Blessed are the peacemakers
Notes
Transcript
What do I want them to know? We are peacemakers
Why? We are the only ones who can bring peace
What do I want them to do? Be a peacemaker
Why? The world longs for peace
ME/WE
One of the CRIES OF THE you hear in AMERICA TODAY is we want peace! We want their to be unity
But We are so divided
But We are in disunity as a nation and country
Family member is against family member....family members that just a year ago, call each other on a weekly basis, hang out on regular basis, and be genuinely for each other (your greatest cheer leaders was your mom, or brother or cousin)…do not even talk to each other, now you cannot even been in the same room with each other and if they happen to talk to one another it is language of hurt and hate
SOME OF YOU ARE HAVING THE SAME ISSUE ARISE WITH YOUR FRIENDS....your best friend of 20 years.....this is recent news…not history
Why is this? Why is this happening?
Why is brother against brother?
Why is there so much disunity and lack of peace, shalom, and wholeness?
SIN
SPECIFICALLY THE SIN OF SELFISHNESS
The reason we do not have have peace is because of the sin of selfishness
Look at what James 4:1-2
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
The reason you have wars and not peace with your family member or friend is because of selfishness.
Selfishness causes wars
What do we do?
SO how do we handle this? How do we stop these WARS (wars that are country and family member to family member?
We need to become peacemakers not war makers?
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
How do we do that?
IF YOU SAID BACK IN ANTIQUITY, ANCIENT OF DAYS, WE NEED PEACE BACK IN ANTIQUITY.
How would they have responded? How did you end the wars?
How did they establish peace?
Did they have a camp fire and sing Kumbaya, my Lord…No
The exact opposite would happen.
They would SEEK to establish PEACE THROUGH WAR
Party A would think things should go this way and Party B would think things should go that way.
But there was no agreement, not unity....they would go to war for peace
If you did not agree with me it was off with you....I am going to kill, beat, or imprison you.
- The Pax Romana started after Caesar Augustus (he was not called Caesar Augsutus then), then Octavian, met and defeated Mark Antony in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC…it was the largest armies Rome have ever seen....this was a CIVIL WAR....Caeser Austustus said I am going to establish the PAX ROMA, the PEACE OF ROME THROUGH WAR
HIS WAY OR THE HIGHWAY....OR ACTUALLY CAESER IS LORD is LORD OR YOU COULD DIE BY THE SWORD
Then Caesar Augustus thought this Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome all the Meditarian world and middle east they needed to have the Pax Romana, he’s so nice...
So he started capturing and conquering other countries and for those countries to say Caesar is Lord or die by the sword.
Little by little Rome, Pax Romana, ruled the ancient world.
200 years there was “peace”
BUT IS THIS PEACE? Is it really peaceful?
No
Agree with me, Caesar is Lord, or die by the sword
Is the is not similar to what is happening today in America governmental and political ideologies that are functioning today?
How is this happening today at large and being promoted by our government, the social elites, and Hollywood?
With a thing called cancel culture
The powers that be say, how we are going to have unity, peace is anyone who disagrees with us we cancel out.
Erase them from your lives
PEACE WILL HAPPEN IF WE JUST GET OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO DISAGREE WITH US…SILENCE THEM, and CANCEL THEM.
Specifically who is getting targeted is who? Christians…secular experts are saying the same thing.
Oh you believe God created people male and female, that’s cute and you cannot change your gender....cancelled
Oh you believe marriage is between a man and a woman, that’s great
Oh you believe it is not right for the state to be able to perform a sex operation on your 7 year old son with you knowing....cancel you out to the point you will have not say on what happens to your son
What is being preached is the way peace comes about is through “Pax America” ....we are not going to kill people who disagree with us but we are going to cancel you out.
BUT We will have “peace” no, contrived, fake peace
To be fair and right....The people of God thought that when they Messiah would come....He would come to establish the “Pax Messiahship” like Rome did…He would establish the “Pax Messiahship” via an military army and the Messiah would be the military leader
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
Jesus does go to war? But who does Jesus go to war with? What does Eph 6 say? Our battle is not against flesh and blood
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Jesus goes to war with the spiritual forces of evil and defeats them over and over, casting out demons, defeating the Devil in the desert, and ultimately winning the war on the cross not by a sword but a sacrifice.
The same is true of God kingdom is one where we do wage war....wage war on a Spiritual side of things, the realms of darkness.....and we seek to bring peace on earth.
