 The song that we just sung was once sang in the jungles of Ecuador before five missionaries Made their way to the tribes of the Alcas or the Warani and they were martyred all five of them left their their wife's widowed I Every time I sing that song I imagine in my life a moment where I will sing it myself tasting a lot of danger, but on the flip side A conclusive victory in our king I hope that I'm not the only one in this room that imagines a scene like that where You can imagine yourself laying your life on the line and becoming a martyr for Christ Where you could imagine Proclaiming in any circumstance before any person no blood but our own Are you willing to pursue the sacrifice that Christ calls us to? When he calls us to be peacemakers and promises that we will be sons of God The first time I spoke in front of a a group of what I would I consider and a Baptist was in Ohio and I wanted to Have a connection point with them. So I asked a dear brother. How do I introduce myself? How do I say it's good to be here? He then proceeded to tell me a phrase. He said he said say it's just good for doh sigh Doh without the tee. I proceeded to go up on stage and I said Sis good for doh sigh and Everyone laughed and clapped at me. I did not know till much later that I told everyone. It's good to be dead but I'm trying to say it again. It is truly an honor to be here and I am privileged for the invitation I'm privileged to To make the journey. This is actually my wife's homeland and so every time I come out here I feel like I can I can participate in her youth and her love for this these lands here my entire life I wanted to be a politician so I will Proceed to tell you one of my favorite jokes about politicians and I just want to say as a preface to this I don't agree with a theology in this joke, but I will tell the joke nonetheless a politician and a clergyman died on the same day and They happened to arrive at heaven's gate together What a sight to behold it happened to be Peter's day that day to check The politician and the clergyman into heaven and to show them their quarters And so he said to the clergyman. He said mr. Clergy men, please follow me We'll show you first to your quarters and then what we I will proceed to walk the politician to his quarters so they walked into heaven it was nice and They they made their way upon Somewhat of a hotel-looking scene they went in and there are a bunch of clergymen Kind of walking around and he opened the door. He said mr. Clergy men. This will be will you be staying in heaven? It was a great room. There was a desk and a nice view out the window and he said Farewell mr. Clergy men mr. Politician may follow me now So the politician followed them and they they walked a little bit more through heaven And it became increasingly beautiful The grass got a little greener the trees got a little older the scene the scenery just got nicer and nicer and they came upon one of the nicest mansions that the politician had ever seen is an entire life and there were servants attending to every detail and Peter looked at the politician. He said this will be your quarters in heaven and the politician looked at Peter and said Mr. Peter, I think you have something wrong How is it that a clergyman just gets one room in a hotel and I get this mansion to myself? Peter looked at him and he said no, I don't think you know the way things are up here Thousands of clergymen have made their way to heaven. You're the first politician ever So I say that joke lightly because I did want to be a politician most of my life It was one of my greatest dreams I was born and raised in Keto Ecuador and I spent 18 years there and I grew up in Rachel Saints house Some of you might know that Rachel Saint is Nate sisters Nate Nate Saint sister and so the story of the five missionaries that saying this song is near and dear to my heart I heard about it almost every single day the summer. I I actually flew out of the at the same airfield that Nate Saint would fly out of and it's So it's very near to do to my heart every 4th of July my family would bring me to the ambassador's house and The ambassador the US ambassador to Ecuador and they would give us American soda candy. There'd be a Platoon of Marines that made the kids lives very very happy and so I said I want to be the ambassador So I chased that dream. I graduated from high school I took an oath of allegiance to the Ecuadorian flag when I was 18 one month later I took the oath of allegiance to join the United States Air Force two months later. I quit the Air Force I went to Mozambique a year later. I rejoined the Air Force two years later I took an oath of commissioning to the United States Air Force to be an officer One year later. I met a man named dr. Kipini Caravilla Four months later. I applied to be a conscious of conscientious objector and Then eight months later. I was let out My mother died. I drove to Boston and started Sattler College. That's the trajectory of my life So I come before you knowing that piece making I've been chasing it my whole life And I want to know what it is And I hope you do too There's a symbol Excuse me. There's a symbol of peace in the Bible. It's called the olive branch Many of you are familiar with the olive branch the olive branch that is displayed on my screen here has Has a set of leaves and I'm gonna read the scripture for what I think the set of leaves should stand for 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 meek for they shall inherit the earth Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for 