Sermon - "... but Abba Said Be at Peace with All Men" - Pastor Jazz Cathcart

"Do all that you can to be at peace with all men." -Romans 12:18 On September the 4th, 1957, a fifteen year old African American young woman named Dorothy Counts walked into Harry Hardin High School in Charlotte, North Carolina along with the three other black teenagers for the first time in the newly de-segregated Southern school. She was met by a crowd of white students as well as adults spewing racial slurs, throwing stones, and literally spitting at her. Forty-nine years later, in 2006... a Sunday School teacher at Assurance United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina asked his senior citizen class members if anyone had a story to tell about dealing with a sin of omission.  Woody Cooper raised his hand and said two words: "Dorothy Counts".  He had been in the crowd on that fateful day that Dorothy Counts walked into Harry Hardin High School, was actually filmed making a monkey face at her, and had been consumed with conviction and deep regret for 49 years.  What followed became a story of repentance, reaching out, and reconciliation that mirrors the powerful story of Jacob and Esau reuniting and finding peace all the way back in Genesis chapter thirty-three.   In this sermon, Pastor Jazz speaks on how fulfilling Jesus' call to be peacemakers requires mastering peace within oneself... by virtue of encountering the Prince of Peace Himself. ............ Hope City Fellowship is an authentically Christian, intentionally-diverse church plant based in Asheville, North Carolina that officially launched in November 2021.  Our Mission: "Glorifying God by making mature, multiplying, world-changing disciples of Jesus who carry Gospel-hope!"