Real Happy with Mike Hayes

In this episode of the Church Talk Podcast, host Jason Allison interviews Pastor Mike Hayes, the founding pastor of Covenant Church in Dallas, Texas. They discuss Mike's journey from a performance-based faith to a deeper understanding of happiness and joy in the Christian life, emphasizing the importance of the Beatitudes and the true nature of the gospel as good news. Mike shares insights on how our perceptions of God, particularly through the lens of fatherhood, can impact our relationship with Him and our understanding of joy. The conversation highlights the need for the church to present a more joyful and uplifting message to its congregation. In this conversation, Mike Hayes and Jason Allison delve into the themes of judgment, joy in ministry, the distinction between peacemaking and peacekeeping, and the importance of personal revelation in pastoral work. They explore the concept of the Bema seat of judgment, emphasizing that judgment is about rewards for good works rather than condemnation. The discussion highlights the necessity of joy in ministry and encourages pastors to embrace their identity as children of God. They also discuss the challenges of peacemaking, stressing that it requires skill and effort, and conclude with the significance of sharing personal experiences to connect with others.

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Find out more about Mike Hayes


Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Pastor Mike Hayes
03:18 Mike Hayes' Journey and Ministry Background
06:08 The Shift from Performance to Happiness in Faith
11:05 Understanding Happiness Through the Beatitudes
14:32 Righteousness, Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghost
18:01 The Gospel as Good News: A Mind Shift
22:31 The Image of God: Fatherhood and Joy
24:44 Exploring the Bema Seat of Judgment
27:09 The Importance of Joy in Ministry
29:40 Understanding Peacemaking vs. Peacekeeping
41:01 The Power of Personal Revelation in Ministry

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01)
Well, welcome everybody to the church talk podcast. I am here without my two other co-hosts because well, let's be honest, they're probably slackers, but I wouldn't want to talk poorly about them since they're not here to defend themselves, but that's okay. I am glad that I am here. I have a special interview today. And so I wanted to do this interview and just spend some time talking with a person that I just met for the first time, but I've read his book.

done tons of stuff just in learning about him. So I'm really honored and excited. We have on the podcast today, Pastor Mike Hayes, who is the founding pastor of Covenant Church in Dallas, Texas. Founded that in about 1976, which yes, I was born by then, but my other co-host, I don't think they were. He's a renowned author. He's been a significant figure in ministry, you know, in the, since the seventies. And he's best known for his book,

When God is First, which is actually sold over a million copies in eight different languages. He has been recognized for his impactful work on racial reconciliation, immigration, the Middle Eastern Israeli peace agreements. He's been a faith advisor in the White House. And his latest book is called Real Happy, Jesus's Surprising Path to Genuine Joy. And I can recommend this book highly. I have read it.

And I'm going to be honest, I never know when you get a book that says how to be happy. You always worry. It's just, just one of those, you know, think positive thoughts type stuff, but I read it and was blown away. Uh, it is a study of the Beatitudes and it is absolutely phenomenal. Uh, Mike and his wife, Kathy resided in Texas. And, uh, I know he enjoys everything from listening to good music, uh, which could include Botticelli or Ted or, uh, uh, Merle Haggard.

But it could also be restoring classic cars. But if you want to find out more you can look him up at I am real as I the letter I the letter I'm real happy comm that's one good place and then of course Mike Hayes org and I'll provide other places but Mike it is an honor to have you here Thank you so much for joining the church talk podcast

Mike Hayes (02:17)
Thank you, Jason. What a introduction. You know, when I listened to all that, everything on there was true, but it almost made me tired. So anyhow,

I'm glad to talk to a Buckeye, I guess. I think you're a transplant there maybe, but I was born there, I told you. yeah, there you go.

Jason Allison (02:33)
Yes.

I like to think of it as missionary. I like to think of it as

missionary work in Ohio.

Mike Hayes (02:43)
Well, in 1950 I was born in Columbus, Ohio and got fond memories there in that I had a lot of family there, still have some there, but thank you so much for having me on today.

Jason Allison (02:58)
Yeah, no, I'm really excited. Let's just get started. tell us a little bit about your story. You have done so many things, and so maybe hit a couple of highlights, but just give our listeners a little bit of an understanding of where this book and then all of your ministry comes from.

