Hey, come on church. Let's pray together. Lord, we come before you. God, we thank you for your goodness. God, we thank you for your goodness on display in, in lives that are changed in baptisms.

God, we, God, we thank you for your presence in this place. And that is, Lord, the God, the cry of our hearts today. That, that we would rather be just a moment near you than a thousand days in, in any place that the world may call good or comfortable. There's nothing like your presence. There's nothing like the joy, the hope, the peace that is you.

And so God, we thank you for your presence in this place. And Lord, we just, we pray over the next few minutes, God, that you'll soften our hearts to, to receive your word, to receive your truth. God, we, we pray for we pray for even more stories of life change, God. And we pray above all else for your glory. God, we pray that you'll guide us, Lord, and that you'll move all things we ask in your name.

Amen and amen. Well, hey, welcome, welcome to Venture. Do me a favor. Um, if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it and turn to Matthew chapter five, the Gospel of Matthew, first book in the New Testament, uh, Matthew chapter five. We're gonna look at one verse, Matthew five, verse nine in just a moment.

Um, let me catch. I know this is gonna be, uh, kind of old news for a lot of folks in the room, but lemme just kinda catch everybody up, make sure we're all on the same page. We have been walking through, uh, over the past several weeks just kinda line by line this, uh, section of Scripture that we call that honestly history and tradition has called the Beatitudes. And, and what we've been looking at through this series and through this teaching is, is what it looks like to be people of the kingdom, right? I think Craig did a really good job the first week we started this series, just kind of acknowledging that man, when we talk about the beatitudes, we're, we're really not talking about your attitude.

I know that's kind of how that word sounds, right? But, but beatitude, that word beatitude comes from the Latin word for blessing. And it, it refers to these nine statements from Jesus, uh, right here at the very beginning of his, his earthly teaching ministry where he, he, he starts each statement with the word blessed. Blessed are those. And what Jesus is doing throughout this teaching is he is identifying what his kingdom people look like.

I think the way Craig said it is, these are things that we are becoming right? This is what it looks like to be formed into his image as we walk in the way of Jesus. And the result of that is that we are part of his kingdom. That's the blessing at hand here, right? And so we get to today is we're walking through this series.

We get to, um, honestly, what, what I think is a providential message and word. I think God has ordained this for us months ago. Um, we get to a picture of peace where, where Jesus says, my people and the people of the kingdom will be people who are defined by peace. Now, I don't think that, that we have to look all that far to acknowledge that as a whole, we are people that don't move naturally towards peace, right? And I'm not talking about like us specifically, I'm just talking about humankind, right?

Mankind, we're, we are not a people that, that moves most naturally towards peace. Now, I realize that they're like personality tests and assessments and all that kind of stuff that, that may tell you differently and all those things, like they, they usually have some really good benefits. They also have clear exceptions and, and limits. Um, but just as a whole, right? Like our nature, lemme give you an example.

I think it'll be easier. Uh, my, my two yearold daughter, right? I've, I've talked about Charlie Kate a lot. We have a 2-year-old daughter, uh, and man, like, love her like every day, man, I think I laugh more with CK than I do the day before. Like, man, it's just, it, it is a fun season.

It's a fun time with her. I mean, she just, she's a really funny person to me. But that joker is ready for war, son. Like, I mean, like, she hits the ground ready for it, you know, like she is, um, I, I think we're we're nice people. I really do.

Like, I think we're nice people. I think we're really nice parents. We certainly don't qualify as like gentle parents. I wouldn't say that. Um, but we're nice people, right?

And I speak to my daughter in a very loving and a very, very nice tone, you know? But man, she, like, she, she's just in that season, she's in that stage. At least I think it's a stage. If it's not, if we're doing something wrong, I started to say, tell me, but I actually don't think I want you to tell me. I'd rather just live in ignorance.

Um, but like, she, she is, I mean, she's just in that stage where like limits are being pushed, you know? Like she's just, she's trying to find the line. She's trying to figure out where the fight is. And so like, I'll tell her, you know, very soft, I, man, I'm soft spoken to my daughter. Like, Hey, baby, please, please be careful.

I don't, I don't want you to knock that bottle off the table and from grandma's house, just boom, across the room, you know, like, she's ready for it. She's ready for the fight, whatever. I was literally writing these notes out, Brook's not here in this hour. So, uh, I may not say this later, um, but I was literally writing these notes out, uh, for this message on peace. And Charlie Kate is yelling down the hallway at Brooke, you're not my friend.

