Episode 052 || Blessed are the Peacemakers

- Hey, Pando family, we are grateful to be, I'm grateful to be back with you this week. Brandon was with you last week. - I was grateful he's back, too. - I was out this last week. Brandon was here with one of our teammates here at Southeast named Cole. - Yeah. - So hopefully you guys enjoyed that conversation 'cause that would have been week three of Flippin', our sermon series Flippin'. And so today we are putting a period at the end of the sermon series. Kyle did that on Sunday preaching through week four of the sermon series. That was the last sermon of the series. We're gonna be talking about that today, talking about the Beatitudes. But if we've never met before, my name is Derek. I'm our online pastor here at Southeast. Brandon is joining me. He's my teammate on the online team and we do this podcast every week to review the sermon, to talk about some of the notes that we gained from it and doing our best to try to apply that to all of our lives as believers. But Brandon, this week, like I'd mentioned, we're wrapping up the sermon series called Flippit.

- Yeah. - Talking about how there are certain things that Jesus values and he values in his kingdom that are different than the world. - Right. - And so walk us through a little bit today. I think where'd we wrap up in verse, was it nine? - Yeah, last week, we were in eight and then this week we're at nine through 12. - Nine through 12. - Yeah, nine through 12. But before we hop in, this isn't what necessarily, well, this ends kind of the blessed section. But what do we have here? If people were to continue reading on in their Bibles throughout the rest of chapter five and six and seven, is this the same conversation? Is it different conversations? What is that? - So the next couple chapters, Matthew five, six, and seven, are the Sermon on the Mount. And it is the record of what I think is Jesus' maybe most common sermon that you think about in the days before recorded media, if he was gonna go around and tell people things, he had to deliver this in every town. There's no printing press, there's no way to get that out. You have to go and literally share it with people.

So I think this represents like the most common sermon he preached out and about in the towns of Galilee and Judea. So if you go on through five, six, and seven, you begin the sermon with the Beatitudes, these statements of blessing, and what it means to live in and forward the kingdom of God. And then, the next section of the sermon on the Mount, there's a little explanatory note there in five, 13 through 16, where Jesus talks about being the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And I think that's designed to talk about, one of the things we'll talk about at the end of the Beatitudes is Jesus ends with that Beatitude. He'll bluster you when you're persecuted. And so you might walk away from the Beatitudes and be like, well, maybe we just need to, isolate ourselves from the world. We need to go out and do what some of these other Jewish religious groups do. We need to just go hide out in the caves and wait for the end of time or whatever. But Jesus says, I think He tells us we're the salt of the earth and the light of the world to remind us like these Beatitudes are going to, they're going to lead to some persecution. They're going to lead to some problems. But they are also preserving the world, right? That as we live this way, as we live out these values, people are going, like it's going to have an effect

on the people and the culture around us. So I think He's encouraging us after the Beatitudes. You are going to be light and don't hide that light. Shine it and share it, be the light in the world. The next section of the sermon on the Mount, going through the end of chapter five, Jesus talks about having a greater righteousness. He's talking specifically about the Pharisees and Sadducees that they were living just to follow the law to look like they were fulfilling the law. And so Jesus says, He takes these Old Testament commands and He ups the anti on him. He says, well, you've heard it said, do not murder, but I tell you, don't be angry with your brother. He's saying, it's not just about what you see on the outside. It's about who you are on the inside. You've heard it said, you're not committed, don't you? But I tell you, do not lust. And so again, He's saying, you know, adultery is a very clear thing to see. Whereas lusting is, you got to watch your mind. You got to watch your heart. And so Jesus repeatedly is calling to be like, hey, the law isn't just about following the letter of the law. It's about being righteous and living out the qualities and characters of God. Matthew six, he turns his attention to kind of the spiritual disciplines of the day, of giving to the needy of prayer and fasting. He talks to us about what that really looks like,