Mike Hayes (03:18)
Thank you, Jason. Well, I was raised in a Christian home, even though my parents, who happened to be both from Columbus, they're born and raised, but were neither one raised as Christians. Maybe nominally, I think their family would have said we're Christians, meaning we're not Muslim or atheist, but my folks had never been in a church in their lives until they went into one to get married. So when I was two years old, they were dramatically saved.

They'd been hungry for God and they were good people, but they were lost. So they were saved and just a few years later, our little church there in West Jefferson, Ohio sent them out to Flagstaff, Arizona to be missionaries among the Navajo Indians. So I was raised there until I was 14 and then we moved to Texas and my dad was a Bible college professor of Old Testament history.

at Texas Bible College in Houston for 20 years. And then he pastored a church in West Texas. But Kathy and I married in 73, traveled for three years in ministry, and then we founded the church in Dallas in 76. And pastored that 40 years. I thank God. Well, I don't even want to say this in the wrong way. I probably could never duplicate again in my life what God did there.

because it was so God and I recognize that. See Jason, here's the thing. I was raised in a church that my dad as really a relatively new Christian was sent to build among the Navos. We never had more than 30 or 40 people in our congregation. So I knew nothing first person about building a big church. I didn't come to Dallas to build the biggest church in Dallas. I came to Dallas to reach lost people.

And when the Lord called me here, he said to me in my heart, I want you to go to Dallas and raise up a team. That's what he referred to more than. So I've always thought of a church as being looked at as a team, everyone there having their role to play because I, a business model and listen, Jason has a bit of a disclaimer before we get into much.

I love the church. I don't kick the church around as an outsider. I challenge the church as an insider because I'd give my life for the church. That's what Jesus gave his life for. But there's some things that have really needed to be challenged in the church and there still are. And this latest book, frankly, is one of them. Because before we get into the happy book, I will just tell you that my life

involved in my church experience and my God experience because we only experience God in the way we've been shown and it didn't include much happiness. Lots of striving, lots of holiness demands, lots of do's and don'ts, lots of judgmentalism, lots of you're a bad guy will kick you out, but not a lot of happiness and

Jason Allison (06:37)
Hmm.

Mike Hayes (06:38)
Unfortunately, Jason, was victim to that. And then I was in ministry and I was kind of duplicating what I'd seen. I was pastoring a growing young church and I was so full of doubts and fears and condemnation about my own relationship with Jesus that I didn't know if I was saved from one day to the next because it's so performance based that if I was doing good,

Jason Allison (07:05)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (07:08)
I'm sure I'll go to heaven. If I was struggling or exhausted or I'm not doing enough, then I don't know where I stand. And then God dramatically changed my life with a revelation from his word about how he deals with us by his covenants. It was so dramatic that I changed the name of our church from Faith World to Covenant Church.

Jason Allison (07:37)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (07:37)
35 years ago. Because when I understood that my relationship with Jesus was based on his finished work and his sacrifice and his promise to save me and not whether I was good or not good, it changed my life. And then hence the life of our church was changed. I had a lot to talk to them about.

Well, then fast forward, Jason, to 10 years ago, I had a group of about a hundred believers in as pilgrims in Israel. I love to go to Israel and I've been many times and I was up in the north of Galilee. We had about a hundred folks with us and we sat down on the rocks there on the Mount of Beatitudes. They've since this date built a center there. That's all kind of benches and

Jason Allison (08:06)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (08:34)
chapel and all that, but none of that was there. Just the hill where he taught.

We were sitting on the rocks there and it was spring and poppies were blooming everywhere. And I taught on the Beatitudes. I read what he, his sermon on the Mount, which was his coming out. The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus first great sermon in his ministry. And there was a real sweet brokenness there that day. People were softly crying. And the reason is because I ended the teaching as I end in the real happy book.

with the little side story that doesn't normally get put with the Beatitudes, but it was that John the Baptist was in prison and John sent his disciples to ask Jesus a question. Are you the one we look for or do we look for another? My contention is that was a hurting, offended prophet. No one knew better than John who Jesus was.

