Blessed are the Peacemakers
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
I’m sure you’ve been around a group of kids that were always quarreling with each other. As parents with more than one kid, we live this out all the time. Your kids will get to fighting and arguing with each other. Sometimes you just need a little peace and you are struggling with what sort of punishment you need to give them to make them get along. Parents can get pretty desperate for answers at times, so we do what everyone does these days and we resort to the internet to find a good discipline for arguing children.
Well, if you look online, there is one discipline that is quite creative. Have you ever seen the “getalong shirt?”
It looks like this....
I checked it out and you can legitimately buy these shirts online for your kids.
Well, I think this might be a good thing for churches to buy as well, because sometimes as Christians we need a “get-along shirt” to make us work out our problems rather than constantly bickering at one another.
Did you know that as Christians we are all adopted into the family of God? And, just like human families fight, we tend to do the same thing. We bicker and fight and sometimes I think that God would like to put us in a “get-along” shirt.
But, the thing is, God did something far more significant to help us get along. He sent Jesus to die for us.
He went after the root cause of the problem - sin!
So if we are going to be like Jesus, we are going to need to die to ourselves and become peacemakers. Let’s take a look at what God says,
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Pray.
This beatitude is pretty straightforward for us. If we are peacemakers, we will be called sons of God. In other words, it’s one thing to be a child of God, it’s another to be acknowledge as one by the Father because of how we behave.
Have you ever told your kids before, “Now you better behave or I will disown you!” We usually don’t mean it really, but we are telling our kids that they represent us, so they better act correctly. We want them to properly reflect us to everyone else.
Well, when we are peacemakers, God calls us His own children. We resemble the work that He does.
But why do we even need peacemakers in the first place?
1. Man Needs Reconciling to One Another Because of Sin
1. Man Needs Reconciling to One Another Because of Sin
If we go all the way back to the beginning, we see the need for man to be reconciled to one another because of sin.
When Adam and Eve had sinned in the garden, the blame game started. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent.
Then we go forward one more chapter to their children, Cain and Abel. Cain hated Abel because God accepted his sacrifice, but rather than figure out why God had not accepted his own sacrifice, Cain killed Abel.
Sin led him to do this.
Sin is destructive and it kills, literally. It kills relationships. It creates tension and distrust. We start to compare ourselves with each other.
Look at the rest of the Book of Genesis. We have Abraham’s wives and children in a struggle: Sarai and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael.
We have Isaac’s sons: Jacob and Esau
We have all 12 of Jacob’s sons fighting to the point that Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt.
On and on the saga continues and it envelopes so many people that tribes fight with other tribes, nations fight with other nations, and we have wards and global conflicts arise over the sins we commit.
Sin is at the heart of all of our conflict and we need Jesus to save us from ourselves. We are longing for peace.
In Titus, Paul describes it this way,
3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
That’s why the angel declared to the shepherds when Jesus was born:
14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
God came to bring us peace because of sin. We can have peace with one another because of Jesus and that should be the ministry of reconciliation that we are all a part of as Christians.
Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:18
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
Because of the gospel, we can have families restored. We can have relationships that have broken healed. We can have wars cease and come to an end.
What are some of the ways that God might want to use you to bring peace in the lives of other people? Have you thought about that?
How can you be a peacemaker?
Be patient with people
Be humble
Give a soft answer
Praying for other people and situations
Christians have a part in bringing about the peace of God on earth through a ministry of reconciliation.
Now, a lot of people think this is going to happen by legislation or government. We should pass laws that help promote peace, but we have to understand the nature of the human heart.
We can never legislate sin out of a persons heart; therefore we can never legislate peace. Think about all of the peace treaties that have been signed, only to be broken later.
The core of the problem lies in the heart. We practice the ministry of reconciliation, or being a peacemaker, when we point people to Jesus and the cross.
The cross tears down the dividing walls between us.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,
16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
You see we come to be saved in the same way, no matter what our background or ethnicity. We all are adopted into the family of God in the same way.
