The Blessed Peacemakers

Read Matthew 5:1-10

Matthew 5:1–10 NIV

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. He said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Let’s Pray.

Over the past five weeks we have been working our way through the Beatitudes, statements about what the blessed look like in the new kingdom that Jesus alluded to in our rooting scripture for the entire study, John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it was my servants would prevent my arrest by the Jewish leader. But now my kingdom is from another place.” We’ve been talking about the nature of this other kingdom that we’ve talked about as the upside-down kingdom. And not even the kingdom, but the nature of the kingdom defined by the nature of the people that are counted as members of this other kingdom. A kingdom that appears to be upside down because its people act contrarily to the ways that our human nature and, by extension, our culture tell us a kingdom has to operate. A normal kingdom lifts up as “blessed” those that are, essentially, the exact opposite of this kingdom. They lift up the rich, the satisfied, the proud, the comfortable, those who rule by their own justice, and those that are willing to do what is necessary to get ahead. These are our politicians, our celebrities, and our leaders and, when we live for this world, they’re us too.

So, we’ve been talking about what it looks like to be “blessed” people who are the opposite of all of those things, and most of the time, when we are reading this list, we have the tendency to look at this list as a list of groups of people. We look at the list and we try to pick a characteristic and own that characteristic that counts us among the blessed or we take it even further and we look at the list more like a horoscope; looking at what characteristic we fit in best and seeing what that says we’ll receive in heaven.

To be honest. That would make it easier. But the reality is that this list and this entire sermon series have been building to this day, because it turns out it isn’t a list of different groups of people Jesus was describing all of the characteristics of that we need in order to be one group of people. His group of people. Matthew communicates this subtly by mirroring the end of verse 3 – the first beatitude - and the end of verse 10 – the 8th - to create bookends that offer both groups of people the kingdom of heaven in a present sense. And its in these last two statements that we receive the summation of what it looks like outwardly to be Blessed as a “peacemaker”, and we receive our expectations as the Blessed members of the upside-down kingdom while we walk on this earth and that is to be persecuted. The persecuted peacemakers. Sounds like a fun job.

But what comes to mind when you think of peacemakers. This Sunday, on Memorial weekend, it’s hardly difficult to think of who comes to mind first: those men, women, and all of those families that have sacrificed so much for the hope of peace. And as we sit in church on Sunday morning it seems only fitting to give the Sunday School answer on the tip of everybody’s tongue – Jesus. But what came to my mind first this week was something that we don’t do very often in church seldomly, if at all, unless you’re a Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, or another denomination that sits a little higher up on the candle. I thought of the passing of the peace. Do y’all know what I’m talking about? The passing of the peace is a ritual where the congregation turns to one another and simply says, “May the peace of God be with you,” or, more simply, “Peace be with you.” And the other person replies with, “And also with you.”

I want y’all to humor me for a moment and let’s just take a second and pass the peace to one another. You don’t need to travel around the room or anything but just turn to those around you and offer a simple blessing of peace, we are being called to be peacemakers after all.

Now, I want you to think about how you felt you needed to be or act when you were offering or receiving the peace. I’m going to assume that at least some of you are similar to me, and when I extend that peace, I feel that I need to extend it softly, like a warm blanket. Does that make sense? There is a softness to it that can almost seem weak. And I use that word to make a bit of a point because I know it goes a hair too far, but I think more often than not, when we hear the word peace we think of soft, soothing, voices like a yoga instructor or something, but I want to challenge that today.

I want to challenge it because I feel like we have, as a society, mistaken peacefulness for weakness and that’s, well, wrong. A weak person isn’t a peaceful person. A weak person is hopeful that stronger people will see their weakness and choose to be peaceful with them. A peaceful person is a person that has the ability to choose something other than peace. The weak person doesn’t have that option because… they’ll lose to stronger people. But a strong person has the ability to choose something other than peace, but they choose peace instead.

And I’m going to bolster that argument here by looking back at the two very people that we talked about as examples just a moment ago – the peacemakers that come to our minds today are those that have sacrificed everything for freedom and the hope of peace and Jesus Christ who was strong enough to carry the literal weight of the world’s sin upon his shoulders.

And I’m not saying that you need to go out and arm yourself to the teeth or make sure you come off as aggressive and assertive and scary so others will think you’re strong because all of a sudden, we’re thinking about strength the way the world thinks about strength, a strength that comes from aggression.

