Making Peace While The Son Shines - [Matthew 5:9]

The Violence of Human History and the Need for Peace

Violence is not the new kid on the block in time or in the Bible. As far back as in Noah's day, Genesis 6 says the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. Psalm 73, 6 says there are people who, quote, clothe themselves with violence.

Jerusalem has been said to be named a city full of violence in Ezekiel chapter 7. You might even know the word in Hebrew for violence. It's a very common word today. It's the word Hamas, violent. Will and Ariel Durant historians said in the last 3 ,421 years of recorded history, only 268 of those years have seen no war.

During this period there have been 14 ,351 wars, large and small, in which 3 .6 billion people have been killed. Interestingly, one man said the value of property destroyed would pay for a golden belt around the world 97 .2 miles wide and 33 feet thick.

John MacArthur said peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stops to reload. One authority said that from the period of 1480 to 1941, Great Britain was involved in 78 major wars, France 16, Spain 64, Russia 61, Austria 52, Germany 23, United States 13, China 11, and Japan 9.

In World War I, believed by some to be the war to end all wars in 1914 to 1918, 30 million people were killed. The League of Nations was started in 1920, hoping to have international peace, and then years later in World War II, 90 million people were killed.

The Cold War came about where there's all kinds of threats of war. At one point in the Cold War, nuclear powers had stockpiled the equivalent of 320 billion tons of high explosive. That is 100 tons for every man, woman, and child on the earth.

The United States had enough aerosol nerve gas to kill all life in an area of 455 million square miles, or eight times the surface of the entire earth. We have a problem with war today as well. Although the war today is a little bit different, it's not only an external battle, it's an internal battle.

And as Albert Einstein correctly said, the real problem is in the hearts and minds of people. It is not a problem of physics, but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man.

The Beatitudes Leading Up to Peacemakers

We need peace. We need peacemakers. And if you'll take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 5, that's exactly what we'll look at this morning. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

We live in a time of war and destruction, and we need peacemakers, and we need to see not only how we make peace with one another at home, at work, at school, in the church, but we also need to make sure, before any of that happens, that we have peace with God.

We'll take a look at peacemakers in just a moment. As you know, we've been going verse by verse through the book of Matthew, specifically chapter 5, 6, and 7, what we call the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount, I think one of the best sermons Jesus ever preached.

I can't rank them. I'm just in love with this because I've been involved for the last 12 weeks with this particular sermon. And he gives entrance requirements, as it were, to come into his kingdom, to be a kingdom citizen.

This is what you'll look like, and there are eight Beatitudes total, and today we're up to number seven. But in review, let's look at Beatitudes 1 through 6, as we see the attitudes and actions that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords would be pleased with.

Beatitude number one, found in Matthew 5, 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And here he uses this word blessed as not something subjective, but it is an objective statement of fact.

Here is the kind of behavior and attitude that God approves. He finds pleasure in that. In this particular case, and doesn't it make sense? An unbeliever coming to the kingdom, he first needs to recognize or she needs to recognize that she is poor in spirit.

That she has nothing spiritually to offer God, that she's empty, that he realizes he's a beggar, and he comes like the tax collector who says, God have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. I'm in a state of needing to receive, not to give, not to meet halfway, not to help me because God, I've helped myself.

No, it's all one way, and it says there specifically in the text, for theirs, and in the original, for theirs alone is the kingdom of heaven. Secondly, and this is the emotional counterpart to the intellectual knowledge of the need, is found in Beatitude number two, Matthew 5, 4.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. When you realize that you come before God with nothing, that you, even compared to your neighbor, that doesn't work because it's just you and God alone.

This is the God with whom we have to do, and we realize that we have nothing to offer God, then it causes us, when we see our own sins, to do what? To mourn, to have guilt, to have contrition, to cry out and lament, to be grieved over our own sin, our own personal sin.

Here you see the calls of Christ, but in the background, can't you notice the Holy Spirit beginning to work on the man or the woman as He allows them to see, yes, I have a need. Yes, I'm sad over my sins.