You're not like, this is the person that sustains her life. You know, she's not moving towards peace. Like, that's just, that's not how we're born. I'll give you another example. You've been to any little league baseball games, easily.

The most stressful thing I've ever done in my life was coach little league, easily and mean like you parents, like if you've been there, you know this. Like, let some man let some college kid in umpire gear who's just trying to earn enough money to buy Taco Bell. Let that joker make a mistake. You know, call us strike three high and inside, and you are storming the beaches of Normandy. Like, it just when, like when we're squeezed, right?

When the tension is put on, when discomfort is applied, peace is not the thing that most usually comes out of us fair. And now those are really simple, kind of silly examples. I think they're true, but they're really simple examples. When we zoom out, right? And we look at the broader narrative of our culture, when we look at and like our, our current cultural environment, when we look at the waters that you and I are currently swimming in, then I, I, I think that we can very easily say, Hey, our world and our time and our culture is in desperate need of peace.

And, and some may even say like, there's never been a time that is in, uh, need of peace more than our current moment. You know, I, I watched this week, um, I've seen, I've listened, I've heard too, I'm sure many of you have if, if you've got any kind of social media account, but I, I've watched human beings, people argue over what, which senseless hate, hateful, evil filled murder is more egregious than the other, or is more acceptable than the other. And it just, man, it baffles me. It blows my mind. It breaks my heart that like, that's where we are as people, that, that, that we're having that kind of of conversation.

And so, yes, man, the, the weight of, of our desperate need for peace, the reality of a, of a broken peace around us, man, like that, that sits heavy, heavy on, on me today. And I know, like I, I know it sits heavy on, on a lot of us. And we would, we would look at our time, we look at our culture and say, man, I, I just, I can't imagine a time with, with less peace. And yet we, we, we can make all the arguments over, like, you know, that, that, that is caused by, by divisive political agendas or, or, or news stations or social media or whatever, pick the cause. Uh, Scripture would tell us that there is something much more under there, right?

A sin that has broken and disrupted our peace. If we were to ask a 40-year-old black man from the 1950s, they would say the same thing, right? They would say, man, my culture and my time is in desperate need of peace. If we were to ask almost any woman across almost any culture and time, especially in the East, right? Like they would say the same thing, they would say, man, my culture and my time and my people are in desperate need of peace.

If we were to ask, uh, Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, right? Like, they would say the same thing, they would say, man, my culture and my time is in desperate need of peace. The reality is that since sin entered the story, since the Garden of Eden, you and I have been born into a divisive world with a divisive nature. It's the waters we swim in. It's, it's the place we find ourselves in with peace broken all around us.

But here's the good news of that. It is into that world, right? It is into that broken world, that divisive world, that Jesus stepped with a message of hope and peace. And so, here's the good news I want you to see today, okay? What I want you to see today is that peace for the people of God.

Peace is indeed possible. And I want you to get both of these ideas. Peace is possible both for and through the people of God, that yes, we are indeed meant to experience peace. And I'll show you this subscription in just a moment. We are indeed meant to experience peace in the midst of brokenness, but a large portion of how we experience it is how we bring it.

God's called us to bring peace. So let's look at our text, Matthew five, verse nine. You said, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Now, here's what I wanna do today. I really want to spend most of our time on this word, peacemakers.

And it's really kind of two words smush together. Um, and, and I I just, I wanna ask a couple of questions, real simple questions, right? Like, what is peace? How do we make it? And then practically, what does that mean for us?

But before we get there, I want to, I wanna settle in on this word sons for just a moment, because some of your translations, uh, we'll read, uh, children of God right there, for they shall be called children, or they shall be called a child of God. And, and look, if you want to get into like, textual translation conversations, we're gonna walk that out later. Love to have that conversation with you just for the time being. I, I really like this translation. I really like the words sons there better, mainly because there's two words in the Greek.

One means child and one means son, and the word used here means son. So I like a little bit better, but I, I, I think there's some nuance to this that I wanna point out. I think it's important to our conversation today. Okay? Here's what I mean, that, that phrase child or children of God, it's not a bad phrase at all.