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 Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven One of the most beautiful sets of teachings that has ever been uttered on planet earth Do you know what it means to be a peacemaker? Are these sets of teachings? Are they a Description of people that Jesus smile upon and says it's nice that you're making peace It's nice that you're poor in spirit or is it a Prescription for the life that we need to chase I Pause it to you that it's not a description that Jesus is not merely saying It is nice of those humans who choose to be peacemakers. He is calling each and every one of you to make peace Actively not passively. I am also a fluent Spanish speaker And if you read through the beatitudes in Spanish, it grinds my heart every time I read it Maybe not because of the translation the verse about peacemaking is translated bien aventurados los pacificadoras the pacifiers Are you an object that you put in a baby's mouth for them to suck on? Are you a peacemaker? Are you willing to shed your own blood and not only your blood, but are you willing to sacrifice your own rights? So that Christ's message can survive Will you demand an apology when you are wronged or will you actively seek to love even your enemies? shockingly your enemies I Don't know but I know what Christ said and I know the calling is great If I had to read one thing every day for the rest of my life, it would easily be the Sermon on the Mount There's a man named Shane Claiborne some of you might might be familiar with some of his writings He wrote a book called Jesus for president one time He was invited to a big conference like this to give a speech and he he pulled he pulled a little trick on them And he just read the Surround on the Mount instead of giving a speech. I thought about doing that I'm not going to I'll read a few more verses from the Sermon on the Mount This is chapter 5 verses 38 You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye in the tooth for a tooth But I tell you not to resist an evil person But whoever slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also if anybody wants to sue you and take away your tunic Let him have your cloak also and whoever compels you to go one mile go with him too Give to him who asked of you and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy But I say to you love your enemies Bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you that you may be sons of Your father in heaven for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust I can't say it better My job here today before you is to attempt to put a microphone to what is Jesus is saying and hope that you might Understand it better. Jesus has given us the set of teachings. It's our job to pursue them a Road map for my talk ahead of you I often introduce myself where I introduce my wife crystal and my son life life is pronounced I were spelled L E I F and I say this is my wife This is my my son life and now is my here's my strife Here's my burden before you. I'll introduce you to something called the four quadrants of peace and a term called Facialism it's a new word that I invented for peacemaking. I'm hoping to make it famous I'll make six points and I'll give you four calls to action. I Work at Sattler College. I was previously the dean of students and my favorite thing to do at Sattler's I call I teach a class called peacemaking and a few years ago We set out as a class and we put together an absolutely brilliant research question to spend three months Just reading everything we could read about to try to understand what peacemaking is I'll read you the question What is a life that follows the guiding principles models and metrics of biblical peacemaking grounded in a two kingdoms perspective? Striving for holistic peace and individuals on communities. What a mouthful. All right, I'll simplify it What is peacemaking as basically what we're trying to get at what is what does it mean? What does it mean when Jesus says? Blessed are the peacemakers for they will become called sons of God if if you truly believe That the beatitudes that you will receive the blessing then I hope that this question haunts you as much as it does me At the end of the night But not only haunts you gives you hope and excitement knowing that you're excited to wake up the next day and strive after it and to chase your enemies Not only to chase them, but to love their socks off do whatever you can to bring them into the fold of the kingdom in Our research we read many many books. I had a lot of interviews I Spent two summers down at a institution called the Center for Justice and Peace Building Because I thought that the the Center for Peace Building might night might know a little something about peacemaking They know a little bit But Christ was absent when I try to summarize my research. There's a there's a book that was written by two men called when helping hurts and This book basically looks at the world of poverty alleviation And comes to striking conclusions that most Americans Only know how to give people relief when they need development Basically, we're really good at handing people things But we are really really bad at transforming people's lives and Giving them a holistic piece that God has intended for them when I survey the world of peace making and peace building I find the same need if I were to write a book it would either be called no blood but our own That's what I'm leaning towards, but the opposite would be when loving hurts How often have you bumped into? People who profess to follow Christ or even maybe not and they pretend to be loving their enemies, but they're hurting them deep down inside I feel that we need a reawakening we need to reclaim what Christ meant when he said blessed are the peacemakers So in order to try to hang all the research that we did I'll all position two questions to you And I think that the general world of peacemaking and how people are going about it now Can be put upon two questions, and I'm gonna form a Mathematical quadrant don't be intimidated by it. It's just it's just how to group four things together So the first question that you have to ask is how do you view God? Is God these central relationship in your life, and is it the burning desire of your heart to be close to him and to Lead others to him number one relationship to God The next question that you must ask is how do people view your enemies? It's a very interesting question when you are conversing with somebody and you ask them How is a person supposed to treat their enemies? You'll learn a lot about a person by asking them those two questions and trying to position them on a type of worldview so after doing this I Began to find some common themes among the different models that people will pursue for peace one Quadrant one high view of God and high view of enemies Where you love God with everything you have and you'll sacrifice for your enemies and you will do them no harm You will not use violence against them and the mantra for this the mantra for this quadrant is no blood But our own you will sacrifice you will go out you will lay down your life. I call this sacrificialism if you move over to the left to quadrant two you find a view where God is no longer important and He is a maybe an ambiguous bubble floating than the set of relationships in their priority perhaps people still prioritize him but people are sympathetic to The the love of enemies. They're sympathetic to non-violence. They're sympathetic to getting along They're sympathetic to tolerating each other's differences and in this quadrant I I named the mantra as little blood as possible. I was shocked when I have pursued my studies when we get into some of the statements about self-defense and True enemies even political enemies how often People will drift and say hey peace is good, but my own enemies. They still deserve something very terrible My own political enemies they deserve Suffering and hurt it's very interesting Low view of God high view of enemies and then we'll drift into quadrant three I call this I call this view this quadrant Realism this is a term in international relations So I'm not trying to get too academic But this is a low view of God and a low view of enemies where someone's own Personal security is the most important thing to them your own personal security Security is all that it's about and so you'll see various wars being conducted throughout the ages out of this camp And they scream as much blood as necessary for my security And then lastly we have quadrant four Which has crept into the American Church and Has crept into churches all around the world Where there is a high view of God and a low view of enemies where God is still at the center But enemies deserve death Enemies don't deserve a chance to be reconciled to Christ Maybe in some different instances. I know this isn't a perfect category and their mantra is as much blood as is just So I ask you Where would you put yourself here? If you could map yourself on to these quadrants My thesis is that I'm spending my life to bring people into the top right I'm spending my life Trying to follow Christ trying to pull people out of the military that I left to elevate God and the view of enemies I hope that I can convince you of the same when we look at how to understand these quadrants There's a symbol of resistance that it's spread its way across the globe. Does anybody recognize this? Where have you seen it? Everywhere you saw it two summers ago when a man was murdered in Minneapolis or killed in Minneapolis. They spray painted this all across the walls This is the sign of resistance that in order to change things we must Resist resist the structures in place and then the globalist world has done something clever They've taken resistance and they put up two fingers on it. Has anyone seen this sign before? This is this is peaceful resistance non-resistance This has become a sweeping movement as well There are groups all across the world that have found hope that in order to pursue what they want They resist, but they do it non-violently in a peaceful manner to change the state I've yet to find that symbol for the just war theorists, but what is the symbol for sacrificialism? What image do you have in your mind? My my image that I have in my mind is Christ's hands on the cross You must know that if there was ever a time in all the earth of violence Was needed it was at that moment That was it and what happened? Jesus could have called a legion of people down before him and instead a League of Angels instead he sacrificed himself This is no blood but our own My story I told you my quick testimony has taken me on a wild goose chase around all these all these different All these different world views and perspectives. I went to a high school That was born out of the Nate St. Movement, but but the just war theorists have dominated It's a it's a missionary boarding school when I quit and went to Mozambique my my supervisor under Samaritan's purse was a Quaker and He almost convinced me that God wasn't important and in bond non-violence was was the key and not necessarily