Jason Allison (09:34)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (09:38)
but he was in a prison cell and Jesus was drawing crowds and he was flesh. So he said, go ask him, is he the one we're looking for? Should we look for somebody else? When they asked Jesus that, he said, tell John this, the blind see the deaf hear the dumb speak. And they went away and I could almost see them just before they're out of earshot. Jesus has just shared eight beatitudes and then

Jason Allison (09:44)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (10:07)
the way he does, speaks to us personally. He gave John a personal beatitude. And he said, by the way, guys, tell John, blessed is he that's not offended in me. So I talked to our friends there with us that day about offense and how I had been offended and what you have to do with offense. And you can't be happy and offended at the same time, just like you can't be happy and anxious at the same time. It's not possible.

So there was soft weeping and there were people dabbing their eyes and there were people making notes, people sitting in the sun thinking. And the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, I want you to write a book on this and call it real happy. Well, to be honest, I was like ready to say, I rebuke you devil because I'm gonna tell you how lost I was, Jason.

Jason Allison (11:02)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (11:05)
I was pastoring a church, I was taking people to Israel. But I would not have put happy and God in the same sentence.

You know, I asked someone the other day a question I'd like to ask your listeners and viewers now, Jason. And there's a reason I'll go into this. There's a reason why the Jews were not allowed throughout the old covenant to make graven images of God. And but we have painted pictures of Jesus everywhere and we have graven images. Some denominations have them at the front of every church. He's usually on a cross.

grimacing in tremendous pain, bleeding from several places, tears on his face, which happened to him and it lasted about 18 hours, agonizing. But the Bible says that Jesus despised death on a cross, but for the joy set before him, he endured it. So I asked people the question, what is the image in your mind? What is the mental image?

of what Jesus looks like as he looks at you. And Jason, I find that most people, they either hearken back to a European rendering of a white man with long hair, and he's either looking passionate, or he's looking stern, or he's looking... I don't have any laughing Jesus pictures. And yet when you study Jesus, he was witty, he was funny, he was strong, he was courageous.

Jason Allison (12:32)
Hmm.

Mike Hayes (12:41)
He expected the best. He knew what his outcome was, but he was always encouraging and uplifting to the down and outer. So Jason, I had to change based on that word. I committed to come home and start studying.

And I went into two years of intense study and research on happiness and found out how wrong I was. Why would Jesus in his inaugural sermon tell us eight ways to be really happy? And then his first miracle was to turn water to wine that he said is because it's a sign that I want your life filled with joy, but he doesn't care about it. He's miserable.

And he wants all of us to be miserable. And unfortunately, I will have to say, and here again, I love the church, Jason, but we as the church have done a terrible job at presenting a joy-filled army of people that exit churches on Sunday morning with a million dollar smile on their face and change their communities because of what Jesus has done for them. We haven't done a good job with that.

We've probably done a pretty good job with repentance, fairly good about grace. And we've done real good about water baptism. In fact, if you don't do it my way, I'll disfellowship you. We've done a real good job about a lot of those doctrines that we split hairs over, but somewhere we left the joy out. the joy, listen, Jesus said it, how much plainer could he say it? He said, the kingdom of heaven is.

Jason Allison (14:02)
Yeah, it's.

Yeah.

You

Yeah.

Mike Hayes (14:32)
righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now, as I studied that, I think they're in that order for a reason. And I'm going to challenge our listeners today, Jason, if you don't solve the righteousness issue, you're never going to have peace and joy.

Jason Allison (14:53)
Right. So what do you think that means? When you say, the righteousness problem, what are you thinking of when you think of that?

Mike Hayes (14:55)
So the kingdom starts.

Well, I found that there are a lot of people where I was, Jason, trying to be good enough to get the attention of God who was reluctant. He died for my sins and I was glad for all that. But if you don't understand that properly, even that makes you feel more guilt. Okay. He died for my sins and I'm sure he's upset with me because I know I'm not good enough because every time I go to a church service and you know, here's something that happens.

Jason, you really get me into a lot of stuff here. But one of the things that happens is a lot of our evangelistic preaching to reach a sinner is to 99 that are saved and the one that's lost. We're preaching to with sort of a long finger of you better get saved and you don't want to be lost. Meanwhile, the 99 are here in the same sermon and it becomes

Jason Allison (15:37)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (16:03)
really repetitious of the judgment and the fear and the catastrophic end of things and the Jesus is coming back and you're probably not ready. And all of that stacks up until I heard a story, I hope it's a joke, but a guy was witnessing to a guy at his work and said, man, you need to come to church with me. And the guy said, listen, I got enough troubles of my own. I don't need to go to your church. You guys are some of the most

unhappy, miserable looking people I've ever seen. Why would I want to go there? I'm looking for something to help me find happiness. So the book became a project that ended up taking six years. And in the middle of that, I joined with my covenant brother, Jeffrey Garner, who started off helping me ghostwrite some of it as a researcher.

