Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Open your Bibles to Matthew 5:1-12, and we are going to read through these verses as we contine our study through the Beatitudes.

1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. 10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Today we focus on V. 9 Blessed are the pacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Introduction:

We would normally not think that someone with the nickname "the Merchant of Death" would be overly concerned with efforts to make, keep, and advance peace.

But in the 1800's, a boy named Alfred (who would later become known as the "Merchant of Death," was born to a Swedish inventor and an industrialist. Working in construction, Alfred's father was always looking for safer and more efficient ways to do demolition. So Alfred, having been an exemplary student and possessing a brilliant mind, set out to invent an explosive that could be safer than nitroglycerin and more powerful than gunpowder. In 1867 he succeeded and called his invention "dynamite." He got the name from the Greek work "dunamis" meaning power. Alfred's goal was to create a force that was both powerful and safe. He did this with pure intentions. However, people got a hold of this invention and began to use it for evil. Countless people ended up dying because this invention, dynamite, originally thought to be used for good, ended up being used for killing.

Newspapers began calling Alfred "The Merchant of Death." It is said that the first time Alfred heard that he had been given this moniker was the day after the death of his brother, Ludvig, in 1889. A French news reporter had mistakenly heard that it was Alfred who had died, and published an obituary that week in the paper. The title of the obituary was "The Merchant of Death Is Dead." It is reported that the obituary continued by saying, "[The man] who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."

Realizing that the name Merchant of Death was being given to him for his invention of dynamite, an invention that was developed with civilian applications in mind but had since been militarized, Alfred became appalled that this is the way he would be remembered. The thought that he had been indirectly responsible for the death of countless people tormented Alfred to his dying day.

As he neared death, he left in his will an account containing $9M (equal to $266M in 2024). This was left in trust to a foundation that would award people for extraordinary achievements in the promotion of peace. We are probably all familiar with the prize that carries the name of the man that started it - the name of the so called "Merchant of Death," Dr. Alfred Nobel.

It was Alfred Nobel that laid the framework for the foundation known as the Nobel Foundation that would be in charge of managing and administering the Nobel prizes, among them, the Nobel Peace Prize.

And since 1896, the Nobel Foundation has been searching to reward those who seek to make peace in a world full of war.

This morning, it is the subject of peacemaking with which we are concerned. This morning we will see that God is looking to reward those who make peace; He is willing to give His name to those people that are willing to make peace in a world full of war.

I'll remind you again before we dive into v.9 that we are studying Jesus' most famous sermon - the Sermon on the Mount. This is the introductory course to Christianity and what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. If we were to condense this all down into a few words, the Sermon on the Mount is about following Jesus. Jesus introduces this sermon, this lesson about following him with the section we are studying now, the Beatitudes.

You will remember, hopefully, that we get the term beatitude from the Latin word for blessed - beatis. This is how each of these verses start, "Blessed are...," and that word blessed means "happier than happy." I hope this makes you very aware that this means that Jesus is very concerned with your emotional state. The Beatitudes, I will remind you, are not "attitudes" but characteristics of the Christian. These Beatitudes do not describe different kinds of Christians, but each of these Beatitudes is to be found in each Christian equally.

This of course is something that could not happen except by the indwelling and empowering of the Holy Spirit. I have said it every week, and I say it again: we cannot produce these characteristics on our own. We may be able to fake one or two of them for a while, but we will never truly have these characteristics if we do not live a life fully surrendered to the Lord. When we live in this fashion, God produces in us what we never could.

Before we take a look at the specific beatitude of the week, I want us once again to look at how the different beatitudes relate to one another.

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Remember that all the Beatitudes build upon one another, but there are certain ones that flow into each other, and certain ones that flow out of previous ones.