Thirdly, the Beatitude in verse five says, Blessed are the meek, are gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. This Beatitude, as you remember, is defined best by someone saying, I have nothing to offer you, God.

I can't forward myself. I'm in the back of the congregation. I'm powerless. God, if anything is going to be done with my soul, if you're going to save me, it's going to have to be you who saved me. Gentle and meek about that, not prideful.

God, you owe me. God, I deserve it. God, I've done these good works. No personal merit. Standing before God, crouching before God in the dust. God, if I am to be saved, you must save me. Number four, we see some solution here.

Here we see in the first three, well, there's some issues with our own heart, and then now in verse six, Beatitude number four, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

The first three point to a need, and now here comes the solution. This is the way out. Looking for the righteousness of another, realizing we have no righteousness of our own, saying, God, I need to be right with you.

I need to be having a righteousness that I don't have, and certainly we would know theologically that is the great righteousness of Christ Jesus. If God takes a person through their own recognition of their lack of righteousness, they're sorrowful over it, they realize they are gentle in the sense that they can't forward themselves, they desire and thirst to hunger after righteousness.

If something happens, Beatitude number five, these people begin to change. These are outward manifestations of a changed person, and number five says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

We go for the first four, relating to God in a vertical way, and now God has changed us, and now we relate to others in a horizontal way. We give relief to other people. We're looking out for what they need.

We become like God in a sense where we are showing mercy. And then one last Beatitude in review, number six, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Remember that from several weeks ago?

You just don't get to see God. Remember even with our song Holy, Holy, Holy this morning as we were singing it, you just can't take a look at the full blaze of glory of God and live, but here, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

God has given us pure hearts with good moral purity and doctrinal purity and a single-mindedness to serve Him, and those kind of people have the promise of God. They will see Him face to face, reminiscent of Psalm 24, who may ascend into the hill of the Lord and who may stand in His holy place.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

And now we come to a new Beatitude, number seven. Beatitude number seven, second to the last, verse nine, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Don't forget what was going on at this time period.

Rome had come in and taken over Jerusalem in 63 B .C., and if you were going to be like me and I was living in that time, I would be known as this kind of person, a zealot. I can't believe I've been infiltrated by the Romans.

I'm a Jewish person, and now the Romans had come in here, and I went them out. I don't care what it takes. I don't care what kind of arms we have to garner. I want these people out, and Jesus on the Sermon of the Mount says, Blessed are the peacemakers.

Kingdom citizens are peacemakers. Are you a peacemaker? What does it mean to be a peacemaker? Our outline today, if you're taking notes, let me give you several. I've learned a long time ago not to tell you I have five or seven.

I didn't even really learn that a long time ago. Just a few weeks ago, I've learned that. I'm not going to tell you the number from now on, because when I went to Newtown, I had six non-negotiables, and I got through three.

But I didn't tell them I had six, because if I say I've got six and I only come up with three, I guarantee someone will come to me after the service and say, What were those other three? The pleasure of study is I get so much more than I can give.

I've been studying all week, and I can only preach for two hours and 15 minutes on a typical Sunday. So when I preach for 50, 55 minutes, 60 minutes, I have to condense this. By the way, one of the checks in your own mind to ask yourself, Did that pastor preach properly?

Is if I don't give you information that you have not learned before, then there's been a problem. That is to say, if you have paid my bill so that I can study all week, I should come up with something more than you can just get the first cursory reading, just your first reading through in a cursory fashion.

We want to meet, we want to study, we want to dig. This is a gold mine. These are the words of life. So let me give you several charges to ask you if you're a biblical peacemaker. Charge number one. You will be a biblical peacemaker when you initiate peace with others.

God as Warrior and God of Peace

You'll be a biblical peacemaker if you initiate peace with others. This passage, if you look back at verse 9, it does not say, Blessed are the peacekeepers. Does it? It says, Blessed are the peacemakers.

When you initiate peace with others, you will be very much like God, and that is biblical peace. Do you notice the text in verse 9? They shall be called sons of God. Why does it say that? That's a great question to ask the Bible when you study it.

Why does it say sons of God? Let me help you with that. 1 Samuel 2 .12. Now, the sons of Eli were sons of Belial. They were really his sons, but their characteristics, the way they act, their likeness that they bore was similar to that of Belial.