Jason Allison (16:39)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Hayes (17:01)
His PhD is in the study of John the Beloved and the book of John and Revelation. And so he has so much knowledge of first century church behavior and history and doctrine. He was a priceless joy to work with me on the research. And then it became so apparent that I actually, had an event.

And I said, I was going to un-ghost him because he'd been a ghost researcher for me. And I said, I'm going to un-ghost you. I want your name on the cover. And now we're working on a second book called Real Hope, redeeming the apocalypse to a glorious outcome. Because that's the other place that people are really hurting is the end of the world scenarios that the church presents doesn't include enough of the victory of Jesus.

Jason Allison (17:47)
Nice.

Mike Hayes (17:58)
which is what Revelation book is all about. So that's our next one.

Jason Allison (18:01)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. So as I'm thinking through all that, my first thought in all of this is, you know, the gospel is supposed to be good news. And what you're describing is the fact it feels like the church has been presenting the gospel, but it hasn't been good news because it hasn't led to joy to even happiness in a real way. I think so, maybe that's why I really enjoyed the book is because it challenged

that preconceived notion that the gospel is to convict people and to make them get their life together and to act right. But really, the gospel is good news. On page 82 of the book, you said, in the afterglow of so much mercy, we come to believe God sees us not as a problem to be fixed, but rather as a people to be loved.

Mike Hayes (18:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jason Allison (18:56)
quote really just made me realize the gospel is good news because it's letting us know how God sees us. How does that mind

Mike Hayes (19:01)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (19:05)
shift, you know, impact people as you see them embrace that?

Mike Hayes (19:10)
You know, Dr. Jeff and I were doing a little seminar with her. We did a lot of when I say research for this book, Jason, part of what we did is like his church in downtown San Francisco is really a mosaic of people from the street and professionals. And so we would gather 10 or 12 people around a roundtable and we would talk to them about these concepts and teach it before we ever.

wrote it as we were writing it. So one day we were going through this and one of the young men at the table got up quietly left the table. He was gone for 15 or 20 minutes and when we finished up Jeff asked him he could tell he had obviously been crying and he said why did you why did you leave the room and obviously you've been disturbed and you've been crying.

He began to weep and he said, Jeff, what I realized as we went through this is that all of my life, I've been chasing God to try to make him happy with me. And I didn't know that he was chasing me because he was so happy already with me. He wanted me to be happy. That concept will change your life, Jason, because

Jason Allison (20:32)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (20:33)
When you feel like, and many of us were raised with parents, especially fathers, because we tend to imagine the father God in the way our father was. And where are we at with that? With 50 % of the nation raising fatherless homes, children in fatherless homes, and then those fathers who are there, there's a slim,

Jason Allison (20:47)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (21:02)
portion of them that are great fathers, many of them are absent emotionally, many of them are abusive, whether it be verbally, physically, or with no time given to their children. You know, so what happens is we imagine God as we think of our Father. It's almost impossible for you to separate your thoughts of your earthly Father and your heavenly Father.

Jason Allison (21:17)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Hayes (21:33)
It

takes a real intentional, especially if you've got a lot to overcome. If you were abandoned, if you were abused, if you were neglected, if you were ignored, if you were talked down to, if you were under appreciated, it's almost impossible without real revelatory help from the Lord to get past that image.

Jason Allison (21:40)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (22:02)
and to be swept up in the arms of an unbelievably loving father if you didn't have that yourself. It's really difficult. And so our image in our minds, I not only put happiness and God in the same sentence now, I understand that he is joy. He absolutely is love. He's not trying to be that. We're not trying to make him that.

Jason Allison (22:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Mike Hayes (22:32)
Jesus didn't die on the cross for us because he was unhappy with us. He died on the cross with us because he knew that we could never reach our full potential and be full of joy and change the world without his help. Now that's true. But what do we do with that? Like for instance, we know what the word crucifixion means and there are major denominations that use an image of the crucified Christ.