how we should practice those things with righteousness. He goes into the end of chapter six talks about gospels. Do not store up for yourself treasures of heaven, wear moth and rust destroy. And he ends that section with an equally famous passage. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow we'll bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough. And so he's really kind of reorienting how we look at these very practical things is, you know, the minutia, the day-to-day reality of what we deal with. This is what it looks like to follow God in that. And then he ends the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 7 with just some, you know, there's some random sayings in there, a little bit of like final application points. You get the golden rule in there, Matthew 712, do to others what you would like them to do to you. And then the last couple paragraphs of it are the challenge of it, of saying, you've heard this, but it's not enough to hear it. If you need to hear the message, you need to obey it, you need to build your life on it. And he ends the Sermon on the Mount with that final conclusion invitation with the story of the two builders, right? That if you hear his words and don't listen to him, you're like a person who builds their house on the sand and the foundation rots away when the storm comes and everything falls apart. But if you hear his words, you obey them. You have built your life on the rock. And when the storm come and the rain and the winds blow at the house, it will stand firm because you have built your life on the rock. So there's this very clear challenge of Jesus saying, it is not enough just to hear this sermon. It's not enough just to know this sermon. You have to apply it into your life. You have to live these things out. And so for anyone that has enjoyed this sermon series, but especially for those that are trying to figure out, what does it look like? What would maybe expectations not the right word, but maybe it is. Hey, what are some of the things that Jesus cares about and how I particularly live my life? Well, Matthew chapter five, six, and seven are a great place to start. And it may be the place to be because if Jesus is going around sharing these things from town to town to town, and this is ultimately what we have in scripture,

then these must be the things that he and his people thought were the most important in the things that matter. Yes. Yeah. And I think the disciples were so used to hearing this message that it clearly stuck with them. You know, Matthew is one of the gospel writers who is an apostle. So I think it was very easy for him to think of, hey, well, if I could distill Jesus' message into something, what would it be? And he craps these three chapters here right at the beginning of the gospel just to let us know like, hey, this is what Jesus was about. This is what he told people about. And certainly that's not to downplay the rest of the teaching that Matthew has because Matthew records a lot of Jesus's parables and the stories later on through his other chapters. But I do think Matthew leads off with this sermon for a reason because he wants us to understand now what Jesus is calling us to is is deeper than the law, right? Because Matthew, in addition to being a apostle, he's also a Jew. So he's seeing like, hey, Jesus is establishing this new sort of covenant people, this new sort of Kingdom life that we need to step into. And this is what it looks like. So how do we think about that then? Because there's, there is, like there are probably some ways that, you know, I'm probably not even thinking about my own life where it's like, okay, like, you know, maybe it's something like with my kids or with with kids in general where it's like, okay, hey, like our parents have told us not to do this thing. And so I was like, technically, we're not doing it, but we're missing the point right behind all of this. That kind of what what God's trying to help us. Yeah, you make me think of my kids like in the backseat of the van, right? Where they got their finger up real close to like, I'm not touching. I'm not touching them. I'm not touching them. And we have that sort of mindset when it comes to righteousness that we think, well, I'm not really, I'm not really crossing the line. And Jesus says, it's not about just staying on, on one side of the line. It's about recognizing there's a higher calling, there's a higher character that God is calling us to. And it, but it's interesting, right? Because if you read through the sermon on the mount, you would say you would see like, okay, these things are not, you know, the Jesus is

making a deeper sort of commandment. But you also realize, I can't do this by myself. All right. You could, you could say, well, do not, you know, do not murder. Okay, but do not commit, you know, don't be angry with your brother. How can we do that? I mean, it is it is impossible to not be angry, especially we'll probably talk about this in peace when we talked about the attitude of peacemaker is it's, it's impossible to not be angry with people in the way our culture is today. And so we look at that and say, man, I really, I don't want to be angry, but I know I can't do that by myself. You think about the commandment against adultery and Jesus deepening that and say, well, if you look at anyone with lust in your eyes, like that's hard in our culture, like that's difficult to do. And we look at that and we could say, I could stay but man, less, that's another, that's another issue. That's a different and deeper thing. You could talk, you know, Jesus says, you've heard our ancestors were told you must not break your vows. You must carry out the vows you made to the Lord. And then Jesus says, but I tell you, let your yes be yes and let your no be no. And so we could think, well, I don't make vows. Like I don't, I don't swear, you know, I don't swear to God or whatever. But Jesus' thing is like don't, that's not even far enough is you need to be the sort of person is when you say something, you do something. When you say you won't do something, you don't do something. And I think the sermon, the point of the sermon on the Mount is to a call us to a deeper righteousness, but also to create that longing in for us,