God In my years in the Air Force I Teetered along the pursuit of God in the use of violence when you encounter Bad things in the world when you encounter something you hate something. That's evil. You want to use violence There's something that burns in you to solve it my years in the Air Force put me down Where the I thought the enemies needed to be the enemies were the problem When I at my studies that the Air Force sent me to do at Harvard They tried to pull God out of everything God is not the solution. It's the state the state is your hope Put your hope in the state. It doesn't really matter about how you treat eminence. It could go one or the other and Now after discovering Christ I'm convinced of this top right God is at the center and and the love of enemies is the most important No blood but our own This this picture here is a is a picture of my trial to leave the Air Force My dear friend and brother Stood as a witness before my trial in front of a military Jag and the Jag asked him What is it the world view? What world view do you have that explains somebody leaving the military? And it was a very simple answer that was given in my trial We serve a king. His name is Jesus He has a constitution. It is the Sermon on the Mount and he has a nation or a kingdom and it is the church Amen It's been so simple to me to follow that The Christ has a crown and he's given us a mission and he has a set of ways And I'm so convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is the answer to all the world's problems And it's up to us to bring people into it I think most of you can map on different characters throughout history Into different ones of these cautions and I want to say I think they have great intentions When I meet my fellow My fellow warriors in the military, I rarely think that I meet a miss a bad person I really don't it's it's something that I don't necessarily think and there's people that are doing brave things a couple years ago a Documentary was released about a man named Dave you bank with the free Burma Rangers. I Think some of you might have might be familiar with that You watch that documentary and it captures your heart These men are risking their lives to to save physical lives to pull them out of dangerous way in Burma and then in Iraq In the as little blood as possible we have men like Michael Sharp Michael Sharp was a Mennonite that came out of Goshen, Indiana and he joined the UN peacekeepers and He they deployed him to the DRC or the Democratic Republic of Congo and in attempting to stop violence there He was decapitated and his colleague was shot in the head and His body was brought back. He was martyred for a belief that He wanted to build peace Christ wasn't necessarily central in the model he pursued, but he was nonetheless a martyr As much blood is necessary Some of you are old enough to remember In 2001 when the two planes crashed into the two towers in New York This is a man that a story about a name named Pat Tillman Pat Tillman had it set. He was a professional football player in the NFL The planes crash in he quits his career in the NFL the football league and then he joins the army Three months later. He's killed in action a martyr All of these men have something in common. What is it? They died for their belief They risked everything they gave everything. There are stories of Christian martyrs that still inspire me But we need more We need warriors who are willing to risk everything constantly Sacrifice their land sacrifice their family sacrifice their jobs Sacrifice their safety. Is this about your security your physical security here on earth? There's an extreme paradox that those who choose to risk everything will gain everything No blood, but our own Where where are the people that are risking everything for their king? in essence Peacemaking is a radical shift of how you prioritize relationships in your life God at the center as the most important the most important person neighbors the people who live next to you Then after that your enemies and on the very outside yourself Where you have now elevated The destination of your enemy and it's important to that of one which is more important than your own Isn't that shocking? Is this is this something that's biblical or not? There are two peacemaking artists in the Bible and I will read you two passages of scripture that I think demonstrate amazing peacemaking Exodus 32 1 through 32 says this then Moses returned to the Lord and said oh these people have committed a great sin and Have made themselves a god of gold Yet now if you will forgive their sin But if not, I pray blot me out of your book which you have written Do you see that? Do you see Moses putting the sins of his brothers below himself? No, and then saying blot my name out I don't want salvation if it doesn't mean that my my countrymen won't receive it Romans 9 Verse 3 says this for I wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren my countrymen According to the flesh who are Israelites to pertain the adoption the glory the covenants the giving of the law the service of God and The promises of whom are the fathers and from whom according to the flesh Christ came over who is over all The eternally blessed God. Amen. I wish that I myself were accursed From Christ for my brethren Brother Dale came up here and Mentioned that I do introduce my time sometimes as a bridge peddler and When I preach this message, I hope you know I'm preaching as much to myself as I am to you This is something I remind myself of all Every day that as much as peacemaking is to the