It's used a whole lot of times throughout. Scriptures are really, really good and are really, really important. It conveys a lot of truth to it. And a lot of times when that phrase is used that you're called a child or children of God, most of the time what it is pointing at is identity, right? It's, it's trying to acknowledge that you belong, that you once were separated, you are alienated, you were far off, you had no place.

But through adoption, God has brought you into the family, you belong. And as a child of God, you have the full weight and right of the king, right? That's what that's communicating. But this term, the son, sons of God, there's a little bit of a different nuance here that I think is really important because in this culture and in this time when you called somebody a son of and, and then you put their dad's name because it's important what you put in that blank, right? But to acknowledge that that person is a son of that person, right?

To acknowledge like, Hey, that is, that is Kyle, son of Peter. What what you're saying in that moment is I see something of the character and the nature of the father in the son. I see your dad in you. That's what that phrase means. I, I, I see your dad in you and the way you act and the way you respond.

I see your dad. And, and so I, I I, I point this out right here to, to acknowledge that man, when we talk about peacemaking and being called the sons of God. Like what Jesus is saying here, I believe, is that in peacemaking, we are partaking in the character and the nature of our heavenly Father. And the reason I think that is important is because we need to understand that peacemaking is not a personality trait. It's a characteristic of the kingdom.

Like, we don't listen, we don't get a passage. This is, this is the reason I'm pointing this out here. We don't get a pass here to say, well, that's just not how God wired me. You know? Or I'm an Enneagram eight, I challenge, I confront, I don't make peace.

We don't get that pass. Well, God, just, you know, God just made me to speak my mind. No, no, no, we don't, we don't get that pass. To be a peacemaker is to be like our heavenly Father. It's not a personality trait.

It's a characteristic of our, of our heavenly Father. God made us in his image, and God made us to reflect his nature. Like we talked about this. Um, when, when was it last fall? I think when we talked about the fruit of the spirit.

Part of the fruit of the spirit is peace. Like peace is the thing that is one of the things that like should come out of us as we walk in the presence of the Spirit and we're formed into the image of God. People should see the peace of the Father in and through us. That's what's under that phrase. Y'all tracking with that?

Okay, good. So, um, ba back to back to our kind of original question, like what is peace then? If we were to talk about blessed are the peacemakers, well, what is the peace that is in the mind of Jesus when he talks about this? Now, I don't think it is an over exaggeration to say that this book, right, that, that the Bible is a book of peace. I don't think it's an over exaggeration.

I, I, I think that God is a God of peace. And I think this book is a book that is centered on peace. The whole thing opens right? With, with God bringing peace to chaos. The whole thing begins in Genesis, in the garden with, with God bringing order to disorder.

There's peace and God and man walking in peace together. Peace and harmony in the Garden of Eden. And then sin enters the story. This is what we just talked about. Sin enters the story.

And the first thing that happens is the people are divided, man and woman is divided from God. That, that peace is broken, that peace is disrupted. And that becomes then the common thread woven all throughout mankind's story, right? This broken peace, this, this desire to find wholeness and unity, because it has been, it has been disrupted. And then the, the, the prophets, the Old Testament prophets look forward.

This is, this is all in the Old Testament, right? They, they look forward to the Messiah, the sent one, the, the promised one of God, and they call him the prince of peace. Jesus is called Isaiah calls him the prince of peace. When Jesus is born, the angels of appear and they begin to sing peace on earth, right? Throughout his ministry.

Jesus teaches, he will say these words, my peace, I leave you, my peace I give you, right? He made a way for us to experience peace. He brought peace, he left peace for us. And that's where you and I exist right now. You and I exist in this space where peace is available in the midst of the brokenness around us.

And then the whole story ends with eternal peace being restored. Like this is a book and a message of peace. And the, and the, the reason, like I, I kind of wanna set the stage with that is because, and when we begin to think about peace, when we begin to ask that question, like, what is peace? I think a lot of times there, there are certain images that come to our mind, right? And certain thought processes based off of our experiences, or largely based off of our feelings.

But when we take the prince of peace, when we take the life of Jesus and we look at what peace looks like in and through him, one of the things that I think challenges our, our normal way of thinking that we can see clearly in the life of Jesus, is that peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace isn't the absence of conflict. But that, that, I think that's how we tend to think about it, right? Like if I were to ask you, Hey, what is required for world peace? You'd say, no more war.

