Winning the One Who Wronged You

this son-in-home for 21 years. Today's sermon is from Matthew 5, 43, through 48. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends reigns on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same. You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. This is the word of God for the people of God. Please be seated. - Well, hey Summit family, if you have your Bibles, I want you to meet me in Matthew chapter five. We're actually going to cover verses 38 to 48. If you're new with us, we've been making our way through the Sermon on the Mount, which covers Matthew chapters five, six and seven. As you're making your way there to Matthew chapter five, let me just say that one of the things that I absolutely love about our church is our passion, our commitment to plant churches. We want to be a multiplying church.

We don't want to just be a church that adds services, adds people. We want to multiply people. We want to multiply churches. And earlier this week, man, my heart was just full to witness our church planting conference that we hosted with the churches. We have played a role in planting through something called our summit collab. And at our Capitol Hills campus, there were 1,100 leaders from these churches we have planted representing 100 churches. In fact, this past Easter, 125,000 people showed up at one of our church plants. So can we just give God praise, honor and glory? He is well on the move through what he is doing here at our church. Let me say a word of prayer for us and then off we go. God, thank you. - Thank you, Father God, for what you're doing. The kingdom of God is advancing. In fact, through our church, there have been many who have felt the call of God, put their yes on the table, have gone out, have moved to other locations. They've gone out, they've been sent. And God, we pray for them, Lord God, as we are here holding the rope for them, that you would use them as your vehicles, as your vessels to advance your kingdom here on earth.

But God, this idea of living a sin life, it's not just for people who say, yes, I'm gonna uproot and I'm gonna move and help plant the church, all of us are sent. And so God, show us what that looks like in all of our spheres of influence and especially regarding today's teaching as relates to how to show the love of Jesus Christ, not to just people in general, not to just people we like, but to people who mistreat us. Holy Spirit, nudge us. We open our hearts, our minds to you. Do what you want. Be with me, your servant, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Shane Windmeyer came to national prominence several years ago. In fact, that name, for some of you, may faintly sound familiar. Shane Windmeyer is the founder and executive director of an organization called Campus Pride, which seeks to celebrate and advocate for people in the LGBTQ+ community. He came to national prominence when he discovered that Chick-fil-A and its then CEO, Dan Kathy, held a position on sexuality that ran contrary to his. If you know anything about Chick-fil-A and Dan Kathy, they are a biblically based company. So here's Shane, he is clearly irritated, he's agitated and he begins to take a very adversarial posture.

He begins to just unleash as an enemy of Chick-fil-A all kinds of hostilities. He calls a national protest against Chick-fil-A, begins to say some very unflattering things about the company and its CEO, Dan Kathy. And in the middle of it all, Shane was shocked when his telephone rang and it was Dan Kathy. >> Thank you. Can't you just see him just assuming that the voice on the other end of the line was going to say a lot of mean and hurtful things? Shane didn't get that. He got the exact opposite. What he got from this man he had been attacking, Dan Cathy was kindness and compassion. Dan expressed a intense curiosity about Shane. He asked him about his family and wanted to hear more about his story. When they got off the phone, Shane was shocked, a little bit disoriented. How can someone treat him so kind when he's been so hostile towards this individual? And sure enough, one phone call turned into another, turned into another, and before you knew it, Shane and Dan were forming a friendship. It was a bit unsettling. And then one time Dan Cathy called and said, "Hey, Shane, of course I run this company called Chick-fil-A. "There's this annual football game we host. "It's a pretty big deal called the Chick-fil-A ball.

"I want to invite you to be my guest. "I want to give you the VIP treatment. "In fact, I want you to put the image on the screen. "I'm actually going to invite you to stand "on the football field with me and watch the game." It's unbelievable. Dan Cathy did all of this for a man who had sought to publicly shame him. He did all of this to someone who mistreated him. Still unsettled, Shane wrote an article in The Huffington Post about what he experienced with Dan Cathy. Here's what he said in one portion, "Will you look at it with me?" Throughout the conversation, Dan expressed the sincere interest in my life, wanting to get to know me on a personal level. He wanted to know about where I grew up, my faith, my family. In return, I learned about his wife and kids and gained an appreciation for the devout belief in Jesus Christ and his commitment to being a follower of Christ more than a Christian. Dan expressed regret and genuine sadness when he heard of people being treated unkindly in the name of Chick-fil-A. Here it is, I love this, but he offered no apologies for his genuine beliefs about marriage. He's unsettled. I punched you, you didn't punch back.