Think about how radical that must have been to someone like Simon the Zealot, who was a disciple of Christ. The Zealots wanted to kill the Romans, and here is Jesus telling everyone to live at peace.
Remember again that we are looking at the Sermon on the Mount with the backdrop being the Children of Israel in the wilderness. Now listen to what A.W. Pink says about this.
An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount Chapter 4: The Beatitudes—Concluded
“The Jews, in general, regarded the Gentile nations with bitter contempt and hatred, and they expected that, under the Messiah, there should be an uninterrupted series of warlike attacks made on these nations, till they were completely destroyed or subjugated to the chosen people of God (an idea based, no doubt, on what they read in the book of Joshua concerning the experiences of their forefathers—A.W.P.).
He continues and says,
An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount Chapter 4: The Beatitudes—Concluded
See here the blessedness of that work to which the ministers of God are called: not merely to effect peace between man and man, but to reconcile men to God. What a contrast is this from the task allotted to Joshua and his officers under the Mosaic economy, of taking up the sword to slay the enemies of the Lord! In this dispensation the servants of Christ are commissioned to seek the reconciliation of those who are at enmity with God. The heralds of the Cross are the ambassadors of peace, bidding sinners throw down the weapons of their warfare and enter into amnesty with God. They know there is no peace for the wicked, and therefore do they exhort them to acquaint themselves with God and be at peace (Job 22:21). Of them it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:15)
So, rather than going to war with men for God, we fight for men’s souls for God to reconcile them to Himself.
All of this leads us to realize that not only does man need reconciling to one another because of sin, but...
2. Man Needs Reconciling to God Because of Sin
2. Man Needs Reconciling to God Because of Sin
We have become alienated from God by our sin (Eph. 2:12)
We must realize that our sins don’t just cause us problems with one another, but ultimately they separate us from God.
12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Paul is writing to the mixed church of Gentiles and Jews in Ephesus and reminding the Gentiles that were saved that at one time they were cast off and now God has brought them in. But that truth applies to all of us.
Every one of us is separated from God because of our sin. That is not a peaceful separation, but it means we are objects of the holy wrath of God.
If this condition of ours doesn’t change,
We will be eternally separated from God without the peace brought through the atonement of Jesus on the cross (Rom. 6:23)
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Bible says that the payment for our sins is death. This is separation from God in Hell. People don’t like to talk about this. They say that it is not loving to talk about sin. It makes us feel uncomfortable.
Well, the only way that we can be reconciled to God is to realize we are under the judgment of God. When you look at all of the prophets in the Bible and the revivals that followed under their ministries, they all preached a message of repentance.
I would argue that you can’t have revival without repentance. You have to change something that wasn’t working right. If you were sinning against God and backslidden, you need to repent.
If you were lax in your devotion to God, you change and pursue Him.
Repentance simply means to change and turn away from something. Repentance from sin means to turn from sin and turn back to God. It is our ministry as Christians to help people repent and turn away from their sins and turn back to God.
We are in the reconciling business as Christians who are on mission (Jesus mission Luke 19:10)
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Jesus’ own personal mission was to seek after the lost. When we share his mission, we are also acting like our Father in heaven. It’s no wonder that we are called sons of God.
Conclusion
How deeply do you care about being a peacemaker? Do you have a yearning for the souls of men? Do you think about people in the categories of those who are lost and those who are saved?
What it really means to be a son of God is that we share His heart to bring the lost into His family. We cannot share in that concern and remain silent about the gospel.
Who do you know that needs to hear the good news? Maybe that person is you today. Maybe you are sitting here this morning and you realize that your sins have separated you from God. If you were to die today, you would spend eternity in Hell and receive the just punishment that your sins deserve.
It doesn’t have to be that way for you. You can repent. You can turn to Christ and be forgiven.
Do you have someone you know that needs to repent? I pray that God puts a burning desire in your heart to see the salvation of that person and that you will share the gospel with them. Invite them to come with you to church. Don’t sit idle while they perish, but seek to bring peace between them and God.
That’s what it means to be a peacemaker and that’s what it means to be a child of God.