It's a pretty normal way to think about it. If I were to tell you, man, I had a peaceful weekend, like, how would you imagine that weekend? You, you would probably think like me and Brooke didn't fight overloading the dishwasher. You'd probably think, you know, like Charlie Kate took her naps and we didn't have to fight over mealtime, right? Like it no conflict there.

But when we look at the life of Jesus, like there's plenty of conflict in the prince of peace. Lemme give you this verse. Uh, John 16, John 16, verse 33. This is, uh, kind of towards the, the end of the ministry and the life of Jesus as he's kind of preparing his disciples for the cross. And he says, I've said these things to you that in me, you may have peace, you got peace in me because, and this is why he says it in the world, you're gonna have tribulation, you're gonna have chaos, you're gonna have discord, you're gonna have problems, you're gonna have hurt, you're gonna have pain.

But listen, it's okay. Take heart. Don't worry, don't stress because I've overcome all of that, all of the tribulation that you're gonna experience in the world. I've overcome it. So you can have peace.

Here's the tension for me and you, is that we exist in both of those things. We exist in the world where tribulation will occur, but we also as believers exist in him where peace is found. And so, yes, we have tribulation. Yes, there is pain and there is sorrow. Uh, and there is problems to be experienced, right?

There is conflict and there is strife to walk through, but there's also peace in him. So we, we could say it this way, right? While peace is not the absence of conflict, peace is the presence of God. We'll find peace in the absence of conflict. We, we can't cultivate our circumstances towards peace, right?

We're not gonna grow peace by making all of the right circumstances. We're gonna find peace by sitting in the presence of God, by being in his presence. I hear people say, it's kind of a side note, but I hear people say things, uh, sometimes, like, like I, um, man, I gotta, I, I don't know if I can go do that. I gotta protect my peace. And I, and listen, I lemme be careful here 'cause I don't want you to hear any weird tone in that.

Um, but I, I think the reality is, like, what I want to acknowledge in that is that according to Scripture, you don't protect peace. Peace protects you. And there's a big difference in that, right? It's, it is not about you avoiding the uncomfortable in order to create this safe place for your peace. We'll talk about that in just a second.

But rather what Jesus says is, no, no, no. I'm giving you pieces in me and I'm giving it to you, right? And my peace will stand guard over your hearts. Now, let's go back, let's go back to, um, let's go back to our verse Matthew five, uh, nine, because right, so we get a picture. Peace, right?

You with me? Peace is not the absence of conflict, it's the presence of God. But remember, Jesus didn't say blessed are those who experience peace. He said blessed are those that make it. Blessed are those that bring it this word, uh, make right.

Remember it. It's really two words that kind of smushes together here. Blessed are peace doers. Blessed are, are peace creators. That's, that's what Jesus is saying here and invites us to, to think about, um, about Genesis, right?

And, and the garden of Eden, where, where God created, right? Where, where God, God stepped into the world and there was no man, but he, he took dirt and he, he got his hands dirty and he formed it. And where there was no man, now there was man, because God made it and God created it in the same way, right? This idea of peacemaking, it invites us to get our hands dirty. Like there, there, there's no passivity in in this phrase.

It, it is inviting us to, to get into the, the conflict, the strife, the dirt, and get our hands dirty. And where there is no, where there is no peace, create it and cultivate it and make it. There's a big dis, this is where I think it's really helpful for us to distinguish peacekeeping from peacemaking, because this is a big difference. Peacekeeping, peacekeeping usually guards against conflict, right? Peacekeeping says, I've got my peace over here.

Don't you bring, don't you bring your mess into my peace, right? I got it. I, I've created this space. I like my job. I, I like my friends.

I, I got, I got this stuff over here that makes me happy, that brings me peace. Don't bring your chaos into my story. And a lot of times what peacekeeping looks like is it looks like silence. It looks like ignoring, it looks like failing to acknowledge the pain, the uncomfortable, the disunity and the division. Now, peacemaking, peacemaking is all together, different peacemaking is bringing solution or bringing action into the conflict.

But how? Right? I think that that still is the question that, that sits heavy on us. Like, like, okay, but, but how am I in the midst of, of conflict in a world defined by conflict? What kind of solution am I supposed to bring into it?