I mistreated you and we didn't go tit for tat back and forth. You met my hostility with love and kindness. Now here's the question, Dan, why did you do that? Did you do that? Because it was the politically correct thing to do. Was this kind of at the advice of the head of your PR department? Is that why you did it? No, did you do it, Dan? Because you're just kind of naturally wired towards being kind and you're not the punch back kind of person. No, Dan did it because, as Shane says, he's a follower of Jesus who believes in this book and specifically the teachings of our passage today. Here's what I want you to hear. And I'm telling you, you're not gonna like it. What Dan is showing us and what Jesus is going to teach us is that our enemies are profound gifts from God to amplify our gospel witness. Our enemies are profound gifts, blessings from God. To amplify, to turn up our gospel witness. God gets more glory out of Brian's life than just how I respond to people I like. No, he gets more glory. And when I meet them with the love of Jesus, those who mistreat me. So that's right. That ex who you have to haggle with, it seems every month to get the child support payments

that were court ordered, they're a gift from God to amplify your gospel. Was that's right? That person went on social media who says some very unflattering things about you. Give from God to amplify your gospel witness. That's right, that coworker who lied on you, that friend who betrayed you. To amplify your gospel witness, I don't want to say this later on. I think one of the ways, forgive my language, that you know that you are showed enough saved. It's how you treat people who mistreat you. So here's what I want to do right now. Everybody. Take out your device. Yep, that's right. Preacher said it. Take out your device. Take out a piece of paper. Take out a pen if that's how you roll for your old school. I want you to write down a name or names of people right now who are troubling you. If you're sitting next to them, write really small. Don't you write their names down? Got it? We're going to come back to it. Jesus begins our passage with words I don't like. Verse 38, Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek to her, Tim, the other also, if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let them have your cloak as well. If anyone forced you to go one mile, go with him two miles, give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. Let me just kind of give a broad sweeping statement here. Jesus begins in a very dark, ominous way. He's painting very detailed pictures of evil. Person slaps you. Person sues you. They're dragging you to court over what's legally yours. I'll explain that in just a few moments. Person forces you to go a mile. Specifically, he's talking about a Roman soldier. The very person who was kind of oppressing the Jews. So here's this picture of people just doing bad things to you. So as if that's not dark enough, Jesus then says, "Don't fight back." So, theological circles, we call this hermeneutic of suspicion. It makes me wonder,

Jesus, are you green lighting abuse? I think that's a fair question. Jesus, are you giving the thumbs up for abuse? Well, we understand this. That the way you interpret a passage of Scripture is within the broader context. And when we step back, one of the things we see is there's just no way Jesus can be green lighting abuse. In fact, some of the harshest words he ever said were against abuse. Jesus says, Matthew 18, verse 6, "Look at it with me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea." Do you hear that? These little ones, that is, these vulnerable ones, you mess with them and Jesus and God is angry about it. We'll take Psalm 82, verse 3. God says to the psalmist, "Defend the weak and the founderless, uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed." Do you hear it? He's calling us to do that. In fact, I could show you another passage in Proverbs that whoever takes advantage of the poor, the proverb says, insults his maker. God is saying, when you abuse, when you take advantage of these marginalized or poor individuals, I take that personally. So there's no way. There's just no way. He's green-lighting abuse. I mean, we would all say, even if it's sexual abuse, one time, that's one time too many. Even if it's harming a child, one time, that's one time too many, emotional abuse, one time too many. Physical abuse, one time too many. And in the crowd, this sounds just here to tell you, statistics say, some of you are living in terror because that's your story. And there have even been some Christians throughout church history who have used our passage to say, you're a Christian, take it. Please tell someone. I want to encourage you to get out of that situation. Let us be the body of Christ and come alongside of you. Here's Jesus, what he is concerned with are citizens of the kingdom of heaven and amplifying the image and glory of God. And one of the best ways we can do this is how we respond to people who mistreat us. Jesus is going to give us three very simple but profound, and dare I even say, overwhelming impossible principles. Jesus begins by saying, "You've heard that it was said in I four, nine, a two, four, two." And then he says, "But I say to you," he says, "If anyone was slapped you on your