Jason Allison (22:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Hayes (23:01)
which they call a crucifix. Millions of people wear one around their neck. Now I'm not out to condemn them for that, but I want us to look at that for just a moment. Crucifixion is the two Latin and Greek words, cruce of course, meaning cross, and fix is where we get fixation or fixed. So crucifixion means fixed to a cross. So when we deify, and I'm going to use that word

guardedly, but on purpose. When we deify the experience of the crucifixion and we don't let him off of the cross. In fact, I'm going to say something that you're not responsible for, Jason. So I'll apologize in advance. I think the devil is only too happy for us to all wear crucified Christ hanging on a cross.

Jason Allison (23:42)
Mmm.

Hahaha.

Mike Hayes (23:59)
and put them up in every building we call a church because it was the day of defeat. Now we all know that it resulted in our salvation and our victory, but here's the thing we got to understand. If you're going to talk to me about Christ on the cross, then please stay around until I can talk to you about Christ on the throne because he is not still on a cross. He is on a throne and he is ready.

Jason Allison (24:19)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Mike Hayes (24:25)
to manage your life and mine in a way that would be so unbelievably victorious and filled with joy that we can't keep going back there and re nailing him to a cross that was a one time experience. We got to let him move on and then we'll move on. He is seated at the right hand of the father, meeting out righteous judgments. And those judgments, by the way,

Jason Allison (24:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike Hayes (24:52)
Jason, forgive me if I'm talking too much. Jump in any time. I was in Greece last month and I took some friends. Jeff and I did a lot of research there for the book we're working on now. We spent weeks on the island of Patmos where John wrote Revelation and that's where we're writing it from. So we were in Greece and we took some friends outside of Athens to the Bema, the seat of judgment that Paul refers to in the New Testament.

Jason Allison (24:55)
Okay.

Yeah.

Mike Hayes (25:21)
And the Bema seat of judgment was not the same as the white throne judgment. The Bema seat in Greece was a place where the earliest celebrations of the Olympics were carried out. And the Bema seat was not a place to judge criminals to death. The Bema seat was a place to reward athletes who won.

Jason Allison (25:46)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (25:47)
Every time we say judgment as to do with God, we think it means saved or lost. No, we're going to be judged for the works that we've done and rewarded greatly. And that's the judgments Jesus on his throne is handing out now. Bless Jason. Listen, I believe this. Bless Jason today for doing this podcast to encourage pastors. I'm going to...

Jason Allison (25:53)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (26:17)
execute judgment in his direction for victory, for joy, for success because he's doing my work. That's what Jesus is doing. Court is not in session right now to destroy the world. That's not what he's about right now. He's about saving the lost and about encouraging those who are saved.

Jason Allison (26:28)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

I'd say, I think we got a lot of pastors who quite honestly, they need to remember some of this. know, they get stuck. trust me, I work with tons of pastors and I know it's hard, right? I mean, it is hard work. You're dealing with people, you're dealing with all the stuff that's going on between the culture stuff and it's hard work. But Jesus is not on the cross anymore. We actually have a message.

Mike Hayes (27:07)
Right.

Jason Allison (27:09)
that it actually is true and it is good and it leads to life. And so, yeah, I think there's a lot of pastors that just need to hear this encouragement of, hey, you are allowed to enjoy being a child of God. That's actually a good thing.

Mike Hayes (27:12)
You're up.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And that's I like I like to use that word allowed, because it really is a permission that God has given us. And really more than that, it's almost like a it's a plan. And it's almost a command. It's not like just figure out how to be happy if you want to know everything I did, including the horrendous death on a cross was so that your joy may be full.

That's what he said. So it's almost like for me, I'm not doing good to please him if I'm not happy because he sacrificed so much for us to be filled with joy. So I'm going to enjoy it.

Jason Allison (27:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, it's you know, we're recording this and in mid January, you know, mid to late January and quite quite honestly, you know, yeah, I'm I'm sitting here in Ohio. You know, yesterday morning when I got up, it was zero degrees in my car and we had about five or six inches of snow on the ground and it's fine. You know, I live in Ohio. I expect that next week, though. The forecast is for it to be about negative 10 in the middle of the week.