The base Beatitude from which all others are built upon because it is upon this Beatitude that our relationship with God begins is "blessed are the poor in spirit." Then comes the next one, "blessed are they that mourn." Being poor in spirit and mourning over sin in our lives leads us to being Meek - understanding that this life of a Christian, the life of a citizen of the Kingdom of God, cannot be lived out in our own power. This drives us to complete surrender that produces a Hunger and Thirst in our lives for the Righteousness of Jesus. When we truly hunger and thirst for Jesus' righteousness in us, and we pursue that via a close and intimate relationship with Him, out of that flow the next three Beatitudes - the Mercy, Pureness of Heart (which we covered in detail last week), and the one we will cover today - Peacemakers.

On the illustration above you will also notice arrows pointing from one Beatitude to another. Let's go through these again.

Mercy is possible only to those that are Poor in Spirit, for they realize that in them, as the Apostle Paul would say in Romans 7:18, "dwells no good thing." Therefore, to the poor in spirit, showing mercy to others comes naturally.

Pureness of heart can only truly be sought after those that mourn for their sin. Sin and Purity cannot occupy the same space, so those that seek to guard their heart, those that truly hold their hearts open for God to search and to judge will hate their sin and mourn even the struggle of temptation.

And that brings us today to the Peacemakers. For one to be a peacemaker, he must first be meek. A peacemaker cannot be obstinate or selfish. The one who is meek has cast away stubbornness and God has developed in them a teachable spirit. The one who is meek understands that his limited strength and power, surrendered completely to the all-powerful God, has limitless possibilities. The peacemaker, then, is one who, in a world where frustration, fighting, tension, and war are the norm, seeks to bring about the impossible - peace, knowing that this peace cannot be achieved through his own efforts, but by the power of God in him.

The statement, "blessed are the peacemaker: for they shall be called the children of God," would have been terribly shocking to the Jews that were listening to Jesus. They had an idea of what the Messiah would be. They imagined the Messiah would be a military leader, a nationalistic leader that would set up a material kingdom and deliver them from all their bondage. They desired the Messiah to be their great King and establish the Jews above every other race.

They were ready to materialize the promises of Scripture in their timeline, and that is something that still plagues Christians to this day. However, Jesus was reminding them here that their whole idea was completely wrong.

Later, there would be a time that the Jews try to take Jesus by force and make him king, but what Jesus is basically saying now is, "You don't understand. Blessed are the peacemakers. My kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, is not of this world so it is not fought for like the other kingdoms of this world." So he gives this Beatitude - blessed are the peacemakers - to stress once more the principle that the Kingdom of Heaven is a very different kind of kingdom, and the citizens of that kingdom are a very different kind of people. They are peacemakers. They stand out as being different from the rest of the world. They stand out because they are the children of God.

Looking around our nation and our world we see an abundance of conflict and turmoil. The desire of of Jesus Christ is to use his disciples as instruments of peace in a world full of war.

There are currently 51 ongoing conflicts around the world that are broken down into Major Wars, Wars, Minor Conflicts, and Skirmishes/Clashes.

Last year alone (2023), these conflicts produced over 211,000 combat-related deaths.

If God is a God of peace, and He is, then why is there so little peace in the world and in our lives?

We find a very clear answer in the book of James, so turn with me to James 4 as we look at our first of four points,

The Destruction of Peace

James 4:1-4 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

Why are there wars in the world? Why are there 51 ongoing conflicts? The answer is simple - sin. The explanation of all of our troubles is lust, greed, and selfishness. This is the source of trouble we have within ourselves, between individuals, and among nations. The problems of the world cannot be understood without first accepting that mankind is sinful.

The heart of man, as we saw last week from the book of Jeremiah, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. The trouble with mankind cannot be dealt with by dealing with the symptoms, it must be dealt with at the source. And the heart is the source of it all.

What do I mean by "dealing with the symptoms"? Well, over the last 10 years or more there has been a cry for social justice. There have been movements that have taken up the cause for social justice. There are movements initiated by right wing political associations as well as left wing associations; liberals and conservatives alike respond to and counter each movement of what they see as the "opposition."