right cheek, hear the detail." And that society, like it is in ours, most of the people are right-handed. So imagine you're facing someone, so to slap a person on their right cheek means I'm not slapping them this way with an open hand, but I'm giving them a backhanded slap. Now, being slapped in general, highly insulting, that's only magnified by a backhanded slap. So here's Jesus, here's what he says, "Man, when this person ups the ante, they don't just slap you, they give you a backhanded slap." Don't retaliate. And then he goes, "If anyone would sue you, hear the details, and take your tunic, let them have your cloak as well." Now under Roman law, the cloak was seen as so essential in that society, the average person only had one cloak, that under Roman law, it was illegal to take another person's cloak. It was seen as that essential. "Here, Jesus, if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let them have your cloak as well, even though you have the legal rights." Don't hold on to him. And then he says, "If anyone would force you to go a mile, go with them an extra one." In that day, you couldn't walk down the street without seeing a Roman soldier. Roman law stipulated that any moment a Roman soldier could take his sword and tap you on the shoulder. You knew what that meant, that you were obligated to carry his pack for at least a mile. Here's what Jesus is saying, at the end of that mile, don't just go, "Fulfilled my rights!" Let go of your rights. Don't you see what Jesus is saying here? Jesus is saying that, "If I want to win my enemy, I must lose my rights." D.A. Carson, I believe the foremost New Testament theologian, I'm going to say, in recent world history, D.A. Carson on this passage, he says this, "Look at it with me. What Jesus is saying in these verses more than anything else is that his followers have

no rights." They do not have the right to retaliate and wreak their vengeance. They do not have the right to their possessions, nor to their time and money. Even their legal rights may sometimes be abandoned. Real self-sacrifice displaces personal retaliation for this is the way the Savior went, the way of the cross. And the way of the cross, not notions of right and wrong, is the Christian principle of conduct. The message is clear. Jesus is saying, "We're to lose our rights." In fact, here's my sermon in a sentence. Here you go. We win our enemies by losing our rights. Of course, I didn't get a name in. Because I honestly believe, no hyperbole, I honestly believe this is the most un-American teaching Jesus ever gave. You and I in America have been culturally formed and discipled in the way of rights. Yes, universally speaking, I think this is a part of what it means to be fallen, depraved individuals. We naturally want our own way, but America actually piles on top of that. Revolutionary War was about our freedom, our rights as a nation. The Civil War has been called the War of States Rights. There's women's rights, there's African American rights, there's LGBTQ+ rights, and I'm not giving kind of any moral statements on any of those individually, but everywhere we turn, it's rights, rights, rights, rights, rights, rights, rights. And then we open up the Bible and Jesus says, let 'em go. "Something in you should bristle, something in you should naturally have

an allergic reaction here." One of my favorite theologians is a Croatian theologian. He teaches at Yale. In my estimation, he's one of the foremost writers and thinkers on how to engage enemies. He's a Croatian theologian by the name of Miraslav Volf. If you've never read his book, "Exclusion and Embrace," I encourage you to do so. I also encourage you to read his book, "The End of Memory." Volf is no mere academic. He himself, as a follower of Jesus Christ, was tortured. He writes about it in his book, "The End of Memory." And I want you to drink this quote in slowly. This is what he says, please don't miss this. You might wanna take a picture of it and meditate on it. Volf says, "To triumph fully, evil needs two victories, not one." The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated. So someone gossips about you, they lie about you, they cuss you out, they slander you, they strike you. It's the first victory. But notice he says the second victory happens when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life. He says, "You wanna give evil wings, punch back, retaliate, actively or passively." Some of us are way too cool to let you know that you got us.

