Matthew chapter 5, if you're there in your Bible, say Amen. Alright, we're going to read verses one through nine and just follow along with me there in your Bibles. Starting verse number one, the Bible says, And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth, and he taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Verse number nine is what we're focusing on today. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. As I watched all that unfolded these last few months in our nation, I begin to be reminded more and more that the Bible is the only trustworthy, relevant resource that we can turn to in times like this. And it's no coincidence, I believe, that God would have us right here in this verse today, of all days. It seems like our country, as pastor said, is disintegrating from the inside out. We're seeing strife, we're seeing contention, we're seeing division on every level. And the Bible speaks into this very moment. Jesus, of course, in his day, is speaking to the crowd, and their culture was not much different than ours today. The climate in Jesus' day was something like this, the government, was Rome. They had come in and they had occupied Israel. Now, the Israelites, they were very proud people. They were very, you know, glad that they were God's chosen people. They're very stubborn people. They would not in any way, shape, or form want to be occupied by a foreign power, but this is the time in which Jesus is speaking to them. They are being ruled by Rome. And make no mistake, it was not a friendly relationship. The Romans despised the Jews because of their obstinance, their stubbornness, and they had kings like Herod who killed a whole generation of babies because he was jealous that he heard a king was born. They had unjust taxation, and they had so many inconsistencies throughout that empire that affect the Jews, and it was not a very good time to be around politically in Israel. Not only was the government of that time divided, but the religious scape was divided as well. It had been over 400 years and there had been no prophecy. It had been the silent years in Israel. They had heard nothing as far as prophecy from God. The Jews were divided into three different groups, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, and people were confused as to who had the truth, and the church was very divided in this season, and how would you say, that very mirrors what America is right now. The church is divided. It's racially divided, it's culturally divided, it's doctrinally divided. The church today is very divided, and so it was in Jesus' day. And then out of the blue, John the Baptist comes on the scene, the preacher who would prepare the way for Jesus. And he came with a message of repentance. He came preaching in the wilderness and a message that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. And he burst on the scene like a bullet out of a chamber. of a of a sniper. He he was very precise with his message and then came the day while John was preaching and and baptizing those in the Jordan that Jesus came along the horizon and he said, behold, the one I've been telling you about. Behold, the lamb of Jesus comes out of obscurity. He begins his public ministry. He begins teaching. He begins preaching a message like we are studying today, a message that is quite different than the religious leaders of the day. He preached about his kingdom that would transcend time, culture, ethnicities, a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom that is known as the kingdom of heaven. And this is the scene in which Jesus begins to preach and where we find ourselves this morning. And in verse number nine, Jesus focuses on the fact that those who are subjects within his kingdom, those who are a part of the kingdom of heaven, they would be peacemakers. The last thing that we could say about our time right now in America is that it's very peaceful. There's unrest all around us, civil unrest. And in a day like this, in a day like Jesus was preaching, what was needed were agents of peace, men and women who were not like the culture, men and women who operated on a different set of rules, men and women who propagated not hate, men and women who propagated the peace of God. And this is what he's calling his followers to be back then and in today's time. I want you to notice a few things. As I studied this matter of being a peacemaker, I wondered, what was Jesus referring to? How is someone a peacemaker? I want you to, first of all, notice with me, a peacemaker is someone who knows the peace of God personally. Someone who has already made peace with God. Someone who is in relationship with God. You see, peace has always been from the inside out. And peace has always been in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Prince of Peace. Apart from Jesus, there is no peace. No God, no peace. But to know God is to know peace. And let me tell you, What our world needs more than anything today is people who know God, who are close to God, and experience on a personal level the peace of God. I've learned this in my life, when I am squeezed, whatever is going on internally in my heart, in my relationship with God is what's gonna come out. And what our world is needing today more than anything is not instigators, there's plenty of those. What we're needing today is men and women who are a part of the kingdom of heaven, who identify not just as African American, not just as Caucasian, not just as Asian, whatever it means, but people who identify as children of God. First. I'm sorry. I know, you know, I'll be labeled all types of things for preaching something like this, and even in my own family, I feel closer to most of you in here than I do my own family in this town, some of them. But let me tell you this, a long time ago, God impressed it upon me that I should put kingdom over my culture, Jesus over my skin color, and that I should identify with Christ above all. And this is what Jesus says, peacemakers will have peace with God. They will know God. They will be those who... have a relationship with Jesus. The Bible talks about that. All men, we're born sinners. We're born apart from a