Samuel, not Samuel. Eli's sons were like Satan's children. How about this one? Ephesians 2 .2. Unbelievers are called sons of disobedience. And so, in a similar fashion, these peacemakers shall be called sons of God because it will be like father like son.

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. God is a peacemaker, and you'll be called a son of God, or a daughter certainly, but you'll be called a son of God if you, like God, make peace. You're an initiator in making peace.

That's what this is talking about here. It's not saying anything else except there is a God-likeness to bringing peace between people and between God and other people. There's another word for child, technon, and that's more tender endearment, but here this word means you have the honor and privilege of being related to your father.

You bear his likeness. You say, like God, in what way? In what way does God make peace? That's the question of the hour. True or false? Man is at war with God. Unbelieving man. True? Romans 8, 7 says, because the mind set on flesh is what?

Hostile at enmity toward God. Jonathan Edwards, in a pulpit not too far from here, but a couple centuries ago, said, unconverted men would kill God if they could get at him. Do you believe that? True or false?

God hates the sin but loves the sinner. We tend to think about rebellious man, fallen in Adam, New England primer, even from a couple hundred years ago. A, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. Good job. And we tend to think that God is kind of on the receiving end of this anger.

Man is angry at God, and he's trying to build the Tower of Babel to say, I am God. And we tend to think of this one way where God receives our anger as unbelievers. And that is true. But it goes farther than that.

Did you know God is at war with unbelievers? Not just is it this simple. Unbelievers are at war with God, but primarily God is at war with them. Yes, as a creator, he loves his people. He loves his creation.

But Psalm 5 .5 says this in answer to the question that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You, speaking of God, hate all who do iniquity. What do we do?

An unbelieving person is at war with God, and God is at war with them. Boy, that sounds harsh. Psalm 7 .11 says, God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not repent, he will sharpen his sword.

He has bent his bow and made it ready. What happens when you bend a bow and make it ready? How long is it before you let go of those three fingers? He's also prepared for himself deadly weapons. He makes his arrows fiery shafts.

I was reading this week, and it was right. The real question of the universe is not why, God, do you allow suffering. This is the real question of the universe that can't be answered. Why does God not judge sin immediately?

Why doesn't God judge sinners right away? It's amazing. God is opposed to unbelievers in His holiness, and what are we to do? How about this? It seems to get worse. Exodus 15. Yahweh is a warrior. The Lord is a warrior.

Isaiah 42 .13, The Lord will go forth like a warrior. He will arouse His zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout. Yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against His enemies. What are we to do?

We always talk about put on the breastplate of righteousness and put on the armor of God. Why is it called the armor of God, I wonder? Well, God will personally put that armor on. Isaiah 59 says, God, He put on righteousness like a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on His, God's head.

And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle according to their deeds, so He will repay wrath to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies. To the coastlands, He will make recompense.

Martin Luther, A mighty fortress is our God. Lord Sabaoth, His name. He is the God of hosts. He is the Lord of hosts. He has all these armies ready to dispense in judgment as a warrior God who hates sin.

What kind of judgment hates sin? What are we going to do? What if that was all the revelation we had, just knowing God was that kind of God and we had nothing else? But aren't you glad God is more than just a God of wrath?

Aren't you glad He's a God of mercy and kindness and love? Did you know, and this is the amazing part to me, that God, who's not only a warrior God, but God is also known as a God of peace. I found it all over in the Bible.

Romans 15 .33, Now the God of peace be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13, The God of love and peace be with you. Philippians 4 .9, The God of peace be with you. 2 Thessalonians 3 .16, May the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace.

Hebrews 13 .20, Now the God of peace who brought up the dead and great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant. Jesus is a peacemaker. God is a peacemaker. If you turn your Bibles to Romans 5, I want to give you the best news I can offer you and that is the cross of Christ Jesus.

Peace with God Through Christ's Cross

You say, well, I already heard about that. Then let me remind you again about this most great and grand and glorious subject. Can you hear enough about the gospel? It's one thing to say, you know what, I just need to make peace between my brother, my friend, there's some people in the church.