Churches across our nation have taken up these banners as well. Some fighting for justice for the LGBTQ community while others fight against the proliferation of those lifestyles. Some congregations have taken up the banner of nationalism, equating the American people with God's chosen nation and fighting for a candidate wishing to make America great again, while other assemblies fight against what they see as a racially motivated attack on minorities.

Don't get me wrong, the concept of social justice is a thing to be desired, but we cannot pin our faith and efforts on that, thinking that any view of social justice will bring about peace in our nation or in this world.

As long as I am here at Good News, you will never see us take up arms, so to speak, for any other cause except for the cause of Christ, and we will champion no name except for the name of Jesus.

Jesus is the only one who can bring about any social justice or peace on earth.

Let's take a look again at what James 4 has to say, and as we read, we will look at three levels of conflict that sin brings about.

James 4:1a From whence come wars and fightings among you? Sin brings about conflict with one another. Do you realize that every argument, every fight, every hostile disagreement, every shouting match, every skirmish, and every war is brought about by sin?

But sin does not just cause conflict with one another, it cause conflict within ourselves too. James 4:1b From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Have you ever heard someone say this phrase, or perhaps you have used it or thought it yourself: "I am so conflicted..." There is no inner peace to be found anywhere, it seems, not even within ourselves. Would you characterize your life over the last 30 days as a life of peace? Think about the millions of people that are on medication for anxiety and depression. And let me be very clear, I am not coming out against those things. I believe there are cases where medication for those situations are absolutely necessary, but it does not mean that the stresses of this life that so often conquer our own minds and turn into anxiety and depression are not caused by the sin that has distorted God's creation. Here's the thing, God created this world perfectly. We saw in Genesis back in 2022 that God made everything perfect. Man was created without sin and was placed in the Garden of Eden, a paradise within a paradise. When sin came, along with it came fear, anxiety, depression, panic, trauma and the mental health issues associated with it. Sin corrupted God's perfect creation. It disrupted the harmony enjoyed among the creatures of creation as well as the harmony man at one time had within his own heart and mind.

How many people will self-medicate tonight with drugs and alcohol in an attempt to have a peaceful sleep or to tame the inner conflict of their hearts? Why is the world full of turmoil? Because we are so full of turmoil. Some here today are a bundle of nerves and seemingly at the end of your rope. There is war within us, and we wonder why there is so much war in this world...

But there is a third level of conflict that sin produces. James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Sin puts us in conflict with God. Isaiah 48:22 There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked. As long as we harbor sin in our lives, there will be no peace. Sin is the frustration, the destruction of peace. You could change your outward situation and attempt to deal with the symptoms. You could change your financial situation, you could move to a new location, get a new job or successfully retire from your current one. You could get married or get divorced, have kids or send the ones you have away, but unless you deal with the sin in your life you will never know peace because sin puts you and me at odds against God.

The next point we want to look at is

The Source of Peace

Where does peace come from?

The source of peace is God Himself. Hebrews 13:20-21 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The Father is the Author of Peace - 1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace...

One of the most amazing titles of God in the Old Testament is Jehovah-shalom, the Lord our Peace. If you are in need of peace today, you need to cry out to the source of peace, the author of peace.

The Son is the Supplier of Peace - John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation [anguish, oppression, burdens, afflictions, persecutions, troubles - sound familiar to anyone?]: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Ephesians 2:13-14 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace...

Colossians 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself... Jesus went to the cross so that we could have peace with God.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

If you want peace with God today, the only way to have that is through faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the supplier of peace, the one who makes it available to us; he is the one who gives it. One of Jesus' titles is the Prince of Peace.

But another thing we learn from Scripture is that the Holy Spirit is the Producer of Peace. Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. He is the one that produces peace in us. It is produced in our lives by the Holy Spirit. Only God has the equipment to produce peace. The moment you got saved, God filled you up with His Spirit, and if you will walk with Him, then He will give you the peace of God.

C.S. Lewis, the Christian author of The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and many other works once said, "God cannot give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing."