This is and my wife, you know, our listeners know my wife is a psychiatric nurse practitioner. And so she says that this time of year, especially in Ohio, the days are shorter. You know, it's dark when I come to work. It's dark when I leave and that seasonal depression is a real thing. And so I love that we're, we're recording this episode about real happy in the middle of the doldrums of winter, because I think some pastors need to hear, Hey, it's a good thing.

Mike Hayes (28:44)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (29:10)
for what's going on. It's good to proclaim the good news of the gospel. So let me change gears for just a second here. In chapter 10, it's about peacemakers. And I'm going to tell you that, and I don't say this very often, but that's going to be one of the best teachings on the idea of peacemakers that I have ever run across. And I've been doing this for 30 plus years as well. I've been around the block a few times, and it was that good.

Mike Hayes (29:16)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (29:40)
Tell me, let's talk about the difference for just a minute between peacekeeping and peacemaking and how pastors can engage that.

Mike Hayes (29:47)
You know.

I'm so glad you brought that up, Jason, because it is one of the principles of how to be really happy. And you'll never be real happy, according to that principle of because Jesus said, and by the way, let me digress just a minute and tell you that the proper translation for blessed in the King James Version is happy. It's the Greek word, Makarios, and it means fill with joy and happiness.

And here's what's really cool about that, Jason, in the text, Jesus literally used the Greek word. Now he spoke Aramaic, but he could speak and understood Greek because they'd been the ruling empire for centuries. But Makarios had been a, become a pop culture word. Like we use cool. Makarios was a word that Jews used to mean happy, but here's the catch in Greek mythology with the gods, Makarios.

was joyful and happy, but it was only reserved for the gods. It's not for us humans. We can't attain that. Just struggle on because the gods are filled with merriment and happiness, but we're going to be unhappy and miserable. And so when Jesus said happy, and I'm not fond of the idea, it doesn't mean, look, I...

I don't mess with the text because there's enough truth in every translation of the Bible to save the world. But I don't like the fact in the 15th century that they changed happy to blessed. And the reason is because it takes on this religious kind of blessed or the, and that's not the way it was intended. In fact, look at the difference here. The King James version of the Bible says in the first beatitude.

Jason Allison (31:33)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (31:43)
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now the way that was translated resulted in the Catholic church for instance, demanding a vow of poverty of everyone in the ministry. So you had to die penniless because that's what Jesus said. If you wanna be blessed, you need to be broke. You need to have nothing of this world's goods because if you wanna be blessed, you have to be poor in spirit. Awful.

way off the mark translation of that intention. Here's what Jesus said in his language. Makarios, joyfully happy will you be if you'll make room in your spirit for my joy. The word that they translate, poor in spirit, is a Greek word that means void or empty. So Jesus was literally saying, you want to be really happy? Empty some space out in your life.

that you'll let me in and I'll fill it with joy. What do we do? We fill it with toys. We fill it with junk. We fill it with boats. We fill it with sex. We fill it with a bigger house. And our spirit is so full of stuff. Jesus is saying, you want to be really happy? Give me some room. I can't get into your life right now. So it's not about being financially poor. It's about making room for Jesus in your life.

Jason Allison (33:00)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (33:11)
I get really practical with this and you know, being January, you just mentioned when we're recording this, a lot of churches and people are on fasts of various kind and prayer chain and so forth. All of that's good. I recommend that people do some physical things for this first beatitude. Get in there, wives, empty out your closet and reorganize it and give away half your stuff to a shelter. You got too many clothes, too many shoes.

So what we do is we fill up our closets and then we go rent storage warehouses and then we start. My contention is if it's been in a storage space for three years, you don't need it.

Jason Allison (33:44)
No.

Mike Hayes (33:52)
So men clean out your garage, empty stuff out, organize it and give stuff away. You'll get such a lift out of that. You'll feel so good because I'm going to tell you, you show me somebody's closet, garage, bedroom, automobile. I'll tell you a lot about their character and their personality and the level of their joy because I'm to go really deep here for a second. Jason.

But everywhere God gets involved, whether it's renewing the planet or our lives, he brings order out of chaos. So I've observed this in nations around the world. The more, the further they are from the living God in their expression and their government and their experience, the more chaotic their nation is. The Bible says the nation that forgets God will be cast down.

