Blessed are the Peacemakers

Introduction: I had friend that stopped talking to me. I couldn’t figure out why. I tried talking to them. They wouldn’t answer texts or phone calls.

I asked, “Please tell me what I did so I can make it right? So I can fix it?”

I got that dumb response, “If you don’t know I’m not going to tell you.”

Finally I went to a mutual friend and asked, can you help me figure this out? Can you go and talk to him and see what I did wrong? But don’t tell him I asked you.

Turns out I offended my friend in something I said about their favorite team. I had no idea.

But finally knowing what I did, I was able to apologize. Sadly by this time, the relationship was too far gone and they didn’t want to reconcile.

Sometimes we need a mediator to help us figure out what is wrong. That mediator is a peacemaker.

Transition to the Text: Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 5:9.

Let’s recap the last few weeks.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Like “Blessed are the merciful, we again turn outward to what God has called us to with respect to other people.

Our redemption has created a change in us that begins on the inside and overflows outward to others.

When your relationship is right with God, it will effect our relationship with others.

Read: Matthew 5:9

Matthew 5:9 ESV

9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 28th Edition Chapter 5

9 μακάριοι οἱ εἰρηνοποιοί,

ὅτι °αὐτοὶ υἱοὶ θεοῦ κληθήσονται.

Beatitude #7 - BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS, FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED SONS OF GOD And we start with our model.

1. Jesus was our PEACEMAKER.

And this makes sense, because if we, when we act as peacemakers will be called sons of God, how much more will the TRUE Son of God be the model peacemaker.

Look at what Paul says.

Read: Colossians 1:19-22

Colossians 1:19–22 ESV

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

Explanation: Its hard for many of us to understand that at one time we, who are in Christ, were enemies of God.

Everyone outside of the family of God is an enemy of God. How could a good and loving God punish anyone? Because God is at enmity with His enemies.

Satan is God’s enemy. Would you expect God to show to mercy to Satan?

It’s actually unthinkable that God would show grace to someone so evil. You might even think God weak if He showed mercy to Satan. For all the evil that He does.

The question should never be, why would God show wrath? The question is why would God ever show grace?

But here we are. The gracious and merciful God has seen fit to extend His grace to us through His Son Jesus.

How?

“He made peace by the blood of His cross.”

He has made a way for us to be reconciled to God.

Between us and God, Jesus is our mediator.

1 Timothy 2:5–6 ESV

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

Why did Jesus have to make peace by the blood of His cross? Because there was no other way.

Sin offends a holy and righteous God. And sin demands a payment. And we can’t make up for it on our own.

This is what the book of Hebrews was all about when the author talks about what Jesus has done for us:

Hebrews 9:12–14 ESV

12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 9:22 ESV

22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Our understanding of the cross is rooted in the OT. We could not overcome our sin in our own power. We could not do enough to make up for our sin. No amount of making up for it would be enough.

Sin is bad and God takes it seriously. The wages of sin is death.

But the OT had a problem. The sacrifices of bulls and goat could only temporarily deal with sin. It could only deal with sins already committed. So they had to be repeated over and over again. And that makes sense since…

Because as Hebrews 10:4

Hebrews 10:4 ESV

4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

At least not permanently.

Adam’s sin brought sin into the world and all died because all sinned in Adam.

So Jesus came to do a cosmic do-over.

He was tempted in all the ways that we are yet is without sin. When faced with temptation, He chose to honor His Father and reject the pleasures of this world.

Isaiah 53:10 ESV

10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

And the offspring which this text speaks of is those on whose behalf He made peace.

Application: The first task of a peacemaker is to accept the peace that has been made on your behalf….by the blood of the cross of Christ. That’s the question.

People always talk about “making their peace with God.”

You are not able to make peace with God. You must accept the peace that has already been made by Jesus on your behalf.

And when peace has been made between you and God do not take that peace for granted…

2. Strive for PEACE with EVERYONE.

Explanation: Nothing is more antithetical to the Gospel than a contentious Christian who goes to war with everyone they come in contact with.

Have made peace with God, we ought to be peaceable by nature.

Romans 12:17–21 ESV

17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:18 ESV

18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

If possible….

Paul anticipates that it is not always possible to be at peace with others.

There are times when you have to stand up and contend for the Gospel. To stand up for the least of these. To fight back against those who would seek to silence our message. To stand firm for truth and reject the world’s inreach into our lives and the lives of our children.

But not every battle is worth fighting.

When you are a hammer everything looks like a nail.

Illustration: Even in our contention for the Gospel, we must do so with gentleness and respect.

I was watching an interview on YouTube and a Christian man talking about one of the biggest failures he ever had in contending for the Gospel.

He was debating an atheist about whether God existed.

Listen to what he says about this experience.

One of my biggest failures as a Christian. This one guy and I were arguing about whether or not God existed. And he goes do you believe someone who commits suicide goes to hell?

And I said, if they do or if they don’t, yeah, has nothing to do with the actual argument that we’re discussing right now. So this is a red herring.

So why don’t you stay on topic. I got him and I was right. It was completely superfluous to the fundamental issue of whether or not God exists. So like I win.

Someone later asked me, do you know why he asked that? No.

His wife committed suicide.