Do you want peace in your life? The worst thing you can do is run or hide from God; the absolute best thing you can do is throw yourself at His feet, cry for His peace (which He makes readily available), and walk daily with Him. Confess your sins (because sin is the destroyer of peace), let God speak to you through the Bible, pursue a deep daily relationship with Him, and when you need peace you can lean on His promise that His peace He has left you, not like the world gives it, not a fleeting peace, but one that endures and even passes all understanding.

So...

What Is a Peacemaker?

A peacemaker is firstly, someone who has peace with God. Remember, these Beatitudes, in fact the whole Sermon on the Mount, is directed to believers, to people that are already disciples of Christ. This means that the peacemaker is not someone who has this natural disposition. It is not and "easy-going" person. The person that is a peacemaker is not someone who makes "peace at any price" either. And it is not a person who has the attitude that leads him to "avoid trouble at any cost."

The true peacemaker is also not an "Appeaser." To appease usually just postpones conflict. Before WW2 came into full swing, Great Britain and its prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, practiced a foreign policy called "appeasement." The goal was to prevent war by giving into the demands of aggressive nations such as Germany, Italy, and Japan. So Britain did not respond to Germany as it annexed Austria and even accommodated Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. In the minds of Chamberlain and many other British statesmen, appeasement was the "moral and realistic expression of all that was liberal and Christian in British culture." But that is simply a misunderstanding of what it truly means to be Christian, because far too often, appeasement, being easy-going, avoiding trouble at all cost, and the idea of 'peace at any price' though they all appear to be nice lack a sense of justice and righteousness.

The peacemaker then is not those things, so what is he? There are two main things that we can say about the peacemaker.

Passively, he is peaceable. He is not a person that is always picking fights or instigating fights, as such people cannot be peacemakers.

Actively, he makes peace. He is not content to, as the phrase goes, "let sleeping dogs lie." He desires peace and will do everything he can to produce peace. The peacemaker is one who understands that there should be peace between man and man, group and group, nation and nation. But ultimately, the peacemaker is a person that is concerned about the fact that all men need to be at peace with God.

To sum it up, a peacemaker is one who not only doesn't make trouble, but actively goes out of his way to produce peace.

Peacemaking flows naturally from a pure heart. IT is only the pure of heart that can be a peacemaker, because a heart that is filled with envy, jealousy, and other sins could never be a peacemaker, for sin itself is the destroyer of peace.

The Peacemaker has a very different view of himself than the natural man. He is free from self-interest and self-concern. The peacemaker cannot be focused on self at all. This is why we say that this Beatitude directly relates to that of MEEKNESS, for like the meek, the peacemaker cannot be sensitive or on the defensive. The peacemaker is one who is absolutely neutral, so as to bring two sides together in peace.

This means that the peacemaker casts away the thought of how everything will affect him. The peacemaker cannot say, "How will this affect me?" "What about my rights?" or "Is this fait to me?"

Those thoughts will kill any interest in serving God, serving others, and serving the church. These thoughts are the ones that produce misunderstanding and arguments.

The Peacemaker is one who has come to see God as he truly is. This in turn causes him to see himself as he truly is, amounting to nothing. It is this self-examination that causes a deep grief and mourning over that sinful state which enables the Holy Spirit to produce in him a meekness that only He could produce. Meekness being our limited power completely surrendered to the Lord. That complete surrender of self to the Lord produces a hunger and thirst for Him that cannot be satisfied except in daily pursuit of a deep relationship with the Christ.

As the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Jesus, we become merciful toward others, we come to desire a pure heart, and out of that mercy and purity comes the desire for every man to be first, reconciled to God, and then reconciled to each other.

But the Peacemaker is a person not only has a different view of himself, but also has a different view of others. He does not talk about people when they are offensive and difficult. The peacemaker understands exactly why offensive and difficult people are the way they are - it is because they are under sin's influence. The peacemaker realizes that they must be shown mercy and compassion.

To be a peacemaker, one cannot simply sit and study this principle. It must be put into practice. Only the practice of peacemaking can prove whether or not you are a peacemaker.