external conflicts of the world It's even more important internally within the kingdom of God We must know how to find what we have in common and we must know how not to divide Over the ways of our king we cannot let this happen Since leaving the military I have as I mentioned I've been involved in institutions I know that there are a lot of questions about institutions and I don't pretend to have all the answers I Mentioned that I Attended Eastern Mennonite University Center for Justice and Peace Building. They have produced Multiple Nobel Peace Prize winners that receive the the Peace Prize for for their work, and I thought I thought to myself They must know they must know something if they're producing the world's highest accolade for peace. I Counted the number of times that I heard Christ in my classes. I spent two full summers there any guesses how many times and Yet the people leaving these programs are going and being beheaded on the battlefield Does that shake your world? It shakes mine? It shakes mine that there are people who have Beliefs that they are willing to risk and yet my beliefs I sometimes wonder am I really willing to risk everything? I work at Sattler. I in my peacemaking class. I dream of The next Nate St. I dream of the next Jim Elliot. I dream of a wave of warriors Going into all the nations to screaming no blood but our own I'll give everything and I'll fight for unity in the kingdom our own not my own There's like there's a key phrase there. We must do it with the church So after presenting you with the four quadrants of peace. I want to draw out six points here I Review the quadrants quadrant one sacrificial ism. No blood but our own quadrant to Globalism or liberalism as little blood as possible Quadrant three realism as much blood as necessary Quadrant for Christian realism where the just war theory has highly influenced it as much blood as is just Where are you and what are we going to do? Point number one. You cannot make peace without sacrifice and surrender. It will not happen Quadrant one is the only place where people will let go of their rights They'll let go of their dignity and say you will run over me all day long and I will not stop loving you Sacrifice and surrender The men who went into the men who went into the jungles of Ecuador Roger Euderian Pete Fleming Jim Elliot Nate St. Ed McCauley and even more their wives who blessed them to go into the jungle So that they would they raised their families without fathers This is sacrifice This is surrender There's a story in Jim Elliot's journal. I've read through it where they brought a rifle with them to Ecuador. This is amazing They left that rifle behind there are men that have pursued this multiple times throughout history This is a page from Jim Elliot's journal and as I mentioned before He's one of my heroes He wrote he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose That's one of my favorite sayings outside of the scriptures sacrifice surrender Regarding our enemies no blood but our own This is how we treat our enemies No blood no violence. Do you care for their eternal? Destination and then if Christ calls us to love our enemies, how much more does he call us to love our friends and brothers? No blood but our own Point number three We cannot run away from tradition or Christ yoke Right after I Graduated from College in Colorado Springs. I moved to the city of Boston a Freshly minted second lieutenant in the United States Air Force It was the first time that I had a car for myself and freedom. Oh the freedom of not being in a barracks It's amazing. I Had enough sense in me that I needed to find a church. I Needed to find a church to go to I visited 16 churches and I could not find one that did not have some variable of the enemy creeping in and saying did God really say Did God really say that It is rampant The biblical models of church we must hold on to what was given to us and said in Jude the faith once delivered to the saints This is an unchanging faith It does not change it is not the church of the Latter-day Saints For the LDS church it is unchanging and it is historic When I think about the tradition the different ways to view churches There are three three ways. This is the best way. I've heard it explained to me. There's tradition one Which says that the Bible is infallible authority Amen, but it is not the only authority that when we study the Bible we can look To our spiritual ancestors who lived after Christ and after the disciples. This is where the work of Scroll publishing and David or so we can discover the early Christians and hold on to the faith But there's a danger now there's a danger of something called tradition to churches Who they would agree that the the Bible is an authority, but you can elevate the tradition of men to an equal playing field with the Bible Tradition to there are many examples of this. I will use an example in the Catholic Church Have you ever heard of celibacy? The demand for celibacy in the priesthood is that tradition one or tradition two There you go and then on the other side of the dish. We have traditions traditions zero Where Martin Luther and the reformers? Claimed so last trip to that or only scripture tradition zero Proponents scream solo scriptura or I'm alone with scripture I'm on I'm a free bird able to fly throughout the Bible and decide what it says With we proved to if we pursue models in either side of these ditches We are almost most likely to find ourselves away from Christ another way to put this is that When Christ was preaching to the people he