But we'll just kind of passively close the door in the relationship. My boys are all young adults now in their 20s, so proud of these guys. But on their 12th birthday, I presented to them a book, I don't know, four or 500 pages. I said, "Here, I want you to read this." It's the autobiography of Malcolm X. And I said, "You know what I'm gonna do? "I want you to read it. "Then I want you to write me a five-page paper "comparing and contrasting Malcolm's ideology "with the gospel, to which they responded, "thank you, Father. "I'm so blessed to have you in my life." I don't know how much you know about Malcolm, but for much, much more than I am, but for much, much of Malcolm's public life, retaliation. By any means necessary. Punch back. There's a famous photo of him with his AK-47 outside of his home there in Queens. Malcolm let nothing go. At the same time, there's this little thing, little movement happening called the Civil Rights Movement, which is based on our text. Malcolm would call the Civil Rights Movement leaders, Uncle Tom, sellouts. How dare you let go of rights?

We need to be punching back. Here's my question. 60, 70 years later, whose way transform society? Punching back? Or letting go? You do know the reason why they crucified Jesus is they wanted their Messiah to be Malcolm X. My Messiah's gonna come back. He's gonna be a political Messiah. He's gonna set up his kingdom. He's gonna punch Rome in the mouth. They were shocked when Jesus didn't go. He got on a cross. In fact, even on the cross Jesus said, "Do you know that I have the right right now to call a legion of angels, but I'm going to let it go. You and I are saved not because Jesus Christ retaliated, but because he let go of his rights. And to be a Christian means I do the same." I'll take it. So what does this look like for you? Look man, you can sit in my office and I'll cry with you. She cheated on you. And look, you have the right to divorce her. There's no theological argument there. You have the right, but where's the gospel witness in that? Fulfilled my right, so I'm gone. That's why God told Jose, "Hey, I need you to go get Gomer. I know you married her. I know you cheated on her, but this marriage ain't about your marriage, bro. This marriage is to be a picture of the gospel. And I need you to treat her the way I treat you. And if every time you did something that I didn't like and gave me the right to divorce you, bro, you wouldn't have made it out of day one. I need you to go lay down your rights and do for her what I do for you every day." They stole from you. They defrauded you. You have the rights to take them to court. It's going to be a quick case. Slam dunk. You win. But where's the gospel witness in that? Let me caveat that. Sometimes there's very good reasons to take people to court and it's not even about me. I'm just trying to set a larger precedent here. I understand that. Okay, our church offended you. Yeah, we need to have some conversations.

Nothing illegal here and you may have the right to leave. But where's the gospel witness? If every time you're offended you hold on to rights and you leave. Kingdom citizens are not like American citizens. We're not founded on the principle of rights. We're founded on the principle of a Savior who let go of his. But I'm going to be honest with you, this whole idea of letting go of rights. It gets worse. It gets worse. It's hard. It's so hard. But the idea of letting go of rights, it's a passive thing. Okay, I could do that. I could divorce you. I could sue you. I could punch back. I'm not. I'm going to let it go. Jesus isn't done. Watch it. It is so brilliant. He now pivots from the passive to the active. From the minus to the addition. Look at what he says in verse 43. You heard that it was said, you shall love. You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love, love. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. In other words, he moves from let it go to love. See, the first part is kind of easy. I can let it go and forget you. I can just delete you from my phone, but notice Jesus now ups the ante. He says, if I want to win my enemy, here it is. I must actively love, love, love them. One scholar says the word love here means uncomfortable benevolence and invincible goodwill. So the idea here is to love someone is I'm actually now going to take steps towards you to actively bless you. Stay in Kathy. Hey, bro, you've been hostile towards me. I got his tickets to the game. You This is Proverbs 25, 21, 22, it says, "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. If he's thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heat burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. Hear the term enemy. Here's what I want you to do. Don't just let it go. Feed him.