Jason Allison (34:44)
Hmm.

Mike Hayes (34:49)
So the more we recognize God in our lives, the more ordered it becomes. God is not just throwing stuff everywhere. my wife, Kathy, actually started her little ministry. Sometimes I take pictures of her. People can't believe it. Kathy's beautiful. She's 72 years old. She drives a nice car and she keeps a little squeeze thing that you pick up litter with off the ground.

trash bag in the back of her car and she will stop and walk about a half a mile and pick up the litter along the road because she says the earth is the Lord's let's clean it up because people that just throw their trash out the window are not conscious of it being the Lord's just mess it up it doesn't matter see really this is a whole nother assignment but we're supposed to be stewards of this planet

Jason Allison (35:32)
Hmm.

Right.

Mike Hayes (35:47)
The first order God ever gave Adam was be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it and take dominion. We've been charged with managing this planet. And the only thing messed up about this beautiful planet is the messed up people on it that don't respect it for what God gave it to us for. So with that said, let's get to peace making and peacekeeping. Jesus didn't say you'll be really happy.

Jason Allison (35:59)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (36:16)
If you can figure out how to keep the peace, that's what policemen do. That's what armies do. They are charged with keeping the peace. Now that may not impact attitude, decisions, verbiage, language, rhetoric, none of that. I'm just going to put my arm out here and an arm out there and keep you guys apart. And if I got to use a gun to do it, we're going to keep the peace. That's not

Jason Allison (36:42)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (36:46)
who Jesus said would be happy for doing that and thank God for those who do. But the blessing is in those who make peace.

Jason Allison (36:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hayes (36:56)
And there's a difference in making peace and keeping peace. And I'm gonna explain a couple things that are really different.

First of all, I want to tell you, and this is every pastor's job, so I hope they listen up. Making peace between peoples is really hard work. It takes a lot of skill. It takes patience. It takes love. It takes communication. It takes sitting down with parties that don't want to sit down together. The physical

picture of my life is a round table.

I despise to go to a restaurant with 12 friends and be seated at a long skinny table because you can't enter a real conversation. You have to look left and right. You can see the guy across from you. You can't talk to the people around you. So hence what happens. You end up with six different conversations. I love a round table where everybody can enter in.

and everybody can be heard. I like that Knights of the Round Table concept. I wish every pastor would understand, not just physically, and my personal opinion is, you ought to have a round table in your ministry life. A round table is better than a desk. Sit down and do your work at a round table, but invite people to sit with you at a table that's round. You're not behind the big chair at the end.

Jason Allison (38:16)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (38:39)
But you're at a round table where everyone has a place and they can be heard. That's one of the things that peacemakers do is listen, really hear people, try to understand them. And then you'll get to the place where you can get people together. Listen, this can be done, Jason. I had the honor in the first Trump administration, thankfully, President Trump, for whatever folks think of him.

was more open to faith leaders being in the White House for advice than any president I've known in my lifetime. And then after four years of his administration, those of us who were faith leaders were uninvited to the White House and none of us have been there in four years. And now with the new administration, we will be invited back. And your pastor's listing need to know that the Abraham Accords that literally has the opportunity to change the face of the Middle East.

was born in small round table rooms in the White House with pastors advising, how can we make peace? We can send our army and keep the peace, but how can we make peace? How can we hear people? How can we understand them? How can we help meet their need? Terrorist organizations keep the masses in grinding poverty and they're miserable. How can we introduce joy?

Jason Allison (39:49)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mike Hayes (40:09)
and happiness because the kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy. So I think the aspect of learning to be a peacemaker is one of the biggest assignments we have on our table. And pastors, your job is not to keep the peace, it's to make peace. You have to create something that looks like it's coming out of nothing. But listen, Jesus is the Prince of peace. He didn't come as a soldier to keep us apart.

He came as a reconciler to bring us together. And the apostle Paul said that we've been given the ministry of reconciliation because we've been reconciled to God. Now reconcile one another. And then three verses later he says, and you have the word of reconciliation. So my contention is here under peacemaking. Jason, I don't think we're gonna get much done until we recognize it's our ministry.

Jason Allison (40:43)
Yeah.

Ciao.

Mike Hayes (41:09)
and that we start to speak. The word of reconciliation is in our mouth and we have to get really good at it.