That's fine and I want to get there. But that's going to be the end of the sermon. The early part of the sermon is, we need to understand how God has made peace with us. And if we realize how God makes peace with us, then we've learned the lesson, well, now we know how to make peace with others.

Because then we'll be called sons of God. I'm not going to give you just a do list this morning of how to make peace with your friends and neighbors in six easy steps. I want you to see the gravity of where we were from what God saved us from and then how great that was.

And we say, God is a peacemaker and I want to be like God. I'm a child of God and I want to do the same thing. Romans chapter 5 verse 1, in this magnum opus of Paul, the book of Romans, it says right after we hear about justification by faith alone in chapter 3 and an illustration of that in chapter 4 with Abraham, Therefore, having been justified, declared righteous by God, like a judge would forensically declare, you are not a whole, you are not clean, you are not righteous, but I declare you righteous because I've punished my son in your place.

So justice has been fulfilled. God declares us righteous by faith. We believe that is true. And even that is a gift. We have what? Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is so good. I grew up in the 70s and it's the Eagle's time.

It's a peaceful, easy feeling. I feel so good. God loves me and I'm His child. Oh, I just... Isn't that how you feel? It's kind of like... Oh, I just feel so good. Kind of like Lake Placid, a Pacific calm ocean and just...

Oh, just the twilight of a summer night and just, oh, repose and no anxiety. You think I'm crazy, don't you? There are two kinds of peace in the Bible. There is a subjective peace. We can look at that in Philippians chapter 4.

But this, beloved, is not the subjective peace. This is objective peace. This is the kind of peace we have with someone who seemingly had irreconcilable differences with us. And because of the Son, Christ Jesus, and His work at Calvary, the second person of the Trinity cloaking Himself with humanity, men sinned.

Only man could atone for men's sin. But man couldn't atone for men's sin. So God had to become a man, the God-man, to atone for sin in our place. And since He did that, God is no longer at war with us.

He is at peace with us. This is objective peace. This is not this kind of feeling inside. We have peace with God. This is not just a cessation of hostility. This is embracing. This is reconciliation. Anselm said, The debt was so great that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it.

The word peace in the original means something that was together and that has been broken apart. Something that was together, broken apart, and now has been bound back together. And that binding back, end result, is what we call in the Bible, peace.

You can think even in human relationships. Husband and wife or friends or other relationships. There's a break. There's a fracture. There's a difference. And then this kind of peace puts back together again.

It's bound back. So here we have God in His holiness, man in his sin. We all are in Adam and sinned. And then God, through His Son, can put us back together with God. Colossians 1 .20 says,. And through Him, Christ, to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

And this is all initiated by God. Did you notice? God was the initiator. God was the actor. We were passive in this. This was something that was done to us. We couldn't meet God halfway. It was because of Christ's death on the cross.

Isaiah 53 .5, doesn't this sound good? He was wounded for our transgressions. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Jesus Christ, high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. What is Melchizedek besides an interesting word?

Melchizedek, it means what? King, melek, of peace. He's the king of peace. And Romans 5 .1, if you look at it again, we have peace with God. Literally, we have peace facing God. You're kind of mad at somebody.

You don't want to look at them. You want to be far apart. Hear what God did through Jesus Christ with victory and vindication by the resurrection. He has done this to us. He has made us be able to be face-to-face with God without shame, without crouching, without any issues between God and us because Christ Jesus has dealt with every one of our issues.

And we call those issues sin. We don't have to hide our face like a criminal. Look down in verse 9 of Romans 5. It's such a great chapter. Much more than having been justified by His blood, His vicious death, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. This is the greater benefit bestowed. If God has sent His Son to die for enemies, what would He do for you, a brother or sister of Christ?

Everything. In the Bible, I found that the Trinity makes peace. God the Father is called the God of peace. The Son is called Emmanuel, God with us. But in that same verse, He's called what? A later verse in Isaiah 9, verse 6.