Give him some to drink." So you're looking at a picture of my hero, John Perkins, legend, legend. He just died a couple months ago at 95 years of age. I don't know of anyone that I've ever met who models what it looks like to actively love people who are hostile towards him than John Perkins. Father of Jesus, I can tell you all kinds of stories. Let me give you a little simple, simple story. So John Perkins was hanging out with this young guy. This young guy was enjoying the company of John Perkins. John is just a love personified man and he says, "Hey, Dr. Perkins, can you come over in my house? I'd love to hang out with you." And John's like, "Yeah, I'd love to come over." And the guy's like, "Oh, shoot, man, just remember my mom's going to be there." And she says the dumbest stuff. In fact, she's racist. John goes, "What's her favorite food?" The guy goes, "She loves blueberries. We're going to the grocery store." So they go to the grocery store, they get a whole thing of blueberries. I can see them now with the shopping bags, knock on the door. The mother opens up, excuse me, they get inside the house. There's the mother. He goes immediately to the mother, gives her a big, awkward hug, says, "I hear you like blueberries." She goes, "Who told you that? Your son told me that." Goes to the kitchen, gets a ball, rinses out the blueberries, gets all in our personal space. Then they just eat blueberries.

"What do you need to give blueberries to?" Let me give you some two practical applications here. First one, very simple. There's this guy, man, who mistreated me. And at the time, our family was living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, 78th in Amsterdam, full tiny apartment that we were paying a big rent check for every month, but get out of my business anyway. So here we are. And I would go on these prayer walks. And I'd get on 79th Street, take me right into Central Park, and I'd walk clear from the Upper West Side, through Central Park to the Upper East Side and back. And I remember praying about this guy who had mistreated me, and they were imprecatory prayers, and I just felt like the Lord said to me one day, "I actually want you to pray for prayers of blessing over it." And it was so inauthentic at first. I'd praise number 624 to 26, "Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His blood face to shine upon you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace." But over time, man, as I'm just giving him those blueberries, just praying prayers of blessing, it shifted to God bless His finances, bless His health, bless His children, bless His marriage. I got to tell you, giving that person blueberries was like giving myself blueberries. There was a healing and a release that was happening to me, and it was quite shocking because then I realized that this person, when I wasn't praying prayers of blessing, I was holding on to unforgiveness, and that thing was turning me not into a beautiful picture of Christ, but it was like having a personality, just kind of distortion on me, that just kind of made me bitter. I had given a person a power over me they were never supposed to have. And the way that you start to get rid of that is just by praying some prayers of blessing. Who do you need to pray prayers of blessing over?

Second thing, more drastic. So my wife and I some years ago, we were sitting out with a couple. And man, they immediately went to the deep end of the pool. They said, yeah, man, many years ago, there's some serious infidelity that rocked our marriage. He confessed to all at one shot. She had no idea he confessed to like multiple affairs, all at one shot. She was rocked, she was devastated. She said, soon after she's praying to the Lord, and she says, Brian's gonna tell you, I heard the Lord say to me two things. He says, number one, don't leave him. And number two, I need you to actively serve him. She was like, I'm gonna keep it real, Brian. I was like, you must have lost your mind. She says, but I just started actively serving this person who had wronged me. And it opened up a pathway for the conviction of the Holy Spirit. As she was giving bread and water, she was heaping burning coals on his head. (silence) Who do you need to give tickets to the Chick-fil-A bowl game with? Who do you need to give VIP treatment to? Who do you need to give a bowl of blueberries to? Finally, Jesus ends by saying, when I lose my rights, and actively love my enemy,

I look like God. Verse 44, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Here it is, so that, so that, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sins reign on the just and on the unjust. This is interesting. Verse 45 is what theologians would call common grace. Did you see it, that the sun rises on the evil and the good? It's not just good people who deserve a beautiful sunrise. It's also evil people, and it's not just evil people who deserve reign, good people, quote unquote, good people get 'em too. The idea behind common grace is God does not play favorites. Therefore, neither should we. That if God loves me, and also the person who mistreated me, how much more so? Should I bottle up this common grace and love people who don't just love me, but who also mistreat me? That's exactly what he's getting to in verse 46. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same. It's like, big deal, Brian, you love those who love you. Big deal. Anybody can do that. Unsaved people do that.