in us to recognize we can't do it by ourselves. Is that I need someone who can do this perfectly. I need someone to model this for me. And we talked about this week, one of the Beatitudes. Anything we read in the sermon on the Mount should call us back to who Jesus is. You know, there's only one person who has ever lived this sermon out perfectly and he's the one who delivered it. And we cannot read the sermon on the Mount, A, without being challenged, and B, being convicted that this just isn't something we can do by ourselves. - Yeah, in line by line is as he's going through things he values, what we should be like, how we should think. You know, there's probably a couple of different ways that we could walk away from this message that Jesus is giving throughout these several chapters of Matthew, and we can either walk away just remarkably defeated of like, okay, well, I could never do this, so I'm gonna close my Bible and walk away from it, or we can recognize that we have a God who loved us so much that he knew, like number one, like he knows we can't do this on our own. Like you said, like he knows that and he didn't leave us on our own to that. Like he sent us in Jesus to live the life we couldn't live to die the death we deserved on the cross and to be raised from the grave

so that we could have eternal life. But in terms of this week's sermon, man, this is an area of my life where I absolutely cannot do this on my own, right? Because it is, and I don't know if it's that like, I am so thin-skinned, or easily emotional or whatever it is, but it is so easy for me to come away offended. - Yes. - In any type of situation, whether I am with my family, whether I'm at work, at the gas station, whatever it is, it's almost like I can view life in terms of like, what's happening to me. Like I can't believe that's happening, I can't believe that person said something and I thought Kyle articulated that so well 'cause there's even times where it's like, well, we try to create enemies or try to create allies by who we disagree with, right? But then we're frustrated when that same person disagrees with us on something else. So we kind of always find ourselves at odds, almost with anyone over anything, and it's probably a variety of reasons for that. But I'm curious for you, Brandon, as Kyle was preaching through this sermon, what was maybe something that connected with you specifically during this, that you were like, man, like that's something that's hitting me square in the teeth?

- I mean, I think there's so much in this week's message that just speaks to us personally, it speaks to our cultural moment. Like for me, I think it just made me think about all of the ways that our culture incentivizes division, from social media, to political conversations, to even sports, right? Like being divided from other people is very much and incentive because division engages people online, it gathers people around. Like nobody likes anything more than that feeling of righteous indignation, right? Like I am mad about this and I am right to be mad about this. And I think that-- - That feels good. - Yeah, it feels-- - It feels good. - Empowering-- - It feels especially good when there are people around you who agree with you and you're like, yeah, we are all 100% right on everything. And there is something about that that's fun. I was telling my small group last night about it. Like even yesterday, you and I sitting at the table, you were like, I'm gonna tell you something and I know, I'm telling you this too 'cause I know it's gonna make you mad. But there's something fun about that, right? To be like, all right, I am frustrated about this too. I'm angry about this. And I think Jesus so much challenges us in that with the idea of being a peacemaker and thinking, you know, the division, the division may feel good, but it's not helpful.

It's not healthy. It doesn't do anything to add anything to anybody's life. It feels good in the moment. But long-term, as we're seeing in our culture now, long-term, it's destructive and it erodes, you know, it erodes trust even in families to be like, hey, we disagree about this and I can't trust you with anything else. That is toxic. It is. And I think we are starting to see as a culture, just how incentivizing division and disagreement online is impacting us in ways that we might have never have expected. Yeah, and I mean, I've seen that in my own personal life, from my own family where we've had certain disagreements and with different people. And like the thing that was the most important to us was not even so much that like, the other person heard what we had to say, but that it was that like, we felt like we were right, you know, or they felt like they were right. And what that did and has done is create distance, you know, over something that's really not even at the end of the day, not all that big of a deal, but there's something like intoxicating about being in conflict but feeling like you're the one with the truth, right? You're the one on the right side of the table. You're the one that, you know, has the answers and it's intoxicating because there's a certain point