relationship with God. We're born as enemies of God. But the Bible talks about when someone comes into relationship with Jesus, when they are saved, when they receive the gift of salvation from the Lord Jesus Christ, that they have now peace with God. The Bible talks about it in Romans chapter five. in verse one it says therefore being justified let me explain that bible word that's a wonderful bible word it says justify it means just as if you had never sinned justified i don't care what you've done this morning if you're in jesus you you stand before him justified your sin god sees no more he sees the blood of jesus applied to your account if you're thankful for that this morning say amen By faith, how is someone saved? How does someone justified? By faith in Jesus. We have, listen to this, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God. You see, what we're seeing play out before us and what has been the theme of all the ages with the civil unrest throughout the world. You know, the world has been looking for peace since we began. They've been looking on the outside. They've been looking to treaties. They've been looking to governments. They've been looking to social reform, and they can't seem to find it. Why? Because it's found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and apart from him, no peace. It's internal. It's a gift that God gives. He says, peace I give to you. And those who are peacemakers know God. They have His peace. They have the Holy Spirit of God within them. Jesus spoke about this in John 14 in verse 27. He says, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled neither. Let it be afraid John 14 So in the context of John chapter 14, Jesus has just told them that he's leaving them. He's going to heaven He's going back to his father in heaven and to prepare a place for them and he said don't be troubled I leave peace with you. I'm sending my comforter the the paraclete the one that's going to come alongside of you the holy spirit Which is of course a part of the godhead a part of the trinity. Uh, i'm sending peace I'm sending the the holy spirit of peace to be with you and the peace that he gives is not like the peace of the world that can be taken from you in just a moment in just a second the peace that i'm going to give to you it cannot be taken from you Aren't you thankful that when the Holy Spirit moved into you, he permanently indwelled you, and he will never leave you nor forsake you, and no matter what's going on around us today, we have the peace of God living within us. He said, let not your heart be troubled. And he said, neither let it be afraid. God has not given us a spirit of fear, church family. We ought to be able to walk in times like this and navigate these troubling waters with the peace of God as our compass. We ought not to be led by the hysteria, the pressure to conform to the world and the way that they see things. We don't operate on that same. We are a part of the kingdom of heaven. The Holy Spirit's ministry in our life is to bring peace, to come alongside of us. And you know what's really troubling today though is, I would say most of the people who I follow on social media, most of the people who I have on all my platforms and social media would identify as believers. And it's very troubling to see them mirroring what the world is doing right now. It's very troubling to see the same knee-jerk reactions from Christians that we're seeing from the world. It's very troubling to see pastors align themselves with radical groups and with those who do not hold to the Christian values which we call our faith, the tenets of our faith. You know, I will never align myself with a group, just to name one, just to let people know where I stand, I'm not ashamed of it. I will never align myself with a group like Black Lives Matter. When you read their statement, listen to me, black lives do matter, don't get me wrong. All lives matter too, and I agree. Cops' lives matter, all that. Lives matter to Jesus Christ. He died for all. And let me tell you this, but let me tell you, when an organization comes out and says they are against the nuclear family unit, when they come out and say that they want to expose, they want to uplift transgenderism and they want to support these types of things and they don't hold to the values, which of course we find in scripture, I will no way associate myself with that because my allegiance is to Jesus Christ and I bow the knee to Jesus Christ. I serve Jesus Christ. I don't serve my culture. I don't serve this world. My master, I can't serve two masters. And Christians, we've got to get back to saying, you may hate me, I'm going to still love you. But I serve Jesus, I bow to neither one. His name is Jesus the Christ, and I don't care what you label me. I don't care if you don't invite me over. I don't really care, but I love you the same. But let me tell you, I serve the one who's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It just shows that we need to be filled with the Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit of God. More Christians, we cannot be consuming hours and hours and hours of the media. We've got to get in the Word of God. We've got to get on our knees and ask God to direct us in the real time. That's what I did this week. I had to turn off social media. I had to turn off the news. I had to just get on my knees, get before God and say, Lord, watching this is making me upset. Watching this is causing me to feel some type of way. And I don't want to feel that type of way. I want you to direct me. I want your peace. That's what peacemakers do. It starts with that relationship. You cannot be close to God and not experience peace. He is peace. He is calm in the storm. Those who are peacemakers know the peace of God. And those who don't, they don't know the peace of God. Secondly, I want you guys to notice with me this morning, a peacemaker, Who are the ones who will be called the sons of God? Peacemakers prioritize the ministry of reconciliation. I wanna say that again. Peacemakers prioritize the ministry of reconciliation. What are you saying, pastor? Peacemakers care about the souls of men. You see, because