We’ll be in Matthew, Matthew chapter 5, verses 9 through 12. Matthew chapter 5, verses 9 through 12.

We’re going to finish the Beatitudes this morning.

And it says,

A couple summers ago, I was going to throw a surprise birthday party for Jessica. She was turning 30. And we had been in the house we were in not very long, so I didn’t have any kind of fence in the backyard. And so I wanted to decorate the backyard, make it look beautiful. You know, I hung all those pretty clear glass bulb lights everywhere. But my dad and I, we were convinced we were going to build a private house and a privacy fence in like a day and a half, like really fast, and get this thing up.

And we did, all except for the double-wide gate on one side. So it was good enough, and it looked really good. But a couple months later, I thought, I’m going to get out there, and I’m going to build this gate myself. The problem when I get to building things is I’m not very good at it like my dad is. And usually when my dad, quote-unquote, helps me, it’s me watching him do things. He does things for me, putting in countertops, putting in tile floors, all kinds of wood flooring. My dad’s really great at those things, but I never pay attention and learn how it’s done right. So I wouldn’t quite say I use math. It’s, you know, more creativity. So if you look at my house, you can see a beautiful fence on one side, and on the other you see this very lopsided, goofy-looking thing. But it’s a reminder it’s my fault because I didn’t look, I didn’t watch, I didn’t pay attention at how it was done. It was done right. You know, there’s a right way to do things like that. And as we kind of close out the Beatitudes here in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, it’s a reminder that Jesus came to us to make things very clear. God is not a God of confusion. And Jesus came in the flesh and preached in the flesh to make things explicit concerning who He was and what it looks like exactly to follow Him. He doesn’t need our alterations. He doesn’t need us to get creative with the Gospel, with the Christian life. He’s called us to look intently at Him and follow Him.

That’s what Jesus has called us to do. And so as we close out the Beatitudes, I want us to really consider that this morning. Are we looking for Jesus’ full instruction for our whole lives? That our whole lives would look like His? Are we paying attention to Him? To Jesus? Are we following the real Jesus actually?

That’s what I want to consider this morning.

So verse 9, Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Which wouldn’t have been a very popular thing for Jesus to say to the Jews at this time because what the Jews wanted was the opposite of peace. What the Jews wanted was war. The Jews wanted peace. The Jews want liberation from Rome. In this time period, the Roman Empire, they ruled the known world. The Jews are no exception. In 63 B.C., Pompey had conquered Jerusalem. And in Jesus’ current time, the Herodian dynasty, serving as a proxy for Rome, is over Jerusalem. Remember we talked about that several months ago when Herod was trying to kill Jesus. So the Jews are very much so bound by Rome and they hate it. They’re nationalists. Their national pride is alive and well. And what they want is the glory of Israel as it once was. They want the glory of the kings of old. And this is why the Jews in Jesus’ time want their Jewish Messiah. And remember Matthew’s gospel, that’s the scope of what he’s talking about is why Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.

But though it is so, they want this unconquerable king to lead them to destroy their enemies. And often do they try to make Jesus their earthly king so that he would lead them into bloody warfare against the Romans. But of course, he did not and would not do that. And just a few decades after Jesus’ ascension,

Rome obliterates Jerusalem due to the Jewish revolt in A.D. 70. So here is,

whether they see it or not, here is, whether we see it or not, the actual Jewish Messiah, here is the king.

And what he does not bless is warmongering. He does not commence a holy war. He doesn’t take up arms. He doesn’t teach us how to handle people who get in our way. He says perhaps what is to theirs and maybe our great dismay. He says blessed are the peacemakers.