where it's like, it's almost like scratching that itch of pride in our soul and it's difficult. Especially, you know, when we read, you know, verses like we did this weekend where Jesus is telling the people, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, but especially the blessed are the peacemakers because that's not often something that our world treasures very much. - No, no, not at all. - And I love how Kyle, for me on a personal level, I love how he drew out the idea of like peace making versus peace, faking and peace, breaking, right? Because I would look at my life and I would say I'm generally a fairly peaceful person, except apparently when you tell me things to get me upset, but I do think there is, like there's an element of which, well, my life is peaceful because we're kind of faking it, 'cause I don't like, I don't like confrontation. It's not something I would freely want to step into. So most of the time it's just like, well, I'll just ignore that or I just won't pay any attention to it or whatever. And really that's not so much peace as it is just avoidance and that's not healthy too. On the flip side of that, I would, I think peace breaking people

are probably my least favorite sort of people, right? 'Cause those people who just wanna start a fight to start a fight, like that is not helpful. It's not helpful either, you know, is like, hey, we're not even in the ballpark of talking about something divisive and you feel the need to bring it up. Like I think those are two just completely opposite and yet an equal but opposite, equally wrong but opposite each other ways of responding to and thinking you have peace, right? Is that, well, I'm gonna create peace just by conflict. I'm gonna create peace by avoidance. Like either of those extremes are problematic because they all have, you know, effects, you know, downstream, the always wanting to fight for peace, that leads to just constant disagreement, always wanting to fake the peace, that just leads to resentment over time. And I think, you know, I think that call that Kyle had to really think about peace and making and what that means. That hit me pretty hard too to think about like what are those times or what are those situations that, hey, seeking peace really does mean we got to dig in this conflict together in a healthy way and get through it on the other side. - Well, because none of the, so the three things that Kyle talked about was making peace means moving towards the conflict.

Secondly, making peace means refusing to pick a side. Number three means making peace means absorbing the cost. And to be frank, none of those are easy. Like none of those are moving towards comfort. Like, I think sometimes I will equate and go with me here. I think sometimes I can equate peace to comfort or being comfortable. But oftentimes the way to peace is not comfortable. - Right. - Right. So it's like, yeah, like, I think like when I think of peace, like, yeah, like there's probably this like settling, comfortable feeling of harmony, right? And that's naturally my personality is to be a harmonizer in that respect. But where I get this wrong is almost like what you said, where it's like, I don't want to rock the boat, you know? So it's like, I don't want to say the thing or approach the thing or frustrate the person. Or I can become Right. Right. And what, and it kind of like what you had said that I almost have this like fake piece within me, but like what I really know, what I know is true is that what Jesus would ultimately want for our relationships is, is reconciliation. Right. That's not always possible. Right. Not with everyone. But generally he is going to value reconciliation. Right. Ultimately, he reconciled us who were once enemies, is that the Romans?

Yes. Yeah. And the passage he had put in there and the sermon. Like we were once enemies. Like that's strong language, strong language, like not even just like an outsider, but like we were once enemies of God, but yet he still decided to save us and pay our death penalty himself and, and call us his own. And so when we start thinking about this, like if we are going to be sons or daughters of God, well, we then are therefore a representation of him. And that's a heavy burden to carry knowing that we can't do this ourselves. Yeah. Well, and you know, it's interesting to, I'm just thinking this through as we're going here. So again, walk with me. I think it's interesting that Jesus in a sense is really modeling that for us here because what he's doing in the Sermon on the Mount is, is he's confronting some of the false righteousness we live with. Yeah. Like he's confronting the fake ways that we live and, and he's calling that out for what it is. He's not like, oh, like it's okay. It's okay. Like he's very direct here. But we also know like what he's come to do. Right. He has stepped into the conflict and he's confronted what's going on. But ultimately, you know, that third point that Kyle talked about, it means absorbing the cost, who was going to absorb the cost for all the ways we fall short of the Sermon on the Mount? Who's going to pay that penalty?

Yeah. The one is preaching it. Yeah. He's the only one who lived it perfectly. He's the only one who's going to pay the debt. And so I think that in a sense that's a good microcosm of that tension there is like Jesus is not afraid to come to us and convict us. And certainly as believers, you know, his spirit is not afraid to convict us. I know. He to call out sin in us, but ultimately at the end of the day, he calls us out so that he can comfort us, so that he can take that cost upon himself. And I think that's really the part of reconciliation we miss is that we so often expect the other person to make the first move. We so often expect the other person. That's fair. To make things right. And Jesus is he's the one who makes the first move and he's the one who makes things right. Even though none of this is his fault, you know, he's not the one who fell short. He's not the one who who walked away from us. We walked away from him. And yet he's the one who steps out. He's the one who goes to the place to pay that penalty. He's the one who absorbs all the costs so that the restoration can happen. Yeah. And I think it was Kyle, maybe in a sermon this past year where he talked about like especially like as we're having confrontation with someone in a moment, like there like we can absolutely be right and still be wrong, you know, we can absolutely be right and still be wrong. And it just it reminds like when I heard him say that like just automatically like several conversations flowed back into my mind where it's like, man, like if my aim in every confrontational circumstance is to make sure that I am right.

