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[AUDIO OUT] - In seeing the multitude, he went up into a mountain. And when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,

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blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs as the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

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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.

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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

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[Music] [Music] (gentle music) (gentle music)

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[Music] [Music] ♪ ♪ ♪♪

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♪♪ (dramatic music) ♪♪ ♪♪

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♪♪ ♪♪ [music] [music]

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♪ And so I did ♪ ♪ The greatest I've been ♪ ♪ For this my life ♪ I want the choir to sing that last passage.

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Just the one. [Music] [Music] [music]

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All together with the chorus. ♪ Great is Thy faithfulness ♪ ♪ Great is Thy faithfulness ♪ ♪ Holy, my glory ♪

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♪ Full of mercy, my King ♪ ♪ I have healed, I have healed ♪ ♪ And I know my King ♪ ♪ Pray, I pray to Thee ♪

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♪ I pray to Thee ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ The Gospel according to St. Matthew, the fifth chapter and the ninth verse are these words, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

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There is committed unto the disciple of Jesus Christ what the Apostle Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation. It is a task of putting to an end all quarrels, a task of mending broken fellowship, it's task of making peace. And the peace which is the subject of the Christian disciples'

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concern is the peace of God, not merely peace among men, because God must be the beginning of peacemaking, all human quarrels are expressions, or rather symptoms, of a broken peace with God. So the good news of the Christian message is that God, although he is righteously angry

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with man's flaunting of the laws of justice and love, he nevertheless has taken the initiative removing everything that makes for estrangement. When I was a boy I listened to people as they talked about well there is something between us, something between me and thee, so to speak, something that prevents us from being rightly related

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to each other. And quite often that exists in what we call broken fellowship. We sometimes go around and fail to come near another because there is something between us. Sometimes something has happened long before and it has not been forgotten. It's just as fresh as this present moment. We have been hurt, we've been neglected, we've been forsaken, and our

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spirits have been crushed. And so sometimes one says, "Well that person mistreated me and if we ever get together I'm not going to be the one. They'll have to take the first step. But the kind of peace which is the peace of God is when God himself, it is a situation in which God has taken the

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initiative in removing everything that makes for estrangement, estrangement. Well, that word estrangement covers so much territory. And yet every one of us somehow knows, experiences something of what is involved in estrangement. We feel somewhat strange toward one another.

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We move about and we sit next to each other and we are in close proximity to one another as far as our physical appearance is concerned, but so often we feel strange, as some put it, we feel funny toward one another. It's strange.

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You know how you feel when you are in a strange environment, how you feel somewhat withdrawn and how you are somewhat isolated and separated. Well, this is the kind of relationship which is covered by the word estrangement. And sometimes one may be a member of a family,

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and even sometimes husbands and wives living within the same house, under the same roof and yet somehow feel funny toward one another. It's strange. And this makes for war, makes for quarrels, it makes for what we call broken fellowship but in Christ in his life in his teaching in his death when

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love and sin come together in ultimate conflict we see God here reconciling the world unto himself. So God has made peace and Christians, disciples of Jesus Christ, are like ambassadors. We are sent to big people to accept peace at God's hands and on God's terms. Now to be a peacemaker, to be an effective peacemaker,

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one must be at peace in his own inner life. You can't go around making peace if you're not at peace with yourself. And when there is war going on in one's own inner nature and there is conflict and turmoil, when all of this is going on within an individual, then that person cannot be instrumental in establishing

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peace. So we we use the term some people always raising hell. That's what we say always raising hell. Well it's not something that they go outside and create but first before you can raise hell you have to have hell in you. And so In order to have peace, one must have peace in one's own inner nature. Dante says, "In

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His will," in God's will, "In His will is our peace." In His will is our peace. So causes of war and quarrels are found in the spirits of people. We're never going to have peace in the home, peace in the community, peace in the church, peace in the world until we have the spirits of people that are changed.

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Because the fact that we have war and quarrels and conflicts, all of this stems from the fact that there is selfishness, there is greed, there is fear, and there Some someone is so wrapped up in self and so much concerned about promoting self that they are willing to do that at any cost.

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Others are so greedy that they want more than should be allocated to them. They want to get everything for themselves. are fearful and others are puffed up in pride and all of this has to do with establishing conflict and quarrels, war.

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So we sort of look at Jesus as he comes to the close of his earthly ministry and he's talking with his disciples. We have the conversation there recorded by the fourth gospel writer and he declares that my peace I leave with you.

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So peace becomes a legacy that Jesus gives to his disciples. So we have anxiety and care and fear dominate the hearts of the human family and yet one of the primary concerns is peace of mind, peace of mind. Doesn't matter how much we may have. Oh, there's so many people today who have large bank accounts.

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So many who have fabulous homes and all of the comforts that one could expect in this world. all of these things but they do not have that precious possession that we call peace of mind, peace of mind. And then there are others who do not have all of these things, they just have the bare necessities of life. And yet somehow they have the most precious possession of peace of mind, peace of mind, God's peace, not not peace as the

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world gives it, but God's peace. You know on one occasion you know Jesus said that he he as I said earlier gives to his disciples the gift of peace it's a legacy of the disciples of Jesus Christ and then the other occasion another he said them I come not to bring peace but a sword how could this be and he says I

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give you peace my peace I leave with you then he says in another occasion I came not to bring peace but a sword. Well the kind of peace that many of us think about as being peace is not the peace of God. You know sometimes you can you can have a kind of peace that is really born out of indifference.