And now when Jesus is peacemaker, the idea here in the Greek, it’s very much so akin to an ambassador. So someone who goes on the behalf of someone else to bring harmony and peace between two or more parties. So the great aim of being a peacemaker is reconciliation. It is to be reconciled with two or more parties or people. This is not their agenda. This is not the king they’ve idolized. But still, Jesus sees the greatest threat for the Jews, even though they don’t see it and are not capable of neutralizing it. Jesus sees the greatest threat for us. And it’s not the Romans. And it’s not anyone else you may think is threatening your life. So here we have to discern then, are we seeing? Are we following? Are we hearing the real Jesus? Do I want this king? Do I want to live in his kingdom, his way? So if we’re going to truly follow Jesus, here’s the first thing we’ve got to do. Like Jesus, we have to learn the art of peacemaking. We’ve got to learn the art of peacemaking. And the question becomes, well, with who?

Well, the easy, but unhelpful answer is everyone. We have to learn how to make peace with everyone. Because following Jesus means we have a strong desire and a given capacity to make peace with all. Why? Well, because Jesus first himself had a desire and also outwardly worked to bring peace between first God and man. Remember last week we talked about that great distance between God and people because there was a lack of nearness between his own people. That veil in the temple, reminded the people nearness to God was impossible. That veil was a painful reminder. You can’t get close to your God. The reason we cannot get close to our God is because there is a lack of peace between God and man. The reason there’s a lack of peace between God and man? Well, because man has been ruined by sinfulness. And let me say this. I know that we talk about sin a lot at Providence. I bring sin up a lot. I don’t do that because I enjoy it. Let’s talk about sin. I think that if I’m going to try to be a half-decent pastor, it’s incumbent upon me to talk about sin. Because I believe if we fail to talk about sin, we fail to grasp the hostile situation in which we find ourselves.

God isn’t a benevolent pushover. That’s not God.

We are in a position of hostility because we’re under the weight of God’s justice because of our sin. Sin is provoking to God. Sin is vile to God. Sinfulness is the greatest opposition to His character and will. Sin will not be taken lightly by God. So it’s not that house flower that’s annoying and I wish it would get out of here. Sin represents a whole kingdom that’s opposed to God and His kingdom and His way and His character. It’s a provocative challenge to God. That’s what sin is. So when God sees evidences of sin and sinners, rightly so, His justice is riled up against it. This is why Scripture refers to those who have yet to surrender to God as children of wrath. It’s a very scary term. He says we were the enemies of God. So we have done, whether we realize it or not, a great deal to break peace with God by the sinfulness of our character, our words, our deeds, and our actions. And we have no way to restore that. But secondly, I want you to see Jesus dealt with this problem. We have broken peace between man and man. For the Jews, they hated the Gentiles because they didn’t obey God’s Word. But lacking peace between people today, that’s not really something you even need my commentary on as a pastor, is it? Because it’s so apparent to day-to-day life. Think about politics in America. Ugh! Yeah, you all went ugh! Because our political parties aren’t just, hey, we disagree. They hate one another. It’s poisonous. It’s vitriolic. It seems as time goes on, they’re willing to do about anything to crush the other side. It’s awful, American politics. Think about war. I read this past week that in the last 4,000 years of human history, we’ve had less than 300 years of peace.

Think of apartheid. Think of civil rights. Think of hate crimes. Think of petty disagreements. Think of marital turmoil. Think about that guy across the street that refuses to cut his grass.

Big and small, and maybe the smaller things are really what get us the worst. We’ve taken our hostile relationship with God and because of our sinfulness, we’ve mirrored it in every single human relationship we have. We are passionate, in fact, about peace breaking.

But by God’s grace, the apostle Paul writes this in Ephesians, and I love this passage. I think it’s one of the most beautiful passages in the New Testament. This is what Paul writes. He says, But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that He might create in Himself one new man in the place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both that’s Jew and Gentile, that’s everyone. He’s reconciling us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

So Jew or Gentile, whoever you were, you were under God’s great judgment. Yet Christ Jesus by His cross, His blood flowing down, made peace in the sight of God, having atoned for all of our sins. Jew and Gentile, we have peace with God. Dare I say friendship with God. We are considered beloved children of God. We are sheep of Christ’s pasture. We are cared for citizens of His kingdom. We are called the beloved. We are called the bride of Christ. So every dear and intimate term we could have, we have it now in God’s sight because of Christ’s atonement. Christ reconciled us back to God. And He shows us plainly how He did it. It was His innocent blood in the place of our guilty life. But see also how Jesus before His death preached peace in His life. Jesus roamed the face of the earth and He gave Himself to all, telling all Jew and Gentile, I am the only way back to God. Jesus made it clear. He wanted everyone to know. So see His desire for peace between God. He made His life. See His willingness to obtain it in His death. And see His power to actually produce it in His resurrection. Jesus is our peace with God.