Lemme give you, um, I, I've got two thoughts, but I wanna frame them in, uh, in these, these two verses from Jesus, two lines from Jesus, okay? Uh, John fourteen's, the first one I want you to see. John 14, uh, verse 27, Jesus said, peace, I leave you. My peace I give to you. I talk, I I referenced that just a second ago, right?

There's words of Jesus, beautiful words, right? Enneagram, nines love it. You know, like we, we love this peace. Give it to me baby. Leave me all of the peace.

That's what I want to experience in life. But then Jesus also says, Matthew 10, Jesus also said, I've not come to bring peace, but a sword. There's Mangram eight. You know? Yeah.

Give me the sword. I ain't worried about the peace. Let me go. It's, it is it, it is fight time, right? Which one is it?

What's happening? Jesus? What, what am are, are we, are we talking swords and battles? We talking peace? What's happening here?

I, I don't think in these places, right? I, I don't think Jesus is doing anything like contradictory. I don't think he's giving us like to, to, to contradicting thoughts. Rather, I believe what's happening here is Jesus is acknowledging, or Jesus is saying what we just acknowledge, right? That, that oftentimes peace runs through conflict.

That that peace doesn't go around, it does peace, doesn't avoid it or ignore it. But that peacemaking oftentimes runs through conflict. I think the sword that Jesus is talking about here is a lot like the surgeon's scalpel. It has to cut before it can heal. There sometimes there is a cutting, there's a dividing that is necessary to bring about the healing and the restoration.

That is his work of peace. But we talk about the Gospel is good news, right? That's what the word literally means. Gospel means good news. When we talk about the Gospel, we're talking about the good news of Jesus, that there is eternal hope, that there is eternal rescue, that there is peace to be found for the people of God.

Like that's the good news. But in order for good news to be good, it necessitates that bad news exists. And the bad news is that we are dead in our sins and our trespasses, but the wages of sin is death. That there is no one righteous, no, not one. That we cannot earn our way to salvation or forgiveness that left alone and left to our own devices.

We will know nothing but sin and death. And sometimes the surgeon has to cut that out. The, the sword has to divide in order for us to understand the healing power of the peace of God. And so peace, right? This is what we're talking about.

Peace peacemaking then means that, that, just like he brings the sword, uh, we gotta step into the conflict, right? But we gotta step into it with the right posture. I think this is what, this is what breaks my heart in so many, um, uh, conversations I guess I've seen, I've heard I've been a part of is, I mean, listen, as people of God who are carriers of peace, like we can step into the conflict in the moment with a posture of division, but we can also step into the conflict with a posture of peace. This is what Paul is talking about, I think in Ephesians four, where he says to speak the truth and love, speak truth. Yes.

Where truth is necessary, even if it's hard truth, speak it in love, speak it, but speak it in love, right? To contend without being contentious, to disagree, without being disagreeable. So here's how I, I have phrased this. Peace making requires building bridges through conflict. And, and I've, I'm gonna be honest with you, I've wrestled a lot with this terminology, okay?

Because words matter and I'm trying to paint the right picture. Um, but, but this is where, I mean, this is where the spirit is of peacemaking requires building bridges through conflict. I think about the civil rights movement, right? I think about Rosa Parks, who, who calls conflict, who caused strife, who, who stepped into the moment, but did it for the purpose of moving the whole towards peace, right? I think by the students in Birmingham, who, who stepped in to conflict, who pushed against the status quo, who, who caused tension but did it to move the whole towards peace.

Uh, John MacArthur has a really good, this is why I landed on this, this phrasing, by the way. John MacArthur has a really good quote. He says that it being peace, peace confronts problems and it seeks to solve them. And after the problems are solved, it builds a bridge between those who are separated by the problems. I love that it builds a bridge between those who are separated by the problems.

If you are stepping into conflict without building bridges to those on the other side, it's not peace. You're after. It's, it's still division. It's still division. It just makes you feel better because you said your peace.

But Scripture never calls us to say our peace. It calls us to make it, to make peace, to build bridges through the con. Now, wait a second. Now, didn't Jesus, did he flipped tables, right? He got mad up in the church and he flipped tables.

And didn't Jesus call out the Pharisees and, and didn't Jesus challenge and confront and call out those who, who stood in his way? Yes, absolutely. And he also died on the cross for 'em. Yes. He stepped out of heaven to make a way to build a bridge for even those that would nail him to the cross.