I'll just read it. It will be more effective. For a child will be born unto us, a son will be given, and the government will rest on his shoulder. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

And the Holy Spirit is also known as the Spirit of Peace in 2 Corinthians 1. How many people here know Peace Child, the book by Don Richardson? It's an old book and very interestingly discusses some of this very thing through the lens of Don Richardson as he talks about the Sawi tribe in Irian Jaya, Indonesia.

Two warring factions of cannibalistic headhunting tribes. How do you get them to get along? Fighting all the time, treachery, revenge, wrath, no hope of peace. But there was a custom and here was the custom.

If the one village gave a baby boy to another village, peace would prevail between the two villages as long as that baby was alive. And that baby was called the Peace Child. Well, how much more should we just not seize on that story like the missionary did?

But we should realize that is the God of the universe and He's done that for us on our behalf. The Peace Child, peace with man. And because God has made peace between Himself and us, we now can make peace between ourselves and others.

Peace in the Church and the Call to Biblical Reconciliation

Turn to Ephesians 2 and I'll show you that. The two biggest kind of warring factions, as it were, didn't amount to sticks and spears that much but the Jews and Gentiles. How could you get Jews and Gentiles to get together on anything?

Well, Ephesians chapter 2 promotes again the great glory of Jesus Christ Himself as He is our peacemaker. He has made peace with God. The bow is no longer bent towards the believers because Christ Jesus has placed the target on Himself and He has received the wrath of God and assuaged His full wrath.

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 14. Again, it's just language that speaks well of our Savior. It's just what I love to do. I love to read the Bible because it talks in such a way that speaks of God in an honoring way.

That's what I want to do too. Verse 14, For He Himself emphatically is our what? Peace. Everywhere you go in these several verses, there's peace everywhere. Who made both groups into one? Which groups are those?

The context is Jews and Gentiles. How do you make Jews and Gentiles into one? That's amazing to me. He Himself, Jesus alone. He and no other. Verse 14, it says, Who made both groups into one? Jews and Gentiles.

It says,. And broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. Well, what's all that about? If you take a look at the old temple mount area and a picture of that, or even if you go there and learn about it, here's what you would see in the temple.

You see the court of the priest or Levites, then the court of the Israelites or the male Israelites, then the court of the women, all on the same level. And then you would walk down five steps to the court of the Gentiles.

And Josephus, the Jewish historian of the day, said this about the warning that was there for the Gentiles so they wouldn't go up those steps into the court of the Jews. When you went through these first cloisters under the second court of the temple, there was a partition made of stone all around whose height was three cubits.

Its construction was very elegant. Upon it stood pillars at equal distances from one another declaring the law of purity. Some in Greek and some in Roman letters that no foreigner should go within the sanctuary.

Matter of fact, he said later that if you did, you would be killed. In 1984, I went to Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin that separated West Berlin from East Berlin. And I got on the bus and was interested to find out that when I went down the street a little bit to go to the east side of Germany, the German soldiers who had German shepherds, it just seemed odd to me that they had German shepherds, but they were mean ones.

Look at those German shepherds. Oh, German shepherds. They took these mirrors and they held the mirrors underneath the bus to make sure no one was sneaking into the country or sneaking out of the country.

Checkpoint Charlie is what it was called. And that's exactly what this was. It was a barrier. You're going to laugh, but you'll get the point. I call this Checkpoint Yitzhak is what I call this. The checkpoint so the Jews are separated from.

The Gentiles couldn't come in there. Matter of fact, they tried to kill Paul one time because they thought he brought a Gentile into the court of the Jews. Trophimus. This barrier now is broken down. It was broken down at Calvary, literally broken down when Titus sacked the city in 70 A .D., but it's broken down at Calvary, and you see what happens here, verse 15.

By abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. The enemy wasn't the law, the Mosaic law, that made separation between Jew and Gentile, but the enmity was what that law did, and it separated Jew and Gentile on all the Mosaic civil and ceremonial issues, and here Jesus fulfills all those at Calvary.

There's no longer any difference now. Romans 10, verse 4. For the Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The barrier between Jew and Gentiles are gone. I love what Charles Hodge said, the Princeton theologian.