And the other person knows that I'm right. Well, I probably damaged that relationship in trying to prove that I am right. Yeah. And that's sad, you know, because I've done that with honestly probably the closest people in my life at times. Yeah. Well, you know, you know, I mean, you just made me think that it happened the other day to me that, you know, we've had a rough kind of day, some different things going wrong that I had to step into and fix and our, our 13 year old son, he, he like got out of bed about an hour after bedtime to ask something that could have waited and I've lost it on it. Yeah. Like I absolutely lost it on him and I had to go back, you know, 10 minutes later and just be like, Hey, I'm sorry. Yeah. Like you absolutely were wrong for being out of bed, but I did not respond to that right. Yeah. And, and I'm sorry about that. I think I think that's, you know, to me, that's a picture of my own failings there is to think like, okay, yeah, there is a way like I am a hundred percent justified in, in, you know, punishing him for that. I'm not, I'm a hundred percent unjustified in the way I reacted to it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, out of these three, so, you know, making peace means moving towards the conflict. Like that's hard for making peace means refusing to pick a side. Yeah. I can get that.

But the making piece means absorbing the cost. Yeah. Um, you know, so basically what he was talking about is, you know, when someone wrongs you, there is a debt and real peace isn't free. Someone has to pay that debt. Um, and, you know, with the, in some of the notes we have here, you know, in first Corinthians chapter one, verse 19 and 20, Paul tells us that Jesus made peace through his blood shed on the cross that he made that very simply that Jesus paid our debt by dying. Like it wasn't just like God just waved his hand and said, Hey, you all are forgiven. No, like Jesus took an absolute beat. They, they spit on him. They mocked him. They, they, they scourged him with, with whips. They nailed his hands and his feet to a cross, he probably suffocating, bleeding out, piercing his side, and he did this, right to pay our debt. And the hard thing is from me in this moment is that in a disagreement, someone has to absorb the cost. Yeah. Well, and that's hard for us. I think it's hard for us to, to say out loud, but we all recognize that it's true. Right. That anytime somebody wrongs you, anytime somebody does anything against you, or you do anything against them, it creates a debt in the relationship. I, and I think, just me spit ball in here, but I do think one of the reasons why we have so much trouble with forgiveness is because we like that feeling of the other person being in our debt is, you know, even if I'm mad at them, even if I'm upset with how they responded, it makes me feel like, well, they owe me now. And, you know, I can bring this. I mean, okay, we, maybe we shouldn't admit this, but I mean, we've probably done

this all in our marriages, right? Well, I'm going to hold on to this. Oh, yeah. Until I need it for sure. Oh, that time, keep that card in my pocket and I'm going to play it. That time you put, you put gas in the oil thing on the lawnboard. Like, I'm going to hold on to that purely hypothetical, but, you know, we, we hold on to those things because they're helpful and they're handy in those times where it's like, well, I can bring up the debt that's already there and make you feel bad about this. And I think that that's, that's part of the reason why we struggle with, with forgiveness. No, certainly there's hurt there. Certainly there are boundaries that need to be created and Paul, and Paul, and Kyle talked about some of that, but I do think we, we intrinsically kind of know, oh, there's a debt in the relationship and, and either we have trouble letting that go because we want to hold on to it, or we have trouble, you know, being the ones to reconcile because we're the one who created the debt and then we got to own it. You know, like, but, but ultimately someone has to, we, we have that, that kind of cliche phrase, right? Someone has to swallow their pride. And I think that's what that's hitting at is someone has to absorb that debt. Someone has to take it upon themselves and say, you know what? It's not that that wasn't a big deal. I, it was a big deal, but you know, our relationship is a bigger deal. And so we're going to find a way to, to take care of that debt and move past it. Well, it's like what Kyle was talking about. Was it the story about someone had shot, what was that again? Oh, the school shooter. Yeah, yeah, you know, protecting this person, like from the cameras and all this thing, and that is so counter cultural because in that moment, I mean, everybody