How Can I Practice Making Peace?

Learn not to speak. This is more passive than active. James 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

E.g.: When something is said to you, and you have the temptation to respond with a defensive comeback, say nothing.

Do not repeat things that you know will do harm. When you tell a friend something that someone else has said about them that was unkind, it does not help. Unkind things are not worth repeating. Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Our sinful nature, what the Bible often refers to as "the natural man," is strong within us. But we must not give into the idea that we "must express our minds." We cannot excuse ourselves by saying, "That's just the way I am," or worse, lie about the nature of God by saying, "That's just the way God made me." Let's go ahead and dispel that horrifying myth once and for all: God did not make anyone who claims to be Christian with a bad temper, a foul mouth, or an antagonistic spirit. When we were saved, you and I became new creations, God gave us His Spirit, you are now made kind, gentle, and longsuffering; you possess love, joy, goodness, peace, and temperance. THAT is how God made you.

How can I practice making peace? Learn to be quiet, and 2) view every situation in light of the Gospel. This is the active part of the peacemaker. Romans 12:20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

This is actively seeking peace with others. You may have to humble yourself, perhaps apologize, try to be friendly, and do everything in your power to produce peace. Romans 12:18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. This is not just passively letting sleeping dogs lie, this is actively seeking peace toward others.

What Is the Outcome of the Peacemaker?

Matthew 5:9b ...they shall be called the children of God. According to some commentaries I read about this passage, the word "called" here also means "owned." So who is going to own them? God is! It means that those that are peacemakers, God will own them as His children, and he will be their Father.

Another way to translate the phrase "will be called" is also, "will be surnamed." A surname is the family name. So, Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall have the last name, the family name, the surname of the children of God.

It is God who is concerned with peace for He is the author of peace. It is then the peacemakers that will be identified as God's children as they are concerned with the things their heavenly Father is concerned with.

Invitation:

If you are here today and are not saved, you are at this moment in an enemy relationship with a holy God. But God did all he could to have peace with you. He paid the price for your sin so that you would not have to be His enemy, but could be called his friend and his child.

There is nothing else in this world that can give you lasting peace. It has been well said that there is a God-shaped hole within each heart, and nothing but God Himself can fill that vacuum.

If you are here today and do know Jesus as your savior, then I have a few questions for you.

Are you at peace? Forget being a peacemaker for now, the question is, "are you at peace?" Is there sin in your life? If there is, then you have set yourself up on enemy lines facing God. Is your focus on the world and on self? Let me remind you of what James says, "Don't you realize that friendship with the world is enmity with God?"

Maybe you're here and the lack of peace is not because of active sin in your life. Perhaps circumstances have brought along anxiety and lack of peace. Do you need peace today? God is the God of Peace. He is Jehovah-Shalom. If you need His peace today, when we start the invitation, will you come and pray for His peace that only he can give? Jesus is the one that says, "Come unto me all of you who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart; and you will find rest for your soul."

If you need rest and peace this morning, why don't you come and lay your burden before Jesus. Let Him take your burden in one hand and you in the other and lean on the rest and peace only He can give.

If you were able to answer "yes" to the last question, then this next question is for you. Are you a peacemaker? Are you disseminating peace or are you an agent of conflict?

Are you doing all you can to reconcile others to each other?

Are you doing all you can to make peace with those that have offended you or that are offended by you?

If there is an area of your life you need to get right with God

Home Groups

What are the Beatitudes and how are they produced in us? They are characteristics of every Christian produced by the Holy Spirit.

How do the previous Beatitudes lead to becoming a peacemaker?

What was the misconception of the Jews about how the Messiah would come?

How did Jesus correct that misconception with this Beatitude?

Is it enough to be passive in my peacemaking?

Give examples of how to actively seek and make peace 1) between others who are in conflict, and 2) with those who are in conflict with me.

How does 'learning not to speak' help in being a peacemaker?

What is the significance of being called the children of God as a peacemaker?

How can we seek to make peace between God and others?

17MAR2024@GNBC