But He’s also become then our peace with man. We are man and man made one in Christ. The Scriptures call us one household of God. We’re one family in Christ. All the laws of the Old Testament, all the things that separated and divided the Jews from the Gentiles, right? Right and wrong, the inside and the outside. It’s all been fulfilled in Christ and we’re made one family that we can have true love and unity together. And we have to consider this in the same way we considered mercy, ministry, and compassion a few weeks ago. Remember what we said about it. We said non-believers, people who aren’t Christians, they show genuine mercy. They care about people. And that’s great. But the Christian uniquely shows genuine mercy and compassion to the person who needs food, needs water, needs clothes, needs a helping hand. And that’s genuine. But what the Christian can do that the non-believer cannot do is show a greater compassion and mercy and address the issue of the soul and talk about God’s mercy. So our mercy and compassion can go much further than the world’s can go. In the very same way, non-believers desire peace in their relationships, in their societies, between countries. That’s not like if you’re not a Christian you hate peace. But at the very same time, as Christians, the peace we have in our marriages, in our family, in our local churches, the way that we are willing to take the high road and make peace with those who are non-believers, that should be very different. It should stick out in the midst of the world’s peace. But again, what can we do that they can’t in regards to peace? We can preach the message of peace of Christ’s cross. The real and true peace that you can have with God. The sincere and only source of actual peace knowing that Christ redeemed us. So we can truly have peace with both God and man. Jesus is calling us then in His likeness to be peacemakers. 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says it very well. He says,

All this is from God who through Christ, here it is again, He reconciled us to Himself and He gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So God is calling us to be peacemakers. God has said, I’ve saved you, but I’ve saved you to send you. You are now, you have this ministry to go and make reconciliation. It says, That is in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. What big words those are. So I think if we’re truly Christians, if you’re going to carry that label, I can’t be happy just to have temporal peace. Like you and me, we get along, or I get along with the people at work, or I’m trying to just be kind to the people around me. It’s not enough. I want everyone to know about the greater peace that we can have together in Christ, the greater peace you can have in Christ because of what He did for you. So peacefulness then, it’s a genuine fruit of the gospel, but that fruit of the gospel in us, it’s a witness to the gospel, the gospel message we proclaim about the peace that other people can have.

Let me say this, have we who were once wretches found peace with God? Why then do we sometimes conceal it from others as if we deserved it?

Arthur Pink says this, we must certainly conclude that it is an unspeakable privilege to be sent forth as ambassadors of peace. Furthermore, those who fancy themselves to be Christians yet have no interest in the salvation of fellow sinners are self-deceived. They possess a defective Christianity and have no right to expect to share in the blessed inheritance of the children of God. Friends, if we have that peace, we’re going to want to share it. Going to want to share it. That’s what we’re going to want to do.

And I think there’s no sense in self-deprecation. Oh, woe is me. I’m a terrible evangelist. I’m no good at sharing the gospel. Paul says, God has redeemed the day. There’s fruit in repentance. There’s fruit in obedience. Strangely, maybe it’s acceptable, the places you’ve been, the churches you’ve been a part of, to not speak the gospel, not consider how you can share the gospel, proclaim that message of peace. But if we’re going to follow the real and whole Jesus, we must obey Him in the hardest parts. And I know gospel proclamation, it doesn’t come natural to everyone. I don’t think it comes natural to anyone. But please hear me say, it’s commanded of everyone.