said come to me who are weary to burden and I will take you I will give you rest take my yoke upon you Take my yoke upon you for it is easy easy might not be the best translation Are we willing to take that yoke and Run with it because it's the yoke of a great king as I said before His teachings or his yoke are the Sermon on the Mount and his Sermon on the Mount gives freedom When we pursue peacemaking we cannot abandon the church The church must be a central model To us going who wanting to get in the conflicts do not run away from tradition one do not run away from Christ yoke My fourth point I'm stealing this from her modifying this from a an influencer today who says that discipline equals freedom He's a former seal Obedience equals freedom when I look at the moments That will lead up to these to these moments where we will be singing we rest on thee before maybe our death What are the small moments that lead up to these great these grand moments of glory? Is it small daily obedience, or do you just wake up one day ready to become a martyr? It doesn't work that way your obedience and your And your pursuit of God and in the secret place is what will lead To peacemaking it is what will lead to freedom your freedom and the freedom of those souls around you that need it This is a picture of my dear mother. I Mentioned that right after I decided to leave the air for she was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and I flew to her I Flew to Minnesota from California to spend time with her on her deathbed and This was at a time where I was wrestling hard with my family about the traditions of the church I'm telling you I brought my Bible in to the dinner table, and I said are we even Christians? It didn't go over well for me They still love me I think on her deathbed Someone sent my mom a prayer shawl and I'll never forget this as a she wrapped it around her head, and she looked at me said Zach Is this how you wear a head covering? Man, those are the moments that lead to glory a woman on her deathbed wearing of the head covering 0.5 peacemaking is an art and peacemakers are poets I'm a logical person, so this one's hard for me. I've never understood paint interpreting painting or poetry. I still enjoy it But peace is not simple. It's complex, but it's also simple I When I've left the military, I often think to myself, what am I gonna do in a violent situation? I have no idea what I'm gonna do There's is a picture of the orange line in Boston. It's a train that rides its way that makes its way into the center of the city and One time I was on the train and two men broke out in a fight in front of me And I was holding a big bag of fleeces big bag big trash bag and in my in my peacemaking self I Have the training to go break their arm But instead I tried to put this bag in between them and and block them from hitting each other They sat down they sat down and laughed at me When I think about the poets of the peacemaking world, I I've been given the opportunity to travel down to Nicaragua where I got to spend a week with Pablo Yoder and that man became my hero in a week You hear stories about men breaking in and they sing with them. They pray with them. They make them tea They fill backpacks full of Bibles to send to them Recently, some of you heard that Pablo was diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer, I believe Who is gonna replace him? Will it be us? Death is claiming my heroes and I want to become like them. Will we replace them? He's a a hero of mine and a poet. We need more people like him my six and hopeful point Is that King Jesus is on the move and he will claim his church. He's coming back I promise you if I have a belief in anything. It's that he will return and The other thing is that I want to look at each and every one of you the decisions that you make in your life Influence when he will come back Your life matters Do you want to be a part of it or do you not want to be a part of it? I want to be a part of it in Matthew 24 14 Jesus tells us that this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations And then the end will come It's it's a simple simple theology, but whose job is it to get the gospel to the nations? It's ours. It's our burden the burdens of the world rests on our shoulders Obviously our faith to God is The most important thing and if we remain faithful he will make the difference, but he works through his people He will not magically wave a wand one day and the gospel will reach the nations It is through faithful men faithful women who are willing to proclaim No blood but our own this is a Forgive me for those who can't see it, but King Jesus is on the move this picture comes from a man named Muhammad Bakari After I haven't told brother Martin this story, but after my talk on strength to strength a similar talk on no blood But our own he got a hold of it my talk. He's a Pakistani Muslim steadying Enemy love in the Netherlands funny how that funny how that works, and he he gave me a call and he said this is right I'm becoming a Christian because I know that Jesus's teachings of the love of enemies are real This is moving with or without us God is on the move King Jesus is on the move we can be the catalysts To summarize you cannot make peace without sacrifice and surrender It will cost you blood and It will cost you your rights of dignity You are going to get walked over Most likely you are going to offend somebody you have the humility to offer forgiveness and pursue Peace and reconciliation like you're on a warpath internally Number two regarding our