wants to just crucify this person and they probably deserve it. No, there's absolutely a debt there. I mean, you, you've taken their safety. You've taken their children. You've created this whole thing. Like there is a huge debt there. And when we see that happen, we can't make sense of it, right? Cause even I remember some of the articles, Kyle was talking about there was, and there was something not too long after that where there was a, like a church shooting in a, at a Charleston church and that church forgave the shooter and minister to his family. And, and it was a time cover article. I believe, cause we just, we don't have a category for that, because, because we're so used to letting those debts just sit and simmer that when someone steps out and says, no, let me, let me take that. Yes, it's not mine. You created it. But let me take that on myself because I want to, I want to do what's right. And, and it's, it's so counter cultural, but it is, it is so much what we long to see. I think, and when we see it, it, it, it astonishes us because it's, I think what we all know we want, but we just can't, you know, we, we don't have it with ourselves to offer. And so painting a family, this is where this gets deeply personal for all of us. Um, because what, what scripture tells us is that not some of us, not a few of us, but all of us have fallen short of the glory of God that all of us have, have, um, we've had transgressions, we've had mistakes, we've had things that have affected other people's lives, right? We, we've, we've, we've made mistakes that have altered how other people can live or if they decisions that have hurt our marriages, our children and the people around us. And I know that after reading so many of your letters that so many of you carry a heavy burden of that debt. And I get that, you know, and I think that there is absolutely a place to be able to self-reflect and own the mistakes in our life. But here's where, you know, I think this gets personal is that Jesus

loves you. And I know that that's true because while we were still sinners, he died for us. That's what Scripture tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And he didn't just do it just because he had to. You know, he did it because God has a love for you that no matter what you've done, how far off that you are, that he has a free gift of salvation for you because of not anything we've done, nothing we've done. It is only because of what Jesus did for us by living the life that we couldn't live and dying the death that we deserve that we can become sons or daughters of God. We can become a new creation. And Brandon, as Kyle, remind us, you know, are, as you reminded us, our ability, most times, our ability to forgive others, and oftentimes, ourselves is our direct understanding of what we believe about God's forgiveness in our own life. Yes. And I miss the mark on that so many times because it's so easy for me to sit in that seat that you talked about where it's like, man, I feel like this person's in my debt. And I feel all high, mighty, powerful, and whatnot. And it's like, you know, the spirit of God just like whispers in my ear at that moment of like, did you not realize, I understand what I've saved you from? Do you not realize how many times you've been indebted to other people? And then there are other times where I can feel so bad about something that I've done that I don't feel worthy of forgiveness. And I have to remind myself, again, that the scripture that God is reminding me of like, hey, like, do you not realize that I have saved you, that I have made you a new creation, and that I have made you my son, not because of anything you've ever done, but it's only because of what Jesus did. Yeah. I think that's absolutely true, is that it's one of the reasons why we struggle with unforgiveness. One of the reasons why we struggle towards reconciliation is because we don't recognize how God has reconciled us to himself, right? We don't recognize how often we have been forgiven, or we take it for granted, you know, I who was it a couple weeks ago was talking about that I made was Lucas was talking about the parable of the unforgiving servant. Later on in Matthew and this idea that, you know, there's a servant who has this great debt that is forgiven by the king and he walks out and and is mad at his fellow servant who owes him like, you know, 500 bucks, like, you know, nothing compared to what he owed the king. And I think so often we get it backwards because we don't often think about, well, how could I, how could I forgive them so great a debt? It's like, well, no, what is the debt that God has forgiven you of? How could I forgive them so many times? Like, brother, how many times has Jesus forgiven you? Like, I could sit and complain about all the times people