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Well I'm just at peace with myself. You hear someone say I'm at peace. In other words I don't care what happens. I don't care what they do. Doesn't matter to me. I'm at peace. Well, that's that's the kind of peace that's born out of indifference. I could care less. Some people don't care what happens to the hostages in Iran. That

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really doesn't faze them one bit. That's their problem. They haven't thought about it. One moment other than just to hear it and that's and they dismiss it just as quickly as they hear it. Some people aren't really concerned about the plight of the Vietnamese. There's some people who really don't care about the poverty

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conditions that are existing in Haiti today. Some have never really been concerned about all of the turmoil in the the problems of Africa. They really don't care. They could care less. There's some people who really don't care about the little girl, the little town in Georgia just recently, the little black girl who was shot by the Ku Klux Klan. They don't care. That doesn't

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them one day at peace they say they really don't care so like divies divies really really didn't care about what happened to Lazarus there was Lazarus it didn't it didn't concern divies that Lazarus was was daily right there at his gate with itching, running sores, and with a stomach that was

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empty and growling from the pangs of hunger. Henry didn't bother by these. In fact, he really didn't see him. He was so busy getting dressed up in his fine suits and checking his bank account and so wrapped up in his social entertainment that he really was indifferent to the human needs that were crying at his doorstep. He was at peace,

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but the kind of peace which he had was a peace of indifference, of not really caring. So, there's some people who've sort of categorized their lives in such a way that they think that the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate. Sort of an indifference. Well, this is the way God intended it. Just let it be that way, so don't bother about it. But Jesus said I came to bring not peace but a sword on this occasion and the

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Christian faith you see is not some kind of drug that Karl Marx says that it's an opium of the people no no that's not what the Christian faith is to sort of lull us to sleep so that we can be contented with the situation as it is that's not what Christian faith is but the question is a relationship that sort of

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stabs us awake and gives us the courage to face the stark realities of life peacemaking You know a lot of what we call peacemaking is counterfeit. Sometimes what we call being peaceful is just really being a coward, being

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afraid to speak up because of what someone else is gonna say or think. You say well I just I just love peace and all hell can break loose and we just have nothing to do with it. I don't have anything to do with that man. You know lover of peace Well, that's counterfeit that's not the real thing

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You know some someone can can can say the wrong thing and you know, it's wrong and So whenever we just let the other person have his way and and sometimes you know, we find we I know we find ourselves in situations where

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the other person may have the upper hand and The person may be bigger and may shout louder but The Christian

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Must recognize that we have a task to do as peacemakers In other words When when he looked at the evil that were being practiced in the name of God and and yeah There was something in him that rose up and he said I

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Yes, and I I can do no other to rise up against the Pope and against all of organized religion this man stood up, nailed his 95 pieces down, the Lord Wittenberg, because, not because he wanted to have an easy life. He was really doing what Jesus is talking about when he said I came to bring not peace but a sword.

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So we're not talking about peace, kind of peace here, that some people talk about peace at any price. like those false prophets that Jeremiah talks about who were crying peace, peace, but there was no peace. You know sometimes those people who are crying

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peace, peace, who appear to be so peaceful sometimes those persons are the enemies of peace. The true, the true peacemaker, true peacemaker, ready to be a peacemaker is to be a fighter. It's somehow to recognize that if you would be a peacemaker you must be aggressive in all the moves. Must fight what Paul calls the

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good fight. Paul says I have fought the good fight. I fought against beasts at Ephesus. So you see peacemaking must not be confused with patching things up. You know sometimes you can just patch things and patch things but there's no place to patch. You just put one patch on top of the other patch. But you see peacemaking

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ought to mean dealing with causes and not only symptoms not not just like putting a bandage on a band-aid on cancer

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But to really deal with the causes of the disease And so if we would have peace peace making it has to begin at home has to begin we're not going to have peace in the church and peace in the community and peace in the world unless somehow

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you have peace at home we're always fussing and quarreling with one another at home we're not gonna come to church and be peaceful it has to begin at home and so we have to do everything that's possible to prevent having a broken home having peace in that home and no peace is really Christian that does not

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include freedom and justice You you don't have peace apart from freedom and justice No, there's some people who really don't understand us And they think that because we're not saying anything that we are happy

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This is all we had such good relations they say before We had all of this concerned about Justice We didn't have such good relations

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You know, they just didn't understand That you can never never really have peace unless you have freedom unless the person has freedom to be You can have no peace You can have a person as a prisoner. They'd be afraid to say anything because they know what may happen

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Like that man they were talking about who was years ago in Mississippi and they Put him up said now. How are you being treated? He said he was afraid because things were rather tough

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great deal of oppression and And he said, "Well, now how are you being treated, Sue? Are you being treated all right?" So he said, "Yes, you're being treated all right.

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And now look, you're on national radio, and you can really say what you want to say." [ Silence ]