Instead, we need to see that over the course of this list, Jesus gives us the building blocks we need to recognize, pray for, and seek the Holy Spirit in order to be the strong peacemakers that he is calling us to be.

We are called to be poor in spirit. To know that we have nothing for ourselves and we rely on God for everything we have. Everything we have, even the literal breath in our lungs and the strength in our arms and legs, comes from Him.

We are called to mourn the state of this world. To empathize with the needy and to desire a better, more peaceful state of being where -as we pray every week - the Kingdom of Heaven has finally come.

To be meek and lay down our pride. To remember that first Beatitude – that all comes from the glory of God and is for the glory of God – and to truly humble ourselves before the Lord and seek his righteousness and his glory rather than thinking that any of it is our own.

To be merciful. We were not called to seek and deliver justice. We were sent just as the disciples were to pave the way by revealing just a glimpse of the mercy that Jesus is going to offer so that he might judge and offer mercy as only His justice can determine. And as we walk in his mercy, as we love mercy as he loves mercy, there we will find our hearts purified by his holiness and love.

These are the places where we find our strength. These are the ways that we learn to become peacemakers because if we’re going to be members of the Kingdom of heaven, we don’t have much of a choice. This is what it means to be a Christian – to be a peacemaker.

And the word, the title, “peacemaker” is the connecting and revealing word in all of this. The Greek word is eirenopoios– eirene – peace – and – poiao – to make. It’s an interesting word and it only appears twice in the New Testament. Here, as Matthew documents Jesus speaking it at the Sermon on the Mount, and in  Colossians 1:20. Let’s read Colossians 1:19-20 really quick:

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,” that is Jesus, “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

In English we translate it to “by making peace” but it is that same Greek word, eirenopoios, used by Jesus in Matthew 9. But the statement is connected by so much more than that. Paul is telling the churches of Colossae and Laodicea that Jesus was the ultimate peacemaker. He reconciled and made peace with all things bringing them into himself through his work upon the cross. It is that same work on the cross that we point to and know with all of the assurance in our heart, that we have been justified and saved, made to be sons and daughters of God through this act of peacemaking.

But look here, in Matthew what Jesus tells us now. He was the ultimate peacemaker that made us children of God and, now, as children of God we find that we have been given a task here in his first major sermon. We have now been called to be peacemakers.

And it is only now that we can be peacemakers. Before we lacked something we didn’t have and couldn’t have. But when Jesus took on the cross and we put our trust in him, when we died to ourselves and were given new life in him we were also given the entirety of the Holy Spirit. We were given a new power and strength that is not the power and strength of this world, but the power and strength of this hidden, upside down kingdom, and it is with this new power and strength that is born out of love, not aggression, submission and humility, not pride and wealth, that we are now called to go and use to continue showing mercy and creating a way for people to meet Jesus and know that he is King.

We don’t have to be Jesus; we just have to help prepare a way for him to do in other people’s hearts what he has done in all of ours. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He points to Jesus. He pointed us to Jesus and now he is calling us to point to Jesus too.

That’s the summation of the blessed statements. We are called to live as disciples, submitting ourselves and allowing the Holy Spirit – the Spirit that introduced us to a peace that this world cannot ever truly understand as long as it holds onto the world, we see rather than the one we don’t. We have to allow that Holy Spirit to shine through us onto Jesus who is going to take them to the Father.

And here’s what we should expect for doing so. We should expect to be persecuted. We know this. We know that following Jesus doesn’t mean that this world starts showing us rainbows and sunshine because his kingdom is not of this world. But we shouldn’t allow it to frustrate us or anger us. We should know that we are being blessed beyond belief because we are living in a way where we are a living part of the kingdom of heaven. We are walking in the light of our Father, and the darkness hates the light. But the darkness needs the light and so let us cast our face toward Him and allow His glorious light to shine through us and offer peace to the world through the almighty strength of his eternal love.

I have loved walking with all of you through these incredible statements and as I was reading Colossians last night, I found myself praying Paul’s letter and the encouragement that he offers them in Chapter 3 felt to perfectly summarizing of the past 5 weeks, I want to share it with you and pray it with you all this morning.

Let’s Pray.

Read Colossians 3:12-17

Colossians 3:12–17 NIV

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.