have done the same thing to me over and over and over again. It's like, I don't think anyone has failed anyone as consistently as I fail Jesus. And I think we don't, I think if we could sit down and do a tally board, I'm not saying we need to do this, but if we sit down and did a tally board of how many things is Jesus forgiven me for today and how many things have I forgiven other people for today? Like, Jesus is always going to win that. He's always going to win that. And I think we have to, you know, acknowledge, if we could truly internalize and acknowledge that, I think it would change the way we saw it forgiveness and reconciliation with people around us. Amen. Well, brother or sister watching Panda today, you know, if you find yourself in the place where, you know, you're feeling very defeated at the things that you've done, feeling defeated, feeling like you're too far for forgiveness. You're too far off from God's love. Be encouraged as Scripture tells us that God died for you, right? Jesus died for you on the cross that he offered you forgiveness. He offers you forgiveness, right? It's a free gift. And he doesn't just do it at an obligation. He does because he loves you. He wants to have a relationship with you and he wants you to surrender your life to him. And for the person today that struggling with forgiving someone in their life or something that's been done to you and especially for those of you that are struggling with that and you know Jesus, it would be the same encouragement would be, don't forget that we have been saved from a, from a great, And we can never forget that, right? Because our understanding, our ability to understand how much we've been forgiven is gonna be direct, it's gonna directly either help or hurt how we forgive other people. And so as his children, as people that are ambassadors of his kingdom, if we are going to represent Christ well, this is a significant area that we have to at least aim to get right in our lives. - Yes, yeah. And you know, I guess this would just be my challenge here

is to think about, you know, in Matthew chapter five a little bit later, Jesus will say, you know, if you're presenting a sacrifice at the altar and you remember that someone has something against you, that you've wronged somebody else, then you need to go make that right. But later in Matthew chapter 18, Jesus will say, well, you know, if a brother sins against you, then you go to them and talk to them. And so you look at those two passages and you think, well, which is it? Is the person who is wronged supposed to go first or is it the person who did the wronging? Are they supposed to go first? And I think Jesus' point is, like no matter what side of that fence you're on, you can take the first step, right? You can take that first step of forgiveness, of reconciliation, and we can take the first step because Jesus took the first step, right? And Romans tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't ask us to hop out first. He didn't ask us to walk towards Him. He walked towards the cross and He took that upon Himself. And I think whatever side of the fence you're on, whether you're sitting here today thinking,

I've been wronged or I have wronged, like I think there's a step out that we can all take in those relationships that need reconciliation and repair to think, like I, what was Kyle saying? Own your 2%, even if you're just 2%, own that and say like, I'm gonna take that first step 'cause I know Jesus took that first step out for me. - Yeah, that is so good. And then it's so true. And Pando family, we hope that you enjoyed the sermon series called Flip It. You can always go back and watch the previous three sermons if you didn't get a chance to catch those when they came out. Also, each week we have podcasts like these that get put on the app. We have Bible studies that we'll put on periodically throughout the year. But especially if you wanna learn more about the Beatitudes, we have an SEO online study that's called Everything is Backwards that should be on Pando for you to look up. It's a great series that our team put together. I say it's a great series. I hope that you guys would feel the same. But Brandon, any thoughts on everything is backwards as people think about continuing to dive into this? - No, I would just say, you know, if you've never spent time in the sermon on the Mount, and I think I've said this every week, I think the sermon on the Mount is one of the most transformative passages of scripture

that you can read and spend time in and meditate on. And if that's a passage of scripture, like you haven't dwelt in for a while, I would just encourage you to spend a couple of days just reading through the sermon on the Mount, taking your time, really soaking it in. Like I know people who have committed that sermon to memory just because they find it so powerful in their own life. So I would just encourage you, whether it's through everything is backwards, whether it's through your own reading and study, just find a way to sit in the sermon on the Mount for a little bit, listen to the greatest preacher who's ever preached and let Jesus transform your heart through the words he shared on that mountain. - Amen. And so Panda family, remember, we're all sinners. We're all in the same boat there. While we were still sinners, Christ still died for us. He did that because he loves us once to have a relationship with us and that gift of salvation is free. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to work for it. You have to accept it. And so if that's something that you haven't done, we would encourage you to do that today. And we would encourage you to also write us here at Southeast if you end up making that decision or maybe one of these conversations that we have on the podcast help you take a next step in your faith,

whether it's reconciling with someone or attempting to do that. We would love to hear about it. We would love to know how we can be praying for you through that. You can always find the address to our church in the description of these videos. Y'all, but for Brandon, for myself, or our folks behind the camera, we're so grateful that you took the time to spend it with us today. And we will see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]