Every war you face (the natural wars), is a war that started and empowered and replenished in the realms of darkness....we may think we are war with our friend but it is a war not of flesh and blood.
this is important for us to know because it shows us how the war is won…it by putting on the armor of God and prayer.
But here’s the thing we often do we often fight the natural world with war armor and the spiritual war with no armor.
This is why sometimes we have a war Spiritually and a war naturally.
we are not being equipped for battle
Let me give you an example....THE IS HOW WE DEFEAT THE EQUALITY ACT (which has a lot horrible things in it shut as a man will legally be allowed to use the woman’s bathroom, males can compete in women sports, and your child can have a sex change at 7 years old without your approval as a parent)....PUT ON THE ARMOR....speak the belt of truth God said “a male is a male, a female is a female”....and pray for God’s will to be done, His kingdom come....that God would stop the EQUALITY ACT
That’s briefly how we fight the realms of darkness, but we are on subject of peace.
How do we bring peace here?
HOW DO WE BE PEACEMAKERS?
First I want to emphasis PEACEMAKERS MAKE PEACE
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
This is not a passive role PEACE does not happen passively…if we are left to our selves and our desires …this is not something we hope will happen someday (magically)…It is not something for pass of to the government or institutions....
God clearly says to those in the kingdom of God you are to play an active role in making peace.
That when you see parties, (party A disgrees with Party B) Or I am party A and they are are party B I do not say well that’s life.
eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
THIS IS HARD SOMETIMES.....our natural state when left to ourselves causes war....peace does not happen passively
Why is hard sometimes?
1. FAKE PEACE IS EASIER: It’s hard because it is hard work to make peace(that’s one of the reason people try to make peace through war…I am justing to take you out or cancel you, that is much quicker and cleaner....BUT NOT HEALHTHIER, NOR GODLIER ....
2. PEOPLE ARE STUBBORN (those people, not me) they are stuborn....we would rather stay at war than do the hard work of making peace.
3.. It’s hard because of PRIDE the reason it is hard is because of PRIDE....sometimes we have to swallow our pride and say we are wrong.....we were the ones who started the war
What are the 3 words we do not like to say as humans? “I was wrong”
HOW DO WE END THE WAR and MAKE PACE
4 ways
First, we start in the opposite the world does....where does the world start with their enemies? WE HATE OUR ENEMIES
1. PEACEMAKERS MAKE PEACE BY Loving their enemies
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus says, PEACMEAKERS DO NOT ACT LIKE THE WORLD.....the world says hate those who hate you....
If they don’t love you why should you love them back?
if they are Steelers fan and hate the Browns why should I love them? In all seriousness why should you love those who hate you? that makes no sense
Not only does it not make worldly sense, it is also easier to hate those who hate you....
That’s Tom and he hates me and I hate him and it make our relationship “easy”
BUT is this how God our Father treats us?
- We were once enemies of God, and what did God do? Did God say welp they are my enemies and that’s that....that would have been easier for God, but not loving
Look at Romans 5:8-10
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
God loved His enemies so much that
We did things against His kingdom, against His ways
And what did God do? Do He say we are all doomed?
No, God so loved us His enemies that He saved us
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
God had every right to condem the world....but instead God saves those who are His enemies.
God says to us just as God has made peace with us even though were are enemies of His, we are to make peace by loving those who HATE US.
Showing them unconditional love....you are showing them what God’s love is like....it is not conditional…you are representing what God has done.
The stregthen we get to this comes from Him
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The marker that God says for the people of God is that when people look at Christians, they will say they are lover
HOW ARE YOU DOING AT LOVING YOUR ENEMIES? IS THERE MORE WAR or PEACE?
Are you being a peacemaker or war maker?
2. Peacemakers MAKE PEACE BY BEING Humble
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Why do we have WARS and QUARRELS? Because people are humble? People are saying NO your needs ahead of mine. ...NO because we are selfish.
What does James 4:1-2
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
What cause fights, not peace? Selfishness.
What causes fights among friends? I want to do this or have things done that way and that person wants this or that.