Christ abolished the law by fulfilling its conditions. So he abolished the Mosaic law by fulfilling its types and shadows. He was the end of the law in both these aspects, and therefore it ceased to bind the people of God in either of these forms.

Of this doctrine, the whole of the New Testament is full. The abolition of the Mosaic law removes the wall between the Jews and Gentiles. I believe Charles Hodge was right. There's no difference between Jew and Gentile anymore because I don't have to wash my clothes a certain way or wear a certain garment or not eat pork or anything else.

We're the same. All right, now let's telescope back in for a second. Jesus Christ is a peacemaker. The triune God is a peacemaker. He initiates it. He goes out to do that. He's the one that takes the aggressive stance.

And so if you want to be, number one, a peacemaker like God, you will be aggressive in your peacemaking. It's not peacekeeping. It's you are the one who needs to act. Maybe you can think in your own life.

Is there somebody in my life that I'm kind of having a standoff with, and I'm just waiting for them to take the first step, and then I'll take the next step? I'm willing to go if they come to me. Would that be Christlike peace initiating?

Well, you know the answer. So when you think there's a difference in my family, let's bring it down to spouses, husbands and wives, there's a difference. There's an argument. There's a separation of thought and feelings.

There's been a fight or something. Are you the one who goes first to initiate that peaceful reconciliation? You always have to wait in pride for the other one to humble themselves and come to you. If you want to be a peacemaker like God, then you're going to be the initiator.

You're not going to just say, I'm just going to let matters lie. There's somebody at work. Maybe the guy at work doesn't even know you're mad at him. Maybe somebody at church. By the way, if you're mad at somebody at church, you have two options.

Suppress that and cover that in love, right? Love covers a multitude of sins. We're to love our neighbors as ourselves. We're to love our enemies. Call them whatever you want. But you say, there's somebody here at the church and I'm mad at him.

Well, part of being the initiator at the peacemaking is if you can't cover that, then I hope you go to them. I hope you go and say, I've got a problem with what you did and there's been a break in our relationship and did I get this right?

I think you sinned against me and you are the ones who are to go. We cannot read minds. You have a problem with leadership? What you're not to do is to go to someone else and say, here's the problem and I'm going to tell you why this leader or that person, matter of fact, that doesn't even need to be leader.

Did you know the person that picks up the chairs, he did this and so and so did that and you know the nursery said that? Well, you hold that back and you go talk to the person and you initiate like God initiates to go straight to the person.

Boy, that will get rid of so much complaining, so much slander and so much gossip and you will be acting like a son of a God, a peacemaker. Be the first to give in and it doesn't mean you have to say, I know I didn't sin but I'm just going to say it because I want to make peace.

I sinned and please forgive me. But you can go to the other person and say, here's how I would do it. Sooner or later we've got to make up. We're married till death do us part and probably now is a good time and I want to, you know, if I sinned, I'm kind of letting you in on some secrets, aren't I?

Don't say things like this. I didn't mean it because you meant it when you said it because what's in here comes out of here. You don't mean it now. You regret that you hurt them when you said it but you say, you know, I take full responsibility for this.

I own this. I'm so thankful that I have Christ Jesus, my Savior who has paid for all those sins and I just want to know if you have the heart to forgive me because I've sinned against you. Would you please forgive me?

I love you. It's biblical reconciliation and the love between there is expressed in words but it's all based on what God did. There could be no forgiveness granted to one another if there hadn't been granted forgiveness by God to us.

We just need to own up for what we've done. It was interesting when I was doing my oral defense for my thesis. One of my professors didn't send me things back in time and I was kind of late for things and he kind of caused me problems and then I got called on it while I was in there.

I just took it. I thought I'm not going to get the end of what I want if I go blasting somebody else. So why didn't you get that done? Well, it's not their fault. This is my project. It says Mike Ebenroth in there.

I didn't get that done adequately but I'd like to be able to make those changes before I attempt to graduate in May. The point being again, we're going on a rabbit trail but don't you love rabbit trails?

I used to try to get my professors on rabbit trails because sometimes I learn more from those. God is the initiator. Man, matter of fact, if you think about unbelieving man, he doesn't want peace with God.