It bears repeating. Say it into your hearing again. What Jesus is burning into our hearts in this teaching is that the clearest evidence of the authenticity of your Christianity is seen in how you relate to people who have wronged you. So I say this to you. It's funny. I say this to you at a time when very recently me and one of my closest friends in life who have had some very intense conversations. And I don't know what the future holds for our friendship. We go back, I met him when I was five years old in Sunday school, almost 50 years of friendship. And man, the way he's come at me, the way he's just kind of attacked me, and listen, in fairness to him, I'm not going to sit up here and play the victim, because just as I feel like he's wronged me, in fairness to him, he would say he feels wrong by me. And I want to hear those things, I want to be open to it, but I'm just going to talk from my side of the table. Men, the way he's been coming at me, I'm just going to tell you the way I'm wired is. I ain't got time for this. I ain't got time for no drama. Any witnesses here, man, I just, I ain't got time for it. I ain't got time for it. I ain't got time for it. So everything in me is like, do you, bro, do you. And then I'm just going to put myself out here.

This is going to sound crazy self-righteous because it is. As he's coming at me, there's this thing in me that says, do you not know how good I've been to you? I'm just going to put myself out there. I'm blowing you out. So self-righteous. So everything in me is like, I don't have time for this. I'm out. I'm just going to slide out the back door. I'm just going to remove your number 50 years of friendship out the door. But you know what gets on my nerves? The gospel. Romans 5-10 here at Paul says, "For while we were enemies, enemies, enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life." Here's what he's saying. And if you're here today and you don't know Christ is Lord and Savior, this is a hard truth, God doesn't just look at you as some kind of neutral bystander. He looks at you as an enemy. You've been doing life on your terms. You've been thumbing your nose at him. In fact, Ephesians chapter 2 says that this has triggered the wrath of God, that we are enemies. We are acting in hostility towards God. And here's the part that trips me out. God didn't say to Brian, "Do you, bro?" I ain't got time for the drama. I'm just going to slide out the back door. Enjoy your life. Enjoy your life. I'm sliding out the back. That's not what he did. But Romans 5-10 actually says that he took steps towards me while I was his enemy. He didn't leave me to myself, but he came after me while I was thumbing my nose at him. That's the gospel. That Romans 5-8, 2 verses before, it says that God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, while while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. My favorite word isn't God, isn't shows his love. My favorite word was wow. While I was in hostility, Christ go get him. Christ didn't punch back. He laid down. If I really want to know what you believe about the gospel, I don't need to hear a word you say. I just need to see how you treat people who mistreat you. That tells me everything. So you take out that piece of paper again. When you look at those names again, you have an opportunity to live the gospel with that person. Now hear me. Let me set some of you

free. Some of you, you've already done all you can, and I want you to be free by Romans 12-18, which says, "As best as you can be at peace with all people." For some of you, you've done your best. You're free, but there's some of us. You have it. Now here's what you should be feeling. Last thing, you should be feeling overwhelmed. You should be feeling, "I can't do this, Brian, if you only knew when this and this. I can't. I can't. I can't." And I want you to understand exactly you can't do this in your own strength. You can't do it without the gospel of Jesus Christ. John Wesley says, "My whole approach to preaching is I want to overwhelm you with law and then rescue you with grace." So I want to pray. If you're on our prayer team, I want to invite you to come down front, prayer team at one of our campuses. I want to invite you to come down front. If those names you've written down, you're just like Brian. This is incredibly hard. I want to pray for you. If the name or names you've written down, incredibly hard, I want to pray for you. Would you just stand to your feet if that's you? I've written some names down. Man, the hurt is so deep. Would you just stand up? I just want to pray for you. I just want to pray for you. I just want to pray for you. And after service or at the end of service, you can come down front. We'd love to pray some more with you. Some more people. I know you're here. Let's just pray. You can stretch a hand towards them. But let's just pray for my brothers and sisters. Father, right now in the name of Jesus, I pray. If ever, if ever the statement, easier said than done, could apply, it's here. God, we can't do this. We just can't do this, independent of your gospel, independent of the power of the Spirit of God, independent of what Jesus has done for us already on the cross. So Spirit of the Living God, I pray that they would look to Jesus, that they would be motivated by what He does for us daily, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ took steps towards us.

He died for us. Now, Lord, God help us to take steps towards those who have wronged us. God, I just speak reconciliation in this place. In a divided time, I pray that the church would be at the front of the line, just modeling to the world, what forgiveness looks like, what reconciliation looks like, what healed relationships look like. God, would you do that? We pray. In the name of Jesus, amen, amen. (gentle music) (gentle music)