Will your love for Jesus overcome your fear and inadequacies to obey Jesus? And there’s this great truth in the midst of all that. The power and spirit of God are among us to do this. He’s not even asking you to do it in your own power. So we need to be a dependent people as God desires to use us as ambassadors in this world for His name.

In the scriptures say, you shall be called sons of, of God. Now think, hold on, if I’m a woman, I’m not a woman, but if you’re a woman, like, can I be called a daughter of God? Why do I have to be called a son of God? What’s the title you would want? Because in this time it means you’re inheriting the status and the privileges of child. So it’s not saying, let’s go out and earn our salvation. It’s saying, because Jesus has brought us peace, we get to go out and live in our identities as children of God. That’s what we’re called to do.

So my dad, again, I’m nothing like my dad. My dad is an extraordinary, extreme extrovert. Extreme extrovert. I mean, extreme extrovert. There’s no stranger. My dad doesn’t know a stranger. He could talk to anybody, anywhere. He’ll call me, hey, I was here and I was talking to this guy about the Lord and I had the colorful bracelet on. And man, he broke down right there and received Christ. He goes to the call, like all the time, like, that’s great, dad. You’re so, you know, you’re so good at that. But my dad would even say, you know, it’s hard. It’s, I just have to obey because I know that the Lord has told me to do it. And so I really don’t, I don’t know that there are these people that they become Christians and they’re just these awesome, magical evangelists all of a sudden. I think it’s just a desire to want to obey Jesus.

Engaging non-believers as Christ did. We’re called to, in the power of the Spirit, do that. We’re called as individuals to say, who in my blood family, who in my neighborhood, who are my friends, who are the people in my life that don’t have this peace with God yet and they need it. We’re called as a community of believers to say, hey, who can we as a community impact with the power of the gospel that they can both see the love of Christ and hear the gospel message at the same time. So gospel proclamation, peacemaking, it’s not going to just happen. It takes us sacrificing. It takes us consciously strategizing, encouraging one another,

practicing sharing the gospel with one another, and most of all, praying. Praying that God would continually give us a passion for it. Pray that we wouldn’t be selfish. Pray that we wouldn’t get caught up in the things of this world and share that great news about that great eternity that is to come.

So will you be obedient? Will you sacrifice? Would you do it for your Lord who spilled His blood for you to make peace? I think the better question is not will you, but will we as a church? Or won’t we?

So following Jesus.

Let’s go back to verse 10.

It says, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So remember all these beatitudes. We’re at the very end, and Jesus is giving this kind of, He’s summarizing what it means, to kind of have these beatitudes present in your life. If you were to perfectly observe them, if you were to perfectly obey the Sermon on the Mount, you would be one whole heavenly man. The poor in spirit, those who mourn for their sin, those who are meek, hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, those who are pure in heart, peacemakers, all this fully embodies a righteous lifestyle. And if you were to live this way, even though we couldn’t do it perfectly in this life, and Christ doesn’t expect us to be perfect, in this life, if you were to do that, if we were to do that, we would be different. We would be different from who we were before we came to Christ. We would be different from the world around us, drastically and radically. But here’s the other thing that Jesus is being honest with us about and we need to catch here. We’re also going to be disliked a lot of times because of it. And certainly as Jesus and the Scriptures say, at times we will be persecuted and we will suffer because of it. The Apostle John says this, in 1 John 3.12, we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him?

Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. So do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. So Jesus is making that clear. It’s that old sin nature that wars against the work of the Spirit. But Old New Testament, we see that plainly. God’s people suffer mistreatment in a great variety of ways. And certainly for us as New Testament Christians and certainly living in a culture that increasingly gets more hostile to the faith, we’ve got to just say, hey, why would we think it’s going to be a different way if we’re truly following this Jesus? And take Jesus at His own words in John 15. He says, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And I think we said, so should we just like all, you know, find a cave and, you know, it’s us four and no more until Jesus comes back? Because if we don’t, if we go out there, they’re going to kill us. No. We want to see people come to saving faith in Jesus. We want societies to be transformed by the power of the gospel. But it is just so not everyone is going to accept that message. They’re going to hate it aggressively. Societies are going to hate it aggressively. You can look in the East and get very clear examples of that today. Yet Jesus, in the whole counsel of God’s word, says this, don’t go hide in a cave. It says you ought to be glad and you ought to rejoice for the suffering. Which sounds twisted and weird, right? Because I think if you just kind of skim that, like, okay, I’m supposed to be like happy and glad about suffering. Well, it’s not telling you to like enjoy the pain. Like, I love the sensory experience of suffering and my situation being ruined because I’m a Christian. That’s not what it’s telling you to do. That would be sick. What the scriptures are saying is this, rejoice in the reasons for why you’re suffering. So second thing, if we’re going to truly follow Jesus, we’ve got to learn the joys of suffering. We’ve got to learn the joys of suffering. And the joys of suffering are found in the kind of person they make us to become. What kind of person is that? Well, suffering makes us into the person of Jesus. For Jesus Himself suffered first. It was through His painstaking obedience that He accomplished salvation for us. So how then is Jesus going to raise us up in our salvation to be like Him? Through suffering. The same pathway that He took, it’s through that suffering where, letting go of this world and we’re becoming more like Him and we’re being sanctified. So following Jesus means this, a painful loss of likeness to this world. That’s what it means. It means that we’re declaring its way, its mannerisms, its pleasures, its designs, not as secondary, but as false and wrong. The sufferer knows the sting of retaliation when we stand with that heavenly man, Jesus, because we condemn the world when we do it. The scriptures, say that righteous Noah condemned the world when he built the ark. So the same thing is happening when we draw ourselves out and we stand with Jesus. Not in our willingness to not minister to the world, not love the world. Is that what I’m saying? But there should be a clear line in the sand in our willingness to stay and remain like Jesus.

And I think there is this blessed reality.

And I’ve said this before. I think life moves so fast for us now. We just think we’re going to live forever and we’re just going to live forever. We’re just going day to day. And we forget to do this thing the scripture tells us to do. Look forward. Because as Christ is formed in us more and more, we are being prepared for a future glory that we will inherit.

And Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 4. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light and momentary affliction. And how does Paul say that? Because Paul has been beaten, Paul has been starved, Paul has been stoned, Paul has been imprisoned, Paul has been through the ringer of suffering. But Paul says it’s light.

It’s light in comparison with the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look to not the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. And I love how C.S. Lewis talks about the weight of glory. He said if you held the weight of glory and your hand would pass right through, because we’re like shadows compared to the glorious substance of heaven. It’s going to be beyond what we can imagine now. It’s going to be beyond what we could have hoped for when we finally see it.

I don’t believe it means we go and look for pain and suffering. That doesn’t honor the Lord. If we’re following the real Jesus, it means suffering. It certainly will find us. But when it does, know that it’s by the Lord’s hand and know that it’s preparing us for that eternal weight of glory. It’s preparing us for so much more. Charles Spurgeon says, Afflictions cannot sanctify us except as they are used by Christ as His mallet and His chisel. Our joys and our efforts cannot make us ready for heaven apart from the hand of Jesus who fashions our hearts aright and prepares us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

And I suppose at the end of that there’s just this simple pleasure and joy. We get to bear the name of Jesus. Think about a soldier that loves his country and is proud to die for his country. Should we not so much more be glad to know the banner of Jesus is over us? That we get to wear the insignia of His country on our chest? Would that not be enough to die for Him? To suffer all loss for Him? Like the apostles in Acts, they were beaten and it says they went away rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. Suffered for the name. Friends, we must together learn the joys of suffering for to truly follow this real and whole actual Jesus.

When I was doing Bible college at Moody, my missions class, I had to read this book entitled The Martyr’s Grace. And it’s a book of all the Moody graduates who have been martyred. And so there are many wonderful harrowing stories in that book. But one that always stuck out to me was a story about a man named John and Betty Stamm. John and Betty Stamm. And they both went to Moody at the same time. And they really liked one another but felt like the Lord wasn’t telling them to get together. So they both ended up later going to China as missionaries and they found one another. And even when they found one another, their missions in China called them apart for a whole year. And after a year, finally they were married. And I think a year or two after they were married, they had a little baby girl. And at that same time, Darcy was a little girl. A little infant baby girl.