So at a moment where I had the opportunity to say why did you ask that? And then do what I Peter 3:15 commands me to do.

1 Peter 3:15 ESV

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

Instead, I wanted to win an argument.

Application: So many of us forget that the people that we interact with every day are not our enemies.

They might seem like it. They may even try to be our enemy. But they aren’t the enemy.

So we should not allow them to get under our skin and cause us to act in a way that goes contrary to our belief.

My favorite people to argue with are other Christians…about secondary issues.

End times, spiritual gifts, Baptism, the nature of the church.

Even I can be very argumentative. Because when we agree on the main things, all we have left to argue about is the secondary things.

3. Be a PEACEMAKER between GOD and OTHERS.

Explanation: We look to Jesus as a peacemaker and and then we seek to be at peace with others.

Now we get to a beautiful part of our Christian ministry. Helping others. This is the heart of the Christian life.

First, we help others make peace with God.

We live in light of the peace that Christ has made in such a real and beautiful way that we can’t help but tell others.

2 Corinthians 5:18–21 ESV

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

But let me tell you that if you stick your head for others to help them make peace, not everyone will be thankful.

Obviously, Jesus came to mediate peace between God and people and they killed Him.

But many will point out your own failings. Moses was a man who knew that God had sent him to rescue his people. And he tried.

Acts 7:23–29 ESV

23 “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ 27 But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

On the one hand they didn’t want rescue. And then they didn’t want anyone helping them to make peace.

But even Jesus later has a similar conversation with the Pharisees:

John 8:31–40 ESV

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. 38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.” 39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.

You can be so caught up in what this world has to offer that you don’t even know you are enslaved. They grow to love the very system that enslaved them.

And beyond that they will fight to defend it.

Illustration: I remember watching the movie the Matrix and being in awe of how many Biblical themes jump out at us.

But one that always stuck out the most is how it articulates the difference between those who are plugged in and those who have been freed.

These words ring so true for us even today:

“You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

That is the reality of those outside of Christ. And we see it every single day.

They don’t want to see the truth and they will fight to keep you from telling it. They will kill you to keep you from seeing it.

Application: It is for this reason that the primary way that we need to be a peacemaker is to help people make peace with God.

We share the Gospel. One of the better Gospel tracts is put out by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association:

Steps to Peace with God. And before you can even that that you have to acknowledge that you don’t have peace with God.

And then you take the steps necessary to have peace through the way that God has prescribed.

You can have peace with God in no way other than the cross of Jesus Christ. So we show others the way.

But we can also mediate between Christians and Christians.

Paul was very concerned about 2 women in the church at Philippi that were not getting along.

And it’s so important that they figure things out that their names are immortalized in scripture.

Philippians 4:2–3 ESV

2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Kinda sad that there are so many ways scripture can remember people. sacrifice and great acts of courage and heroism. Miracles and signs.

Euodia and Syntyche are remembered for a disagreement. If you are like me you probably wonder what it was about?

Did they disagree on the end times? Spiritual gifts? How to season the lamb? It probably wasn’t doctrinal or else Paul would have corrected it.

But it really doesn’t matter. Because in telling us this, Paul shows us that it doesn’t matter what the argument was over. Doesn’t matter who was right or wrong.

What matters is that their disagreement is hindering the work of the Gospel. So he reminds them of the past work they have done and that they are both Christians.

Stop arguing over nonessential things and get back to the work of the Gospel.

Response: How can you become a better PEACEMAKER?

Summation:

Remember that Jesus is our peacemaker.

Remember to be at peace with others.

Remember that our job is help people make peace with God and others.

Closing Illustration:

Whether it is between God and man and man and man, we have to recognize that one of the clearest paths to being a peacemaker is practicing forgiveness.

Throughout history, the only way to ever more forward in unity is to forgive.

At the end of the civil war, as the North was celebrating its victory, President Abraham Lincoln advocated forgiveness and reconciliation could restore unity to the divided nation.

Nelson Mandela, after 27 years of unjust imprisonment, upon release chose not to seek revenge but pursued unity for the divided South Africa. Upon his election as President in 1994 he invited his former captures to work along side of him understanding that peace could only be achieved through forgiveness and collaboration.

Why did they have this outlook? Because they were both men of God’s Word.

There is no doubt that Nelson Mandela was motivated by his Christian faith, in recent years people have doubted Abraham Lincoln’s faith.

However there is no doubt that he attended church, read his bible often and quoted Scripture throughout his speeches.

We again find ourselves in a divided nation and world. And again the only answer to our division is to be peacemakers who are rooted in God’s word.

The Gospel is the only answer to our world’s problems.

Some of you might say, I don’t about making peace with the world. My marriage is falling apart. My adult children won’t speak to me. I’m not getting along with my coworkers.

I don’t like my kids teacher.

If God’s Word can bring peace to the world, it can bring peace to you in your everyday relationships.

But you have to be willing to forgive and let Christ change you before that relationship is restored.

And it all starts with each of us having accepted Christ’s peace made on our behalf with God.

And being at peace with everyone, including those who disagree with us.

And then living it out each and every day.

Will you accept the peace made on your behalf at the cross?

Will you lead others do the same?

Will you forgive as you have been forgiven?

Let’s pray.