the gospel is the gospel of peace. And when we are proponents, when we are those who prioritize the gospel and share with the lost and dying world around us, like Pastor said, I'm not giving up on America. I believe America has hope. And the hope of America is the gospel of Jesus Christ. What's going to change your heart? What can change a mind? People who have the Holy Spirit within them are going to live and act and behave in culture differently than those who do not know Him. And we have been given the message, we have been given the mission to go into our world and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was reading in Ephesians this morning, God just put it on my heart, in chapter 6, and I was reminded of the fact that we should have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. It's part of our Christian armor. You know, the problem is most Christians aren't in battle. We're sitting on our lazy boys. Most Christians aren't on their knees. They're too busy on the social media. Most Christians aren't in the battle, so they don't understand that this is a spiritual moving we're seeing. This is a spiritual battle that we're in right now. We're seeing it manifest in the physical world, but what's going on is a spiritual family. And you know, the battle has always been about the souls of men. Satan wants to deceive, to steal, kill, and destroy as many as he can. He doesn't want the gospel to go forth not one more time. He doesn't want your neighbor, whether they're white, black, brown, whatever, he does not want them to hear of a Savior. He wants to keep them in bondage. And God has called you and I to be peacemakers, to go to them and seek in the power of the Spirit to see them reconciled unto God. The fact of the matter is most of us, we do not prioritize this. Most Christians, if we're honest, we do not witness like we should. We do not look at people as souls. We do not have a burning passion for people to come to know the Savior. I was reading about William Booth this week. the founder of the Salvation Army, and how he was a man who, once he was saved as a teenage boy, he heard an evangelist preach about the lost multitudes all around the world, and he had an overwhelming passion and desires, and he said, all that I want God to give me is souls I want more souls." And so he spent his whole entire life going to the lowliest of the low in England and sharing with them the gospel of Jesus Christ, feeding them, doing whatever he could so that he could have an opportunity to share with them the good news of Jesus Christ. Sometimes that meant him getting hit with rocks. Sometimes that meant him getting spit upon. Sometimes that meant him being hit with bottles of liquor. Sometimes it meant or him being just shunned by his peers, but he didn't care. He cared more about the souls of men than he did about his own life. And that's the problem today. We count our lives dear unto ourselves. We like our comfortable Christianity and look at the culture around us because of it. Peacemakers, they're about God's work. We've got to be about God's word. Jesus said, go into all the world and preach your social equality, your personal political views, your opinions, and do all that, and use your platform to promote your ideology. Is that what he said? Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. You see, The way that we stamp holes in the darkness is by one soul at a time being liberated by Jesus. How can they hear? Read it in Romans chapter 10. except they be sent. And how can they hear unless a preacher comes? Each one of you are called to be preachers. This ministry is not something just for Pastor Shane and I. Each one of us, in our sphere of influences, we ought to be peacemakers seeking to reconcile people to Jesus Christ. Right now, is there anyone in your life who your focus, your prayer, your desire, and your mission is to see them come to know the Savior? Do you have that passion in you? And if you don't, then you aren't being a peacemaker. My neighbor, he's a sheriff's deputy. He's a young sheriff's deputy. Just got on patrol and imagine starting patrol in this climate. Got a young family, little boy, two years old and His wife is a nurse. Think about that. She's fighting COVID. He's out on the street. As far as I know, he doesn't know the Lord. And I've been working, I've been praying. We've been intentional to have them over, to go to their functions. And I'm so thankful for that relationship that God is working in. But let me tell you, I have ulterior motives. I love him, don't get me wrong, but I love him enough that I want to see him come to know Jesus as his Savior. That's my heartbeat on that. And let me tell you, we've got to ask God to give us the same compassion that he has. When he looked on the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted, having no shepherd. And I know it seems like, Pastor Urban, you're always talking about souls. You're always talking about people sharing the gospel and getting saved. Because as I read through this Bible, the whole Bible is God seeking man, God coming from heaven down. He was the greatest missionary ever. He left heaven's glory. Why? and to save the loss. That should be our priority. But the truth of the matter is, we don't prioritize it. In the scheme of eternity, how important is our opinion on matters? Not very important. Let me encourage us all, and I'm preaching to myself, because there There are opportunities that I've let pass in these days to not be bold, to not witness like I should. But let me just encourage us all to realize that eternity is something every human will go into, and that the gospel should be our focus. Our focus should be to see people come to know our Savior, Because the truth is we're all broken. Our hearts deceive us. We're wicked. We all need a savior. And this is why Jesus came. And we're going to heaven. If you're saved in here this morning, you're on your way to heaven because somebody cared enough to tell you. I'll never forget sitting at home as a nine-year-old boy in Denver, Colorado. And we had a knock on the door. And I answered the door. There's two little blonde-haired teenage girls And