And so I just want to read you this excerpt here.

They were taken captive by the communists when she was just an infant. And it says, The following morning, the communists entered the room where the Stamms were imprisoned and gruffly forced Betty and John to prepare for execution.

With a mother’s sinking heart, she laid her baby down for the final time.

Trembling, she wondered whatever would become of her.

Reluctantly, she turned away to follow the soldiers and trusting her daughter to the protection of her God, recalling the vows she had made so long ago in a far distant place. All the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Work out thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever, she wrote.

On a small hill outside the town, Betty momentarily trembled as she witnessed John’s execution. The awful sight of her decapitated son, her deceived husband, must have shocked her, but not enough to cause her to lose her resolve to follow to the very end.

Only a martyr’s grace could help her do what she did next. With shaking hands and a trembling heart, she regained her composure and obediently knelt. A swift blow of the sword ushered her to God’s and John’s presence.

And,

I mean, I read that and part of me doesn’t know what to do with it because it’s so harrowing and there’s so much faith there. But then some part of me says, well, I’m probably never going to be a missionary and that’s intense and that’s probably never going to happen to me. But it does make you ask this question, how intense are you willing to go for Jesus? We should say, Lord, if you call me to something of that intensity, by your grace, let me be that faithful. If you call me to something worse, let me by your grace be that faithful. Lord, if you call me to something less, by your grace, Lord, let me be faithful. So, Lord, it’s whatever you’re calling me to suffer, I must suffer that I may not fail to grow up in Jesus as you would have me grow up in Him.

Friends, we don’t live in that kind of society. Perhaps we will one day. But be sure, darkness isn’t absent anywhere in this world right now. And anywhere the gospel is preached and Christ is magnified, opposition will arise. Be sure, preaching the gospel and following Jesus will cost you something. It may be a friend, it may be a relationship, a family member, it may be a job opportunity, it may be popularity, it may be a lot of things, but it will cost. The maximum of what we’re willing to suffer for Christ is the maximum of our love. Only by God’s grace could our love for Christ grow that our obedience to Christ in all things

would be present just as well in our suffering.

But following in the footsteps of Christ, it leads us homeward to be forever with Christ. I think the great joy of the journey is the great joy of the destination only intensified, only perfect. The one that we sought to follow by God’s grace, we will become like perfectly. We will be with forever. We will be as Jesus so often said in the Beatitudes, blessed. So many shalls. You shall. You shall. On that day when we see Christ’s face, we shall. We shall have all. We shall have Christ. And not because of what we’ve done, but because of what Christ has done for us. He first pursued us. He first made peace with us. He came and He loved and He pursued the enemies of God and He spilled His blood for us. He suffered first. He in humility, though He was in the form of God, what did He do? He submitted to death. He submitted to death for us. Jesus.

Jesus has made it possible for us to follow Him. By His grace and power, we will do it. And by His grace and power, He will both author and perfect our salvation, upholding us in all adversity.

And the grace and privilege of being called to follow Him will result in the weight of glory, knowing and enjoying Him and being perfectly like Him forever with all the people of God and through all the ages. We will do it. We will rejoice in that God of grace. So I think my question to you this morning is do you have peace with God? Not do you have church and not do you have religion and not do you know a lot of things about the Bible, but do you have peace with God? Have you looked upon Christ’s cross and seen how God, the Son of God, the God-man came down and He made peace between us and His Father? And are you hungry to share that and be obedient? Are we willing to follow the whole Christ together as Christians? Are we willing to follow the whole Christ

as Providence Fellowship, as a church?

Because I know that the Scripture says we lack nothing to do it. But it bids us come and die. And we must step out. And we must die in order to gain eternal life. Christ offers that to us freely. I pray this morning our hearts will be turned towards the cross and pursue Him to the very end.