enemies no blood but our own Do no harm do not use violence Point number three don't run away from tradition. We cannot abandon the church Take Christ yoke. It empowers you Point number four obedience equals freedom These daily moments where you are in the secret place with God Pursuing the commandments of Christ these will lead to the moments of glory You will not wake up tomorrow and be ready to be a martyr. You must start now Number five peacemaking is an art and peacemakers are poets Sometimes it just takes a little creativity a little artistry to try to find how to bring peace to a situation And it's not always easy God knows that we've all been in situations where we don't know how to bring peace and Yet are we willing to chase it until we find it? Point number six King Jesus is on the move and he will claim his church. He is coming Will you be part of the army that brings forth his coming? I know I'm ready to be there. I'm ready to hasten his coming So the question what is peacemaking? Oh, it's hard to find a definition of peacemaking, isn't it? There are so many principles behind it, but hopefully behind the scenes you can have a sense that peacemaking is a radical reforming of our relationships that puts God at the center with Christ teaching and the enemy above our own safety I I Taught a class and I thought I would read you the the summary of the research that they did To to put some words to a definition Sorry, though the words are a little little small up there So I'll read them biblical peacemaking is Jesus following and it looks much different than most modern endeavor at peace keeping or peace building While disarming combatants and societal transformations is certainly on Jesus's agenda He did not seek to hijack or develop the political institutions of his day Neither did he use force or coercion rather. He preached the good news of the kingdom of God He instituted the church calling them to obey his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount to bring his peaceable kingdom to earth through loving service Principled non-violence is at the core of peacemaking This can be defined as a way of life modeled after Jesus one that completely rejects violence actively confronts evil and unconditionally loves others by practicing gracious hospitality radical forgiveness and deep compassion in some love in action is peacemaking To imitate Jesus peacemakers confront the evil of conflict with self-sacrificial love and This is from them. We the peacemaking class of 2021 22 Believe that sacrificial love will transform any conflict zone large-scale or personal amen Into a peaceful situation we proclaim no blood but our own So our calls to action here. I Have logos. I want to make this famous. It's a way to talk about peacemaking not the way But if you go to no blood but our own org You can find my logos that I put up download them make stickers pass them around. I'll be developing it You can I'm gonna put these slides up as well after I'm done here so you can visit the slides Most importantly that the call to action remains unchanged Jesus gave the gate commission Not once not twice, but five times between his resurrection and his ascension This is your purpose to make disciples of all nations. You don't have to guess your purpose. It's there make disciples sacrifice point number three replace pacifism with Sacrificialism and reclaim peacemaking and proclaim no blood but our own enough of the pacifism I'm sympathetic to it, but I I get shivers when people call me a pacifist It's not it's not what I'm aiming for. It's not what Christ called us to Maybe under some definitions, but now we're just playing with words Number three pray for laborers martyrs and replacements We have a great man departing the earth in front of us down in Nicaragua Who will replace him? Will it will it be you? Wake up every morning with me in the secret place with God Daily obedience equals freedom and last I'll close with A quote from Charles Spurgeon Examining the question. What is the most important Thing that exists on planet earth? What is it? Is it money? Is it family? Is it friends? Is it land? Is it jobs? Or is it the destiny of one soul? One soul if there existed only one man or woman who did not love the Savior and If that person lived among the wilds of Siberia And if it were necessary that all the millions of believers on the face of the earth should journey there And every one of them plead with him to come to Jesus before he could be converted It would be well worth all the zeal labor and expense If we had to preach to the thousands year after year and never rescued but one soul The one soul would be full reward for all our labor For a soul is of countless price Oh, what a beautiful quote Harder to believe harder to act upon Is a soul worth all your money? All your security all your safety I hope it is And I hope when you pursue peacemaking because I I believe that you will That you learn that somebody's physical security Is important, but it's not as important as their soul security We could we could become doctors all day we can treat cancer It will come death will claim you it's coming Your soul security is much more important than your physical security And somebody's soul security is much more important than you being able to save them from a conflict If you cannot save their if their soul is not saved is it worth it? With that I'm gonna ask that we close once more with the song. We rest on the just the the first and the fourth stanza We rest on the Our shield and our defense This before the moment of your death