I'll miss it. He, he's not calling you, right? He's, he's not calling you just to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak my mind. I'm gonna lay it out there. I'm stepping into the conflict.

'Cause that's where I gotta challenge it in the, hey, if you're not going to the cross for them, if you're not building a bridge for them, it ain't the same. It ain't the same. Lemme give you a couple examples, okay? Um, what's peacemaking look like in our homes? It may mean choosing forgiveness instead of bitterness.

Having the conversation with your husband, your wife, your kids saying the difficult things and getting to that place of forgiveness instead of bitterness in your church or work. It may mean working for unity instead of gossip. Hey, I've heard this. I heard somebody talk about this. I don't think that's you.

Where are we? What's happening in, in our neighborhoods? It may mean confronting injustice with truth and love, not hatred and violence. Notice I said in our neighborhoods, and not Facebook, all together, a bad medium, just all together. I've never met a person who has said, you know what?

Radically changed my life. That dude's post on Facebook in our relationships stepping into conflict. This is a big deal. Stepping into conflict, not to win, but to reconcile. When you have those hard conversations, are you doing it to win?

Are you doing it to bring peace to reconcile? Here's the last thought. Peace. Peace is only made by the cross. Peace is only made, it's only made possible by the cross.

Lemme give you two verses real quick. Colossians one verse 20 says, then through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace, the same idea, making peace by the blood of the cross. That's how he made it, right? That's how Jesus brought peace. That's how God brought peace through the blood of the cross.

One more Ephesians, Ephesians chapter two. It says, for, for he himself, Jesus himself is our piece. If you're wondering, this is a hundred percent what my Bible looks like, by the way, way, just a whole bunch of lines and arrows all over the place. For he himself is our peace. And who has made us both one and has broken down.

He has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility so that he might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing hostility. I love that. Killing hostility. Lemme tell you what the peace of God does. The peace of God breaks down what is dividing people.

It does not break down the people who are divided. It breaks down what is between us. It breaks down what is keeping us from being united. That's what the cross does. It makes a bridge, it makes a unifier so that at the foot of the cross, we are all even, we are all welcome regardless of what we bring to the table, because the blood is applied at the cross.

And that's where reconciliation, and that's where unity, and that's where peace is found. We can't experience it. We can't experience peace. We can't make peace until we experience it. Rather, we can't make peace until we experience it.

So more than anything else, man, that that is, that is my invitation to you in this moment. To experience the peace, man. We can talk about, Hey, how do we go from here? And, and, and, you know, like, how do I have that conversation? And that's important.

That's important, right? We, we gotta get there. We gotta be able to do that Next week, uh, next week by the way, we're gonna talk about persecution. Blessed are the persecuted. So come on back for that talk.

But here, right here, here's where we go immediately. Where we go immediately is to experiencing the peace of the cross. What does it look like to experience it, to lay our lives down? And all of the hostility and all of the tension and all the brokenness and all the walls we put up that divide us, say, no, God, at, at, at the cross, you broke 'em all down. And we are one, we meet together at the cross for the glory of God.

I'm gonna pray for us. And then we're gonna move into a time of response across all of our campuses. And look, we're just gonna invite you to stand, to sing towards the peace and the hope of God. And maybe you need to physically go to one of the crosses, right? And kind of lay something down.

Lay something down that, that has been divided you. Maybe you should need to leave it right there. Maybe you need to pray that God will break down those walls in your relationships, in your home, in your neighborhoods. I don't know. Lemme pray for us.

And then we will, we will worship and move, okay? Lord, we, uh, God, we, we come before you broken, hurting heavy. So we, we think about all of the, all of the division, all of the pain, all of the, we got all, all of the, got, all of the sorrow that we use to, that the enemy has used to divide us. And we thank you for your son, for the cross, for the blood. God, we thank you that, for you've made a way where we could not God, you, you have made a way.

You have stepped out of heaven. You have built the bridge for us to, to be unified, to be reconciled, not just with one another, but to you. And so, God, we just pray in this place now for peace. God, we pray for peace in our, our neighborhoods. God, we, we pray for peace in our communities, in our country.

God, we pray for peace in our hearts. We pray for peace in our homes. We pray that you'll be glorified in th pray that you'll guide us, Lord, all things we ask in your name. Amen.