What cause fights (not peace) that I start in my family SELFISHNESS....my kids are so selfish....there are times that my kids ask me to do something and I am busy doing my own thing, I’ve worked a long day and Holy Spirit says Pete your being selfish, go help them…I turn down the volume on God and turn up the volume in
My marriage what causes WARS selfish…Listen to what Tim Keller says
“In Western culture today, you decide to get married because you feel an attraction to the other person. You think he or she is wonderful. But a year or two later – or, just as often, a month or two – three things usually happen. First, you begin to find out how selfish this wonderful person is. Second, you discover that the wonderful person has been going through a similar experience and he or she begins to tell you how selfish you are. And third, though you acknowledge it in part, you concede that your spouse’s selfishness is more problematic than your own. This is especially true if you feel that you’ve had a hard life and have experienced a lot of hurt. You say silently, ‘Ok, I shouldn’t do that – but you don’t understand me.’ The woundedness makes us minimize our own selfishness. And that’s the point at which many married couples arrive after a relatively brief period of time.”
Keller then notes that at this point there are two paths to take. The first is deciding that your hurt and woundedness is more fundamental than your selfishness. You believe that if your spouse does not see your wounds and try to help you, it’s not going to work. The marriage could then end, or it could go on with emotional distance growing due to a cease-fire and not talking about the problems.
Another path – the better one – is “to determine to see your own selfishness as a fundamental problem and to treat it more seriously than you do your spouse’s.”
Why? Only you have complete access to your own selfishness, and only you have complete responsibility for it. So each spouse should take the Bible seriously, should make a commitment to ‘give yourself up.’ You should stop making excuses for selfishness, you should begin to root it out as it’s revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what your spouse is doing. If two spouses each say, ‘I’m going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage,’ you have the prospect of a truly great marriage.”
And in a similar way we can do the same things in our friendships
Are making war by being selfish or peace by being selfless and humble?
3rd point.
1. PEACEMAKERS LOVE THEIR ENEIMES
2. PEACMAKERS are HUMBLE
3. Peacemakers make peace by being slow to speak
Most wars start where? WITH OUR TONGUES
We said that one word, sentance, rant, and you went to war right after that.
James chapter 2 talks about this…he says look at your tongue, though it small, yet it can burn a whole forest down with what it says.
English Standard Version Chapter 3
5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet hit boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6
This is why James 1:19 says
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
James knows there is the power to build and power to destroy in the tongue.
We need to practice what your momma’s version of James 1:19?
If you do not have anything nice to say do not say it all.
-Again this does not mean we do not say truthful things but if we cannot say truthful things in a love way it is useless.
The truth has the ability to be lost when it said in unrighteous anger.
You can say the most truthful thing, the most right thing but if it is said in unrighteous anger it does more damage than peace.
God says be slow to speak, weigh your words…they still might cause a war because if you are standing on truth of God, that is offensive to people....let them go to war with God and not with you.
How have your words been lately? Has it been war speech or peace speech?
4th point
4. . PEACEMAKERS MAKE PEACE BY FORGIVING THOSE
One of the things being lost in our world today is FORGIVENESS....experts across all fields, Christians and not are saying forgiveness is being lost… .....People need to atone for their sins, make payment for there sins....you are seeing people all over say you are going to need to pay for that or be cancel out if you cannot pay for that.
And this is why you are seeing 42 school being renamed in San Francico, because these dead people cannot atone for their sins....so schools with the names Washington and Lincoln....though they did a lot of good where not perfect and because they were not perfect, cancel them out.
Here’s the deal though? Who’s perfect? No one (expect Jesus and they tried canceling him out)…we are all doomed…you are seeing Hollywood actors who help perpetuate “cancel culture” say this needs to stop, they did not realize the monster they created, and it is a monster, they are realizing this monster is going to eventually cancel everyone out.
Everyone is going to a casualty of war....we are going to see even people like Marin Luther King Jr wiped out, why because he was a womanizer.
But this is not the way of the kingdom of God....the kingdom of God starts with the reality that we have all fallen short.
The kingdom says if you want to start with cancelling those out who have sinned we should be all cancelled, but that is is not the way of the kingdom of God.
But God says to us we do not cancel people out, we do not say you owe me, we say I forgive you as God has forgiven me.....
bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
We are to forgive, just has God has forgiven us.
Do you have any unforgiveness in your heart? Forgive them, realise it God, just as God has done for you.
Gospel
Why are we to be peace makers?
This is what God our Father has done with us to make us his sons and daughters.
It is through God making peace that we become sons and daughters
He came from heaven to earth to bring Peace between us and God
He love us when we were enemies of God
He speaks goodness and life over me
He forgives me
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
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,
if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Our hearts are wrestless until they rest in God