Jason Allison (41:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's I love in, you know, Matthew 18 where Jesus is talking about resolving conflict and stuff. But that's also the context in which he says, where two or three are gathered. I am between you, right? I am in the air you breathe as you have these conversations of reconciliation. I am I am the glue that that holds you together. And so, yeah, I love that. Well, we got it. We got to wrap up. And I want to be conscious of your time as well. But.

Mike Hayes (41:34)
Right.

Right.

Jason Allison (41:44)
Maybe what's a word of encouragement that you could give the pastors and leaders who listen to this podcast?

Mike Hayes (41:55)
Jason, I appreciate that question and I hope that this is helpful. for me, I will tell you that I was not as fulfilled in pastoral ministry ever as I was when I owned a real revelatory message that changed my life personally, parroting someone else's understanding and sermons. Listen, anyone can pirate a sermon from the internet, but

you can end up preaching every Sunday and still being miserable. You gotta get revelation for yourself. You gotta get a thorough understanding of it. And then you are, Paul said to be prepared to defend the gospel that you preach. you have to, it has to be experiential. So I would encourage every pastor, tell your own story, make it experiential. Everyone has a story. Sometimes I say this, Jason,

If I listen to a speaker, a teacher, a preacher for several times, and I never hear anything from him about his personal experience or life, I don't trust his experience because why do we think that God left the limp on Jacob even after he delivered him in every way, but he limped until the day he died because when Jacob was approaching you with a limp, you knew

that you had your own limp. It might be psychological, it may be spiritual, it may be financial, but here's a guy that's got a limp. I can trust him talking to me about limping. See, we don't need to present a perfect picture as a pastor. We need to present an intimate picture. And sometimes someone said intimacy means into me see. And if you don't let people see into your own soul and your own heart and what you've gone through,

Jason Allison (43:43)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (43:49)
I don't want to hear somebody tell somebody else's story. I can read that for myself. But Jason, when you and I have time together sometime and I hope we meet in person, I want to know Jason's story. I want to know how did you marry this smart wife? You're in over your head, Jason. Your wife is a see I am too. So I understand, but that means you got game. See so, but I want to know all about you when we're together.

Jason Allison (43:55)
Yeah.

Amen.

Yeah.

Mike Hayes (44:19)
I don't, any of us can just parrot what we've read. So I would encourage every pastor, tell your own stories. You have stories to tell. Listen, the apostle Paul, I'll end with this, was the most educated of any writer of scripture. And everywhere he started with a new people group, he started the same place. I was on a road to Damascus and a light from heaven struck me down.

I thought I was something, but God changed me. See, it opened him to every kind of audience because everyone hungers for that. Does God actually have a personal care for me?

Jason Allison (45:04)
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. That's really good. Let's just end on that because that's I don't want to mess it up after that. I really do appreciate your time. I appreciate the book and there'll be, of course, in the show notes, there'll be a link to where they can get it. And like I said, I was surprised at how much I got out of it. It was just one of those books where, know, another book on happiness. OK, fine, you know.

Mike Hayes (45:31)
See right here,

this is the one on my desk because honestly, I keep it close. It's so filled with the word that sometimes I was reading a chapter of the other night and I thought, man, did I write that? Because it's so full of the word and the concept is so powerful that it's become a medicine cabinet book for me that I have to stay in tune with because I'll just tell you, and Jason, I don't know about you, seem like a happy guy, but.

Jason Allison (45:45)
Yeah

Mike Hayes (46:01)
I was not by nature born just overflowing with happiness. I take after my mother more than my dad. My mother was a contemplative thinker, deep, fairly quiet, wasn't effervescent and bubbly. I just wasn't, I wouldn't be naturally given to happiness. This book, the concept of this book has changed my life personally.

Jason Allison (46:28)
Yeah.

Mike Hayes (46:30)
I can say that for sure.

Jason Allison (46:30)
Wow. Wow. Well, to all of our listeners, I hope that you will go get it. You will read it, share it with your congregation. It will definitely change the way that you handle things. I want to encourage you to just check it out. Please take a minute and share this podcast, subscribe to it. That helps us out.

And have an amazing week. You can reach out to us Jason at church talk project comm we would love to hear from you and Hear stories of joy and how God is doing things in your life. Have an amazing week. We will see you next week