we lived in a rough part of Colorado, Denver. And I saw them knocking on the door. I opened the door. They said, hi, is your mom there? Is your mom home, or your mommy, dad? And I said, my mom's here. And I went and got my mother. And they began to talk to my mom and invite myself and my two sisters to a summer camp that their church was hosting. And they were just so excited, and you could just see the joy of the Lord on them. And they pumped it up in front of us, and we began to tug on Mom and say, Mom, can we go? Can we go? And let me tell you, my mom, she never would let us out of her sight. She was very protective of us, having gone through abuse herself as a child. And she was one of 12 children. And she took pride in taking good care of us. I'm so thankful for my mother. But for whatever reason, she had the peace of God to let us go to this camp. We got on this bus, this old crickety bus, and we went out to this church that had a little campsite. And it was the greatest week of my life. I learned how to do things that week. I had never learned how to ride horses. I got in a canoe and I shot arrows. We had a lot of fun. I just remember it being a blast. But I remember most the last day when the preacher got up, the preacher who happened to be white. He got up and he preached the gospel. And that was the day that I received the Lord Jesus as my savior. And let me tell you, those are peacemakers, are people who don't care what you look like on the outside. They know you're a soul. They know you have an eternal destination and that apart from Jesus, you will never go to heaven. And I learned early on, and I'm thankful my mother always taught us this too, You know, skin doesn't matter. Culture is, you know, it's different. God is a God of diversity, but God sees the most important. He sees that we're all souls. We're all made in his image. We're all image bearers in here tonight. You're made in the image of God. If you've maybe come in here today, you're a visitor, I want to encourage you. You are made in the image of God. God loves you. He loves you so much. He sent Jesus to die for your sin. so that you can have eternal life. And if you don't know him, today would be a wonderful day to trust him. He will take away your sin. He'll take away your guilt. He will give you peace within. He'll give you a purpose bigger than yourself. And I'm telling you today, peacemakers are those who prioritize the gospel of Jesus Christ, seeing people saved. Paul wrote about it. He said, I've been given a ministry of reconciliation. That's why I suffer many things. That's why I do what I do. That's why I'm willing to be the reproach of the world because I know that God prioritizes souls. I know God is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance. And let me tell you, we will see change in our country when the church starts being the church. When we start prioritizing seeing people saved, coming to know Jesus, we will see a change in our culture. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age hath blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine in them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ, the Lord, and ourselves, your bondservants, for Jesus' sake. Paul, he said, the God of this world, he's working to blind the hearts and minds of those who don't believe, but we preach Christ, not ourselves. Many times we use our platforms, our voices. We scream loudest about the things that 100 years from now will not matter. But you know, if you lead somebody to Jesus Christ, a hundred years from now, they'll still be in heaven. A million years from now, they'll still be in heaven. I'll never forget. His name was Ronnie, Ronnie S. Roddy. He was a Middle Eastern man and he was a Muslim. I worked with him at this car dealership. I worked at him, and we worked together, and God just really began to work in Ronnie's life. He went through a divorce. He was kind of at his lowest low, and then I was working with him. I was in seminary. I was on fire for God. I would witness to an empty pew. Let me tell you, in Bible college, guys, I would sneak into the auditoriums, the empty auditoriums, and I would open my Bible, and I'd just start preaching. to chairs, like God lit a fire in me. I asked him to keep lighting it, because sometimes it gets cold. I just remember Ronnie and two kids, and one day we were transporting some cars back from a different dealer, and we took two cars down. We took one back, and we got to talking, and he started asking me questions. He knew I was in seminary, and I began to share with him the gospel. As we got back, we pulled into the parking lot there at the dealership, and Rodney, right there in that car, I'm sitting right here driving, he's on the passenger side, he bowed and he trusted Christ as his Savior. He was in church that Sunday. He was baptized that Sunday. He went home and he told all his family, I am no longer Muslim. I'm a Christian. He took a, it gets better. I'm telling you. He went to his wife and he shared with her the good news that he was a Christian and that he was a new man. You see, before, if you know anything about Islam, they don't treat women very well. They don't talk about this. But he began to rebuild that relationship. He began to, she was a little hesitant at first, but over time she began to see the change in him. And they got back together. I'm just telling you a story, I'm not promoting me, I'm promoting Jesus. The gospel of Jesus Christ. And let me tell you, there are more stories like that. And God wants to give you stories like that. He wants to give us, each and every one of us, ministry. He has given us a ministry of reconciliation. And the world doesn't know they need Jesus, but we should be the peacemakers, the ones who show Jesus to the world so that when we are different, they know, hey, what they're saying has some weight. Let me listen to this person. He's different. She is different. I'm telling you, those are the ones who would be called the sons of God, the daughters of God. I'm telling you guys, God wants to use us in this time, this unique time in history. He's called us to be peacemakers. Let's be that. Let's ask God to use us.