do you have a heart that grieves for sin? A child weeps for offending his father. Peter, it was said by, I believe I read it in Clement of Alexandria, that Peter, every time he heard a cock crow, he would cry. Do you mourn for your sin in this way? Remembering it, hating it, sorrowing after it. The least sin, you see, is like that tiny hair that falls into your eye. making your eye weep? Does the least sin make you cry when you think upon it, even as it did Peter, thinking upon his denial of Christ? David's heart smoked him when he cut off the very corner of the garment of Saul. Do you lament and cry for your sin when you realize that you have cut off so much more in Christ than the corner of his garment? You've nailed him to the cross. You were the one which put him there. Your sins that you sorrow after. Is there a tender heart in you? There's a tender heart that must melt under the mercy of God. Do you see the thundering of God? You see it upon Mount Sinai. Do you see it upon Mount Zion? His thunders? Do you fear him? But then you melt to think that great and wonderful God, yet would stoop down and save me. Is there a melting of mercy in your heart for the mercy of God? A tender heart trembles and yet it also melts. Is this you? If you're called, you have the spirit of adoption. This is the spirit which is talked about in Romans 8, 15, the one that says, Ava, Father. It is one which works in you a special work. How do you know if you're a child of God? Well, you have this spirit of adoption. What does it look like? Well, there's three types of works that it works in you. I want you to look at your life, see if that work is in you. There's a regenerating work of the spirit of adoption. Whomsoever the spirit adopts, he regenerates. God's children are said to be born of the spirit. Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, says Jesus in John 3, 5. We must first be born of the spirit before we're baptized with a new name and brought into the family outwardly. We're not God's children by creation. No, but by renovation, by regeneration. And so a new heart is absolutely necessary. Is this work done in you? Is your heart different? Can you look back at a time when your heart was corrupt? Your heart was against God, but now it's new. You have the spirit of adoption, a regenerating work, but there's also a praying work, a praying work in this heart of one who has the spirit of adoption. Oh, the spirit of adoption is a spirit of supplication. It says in Romans 8, 15, you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry. Are you crying? Are you lifting up your mouth unto God and you're supplicating? Children, that means you're petitioning. You're asking of him, give me, give me like the baby bird at the nest. Your mouth is wide open waiting to receive of your father. Prayer is nothing else but the soul's breathing into the bosom of the Father. Perhaps not with vocabulary, which can be made out, but with groans, and that's okay. He knows your groans. He knows that language. God knows all languages, the language of tears, like Hannah, who was laid before and could only mutter. The priest thought she was drunk, but the Lord knew her prayer. And he answered, as soon as ever the Spirit of God comes into the heart, he sets a praying, no sooner was Saul of Tarsus converted. But the next word is this, behold, he prayeth. Look it up in Acts 9.11. And this is something which I must confess to you, we need to work into us. Notice if you look in your bulletins and you look at the front, you see there's a morning worship. You see there's fellowship lunch and you see that there is evening fellowship. You see these things, but where is the prayer meeting? It used to be on Wednesday. I was told it wasn't enough to attend it. So we moved it to Sunday after the lunch at, and we had it there until COVID. And then with COVID that's dropped off. Do you yearn for a prayer meeting? Are you really praying? like one who has the spirit of adoption. Pray for your session as we consider how can we be faithful to the spirit of adoption in our own congregational life. What does a prayer meeting look like? This is something that's in our covenants. Our covenant of 1871 says that we would be at prayer meeting petitioning the Lord, supplicating Him that this nation would come to peace, that we would be peacemakers once again, but where are our prayers? Are we praying anymore? I started a series on prayer and I can never get out of it. With you, I don't ever wanna leave it. Because I want us to be a praying people. I want us to pray in private. And I pray that these past two years you have increased your prayer life in private. But I can tell you this, we've decreased our prayer corporately, haven't we not? We have it morning, but we don't have it during the week. We don't have it any other time on Sunday. Sometimes we pray in the fellowship. We'll lay hands on people. Praise God for that. We need to be prayer warriors. We need to be prayers, to be peacemakers. We need to have a spirit of adoption that runs and gives us a supplicating spirit. And there you will see power. But until then, I tell you, there will be no power. A witnessing work in the heart is done. God's children have not only the influence of the spirit, but the spirit of witness. The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. That's quoting Romans 8, 16. God's children delight to be in God's presence. The children love to be in the presence of their father. I would pray that would be the case. Where the King is, there is the court. Where the presence of God is, there is heaven. Do you want to be in heaven, believer? Be in the presence of the Lord. Be in His Spirit. Be in prayer. God is in a special manner present in His ordinances. That is the preaching of the Word. That is the reading of the Word. That is the singing of Psalms. That is the sacraments. There's a special presence there, and we ought, by witness of the Spirit, to be attending unto them. They are like the ark of His presence. They are like the divine mercy seat. If we are children, we love to do much in holy ordinances, in holy duties. In the use of ordinances, we draw near to God. We come into our Father's presence. In prayer, we have a secret conversation with God. In the word, we hear God speaking from heaven unto us. How does every child of God delight to hear his father's voice? How does every sheep delight to hear the shepherd's voice? In the sacraments, we get God's kisses, the kisses of his lips. He gives them a smile of his face, a seal of his love. Oh, it's good to draw near to God. Psalm 73, 28. It is sweet being in the presence of God. Every true child of God says a day in thy course is better than a thousand elsewhere. Psalm 84, 10. Is that your heart today? People whose slight ordinances, they do not have this spirit. because they care not to be in his presence. Maybe they love the tavern. Maybe they love the bottle. Maybe they love Netflix better than the temple. You see, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. We saw a little bit about that in Sabbath school in regard to worship, how Cain hated his brother who worshiped rightly. He wanted the benefits without the duty. And so Cain went from the church of God where the Lord gave the visible signs of his presence. And he gave his own things. And then when he wasn't accepted, his own things weren't accepted, he went out further and had a whole different seed. Whole different seed. There's a seed of the godly, those from Seth descended, there's the seed of Cain. That is to be the same as the seed of the serpent. Do you have this regenerating work? Do you have this praying work? Do you have this witnessing work in your hearts? Do you? Are you called the children of God? This is a blessed condition to be so called. Let us pray that this will be working to our hearts. Father in heaven, I gave them, oh God, what you have shown here in your scriptures. We pray now you will do this work upon their hearts, making them peacemakers, making them prayer warriors, making them identifying with the spirit of adoption as they look upon their own lives. We love you, God. Do this work in us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. will be responding to this Psalm 29, Psalm 29 selection A. I invite you to open up your