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Quest for Faith: Waging Peace

With each beatitude, another nail is driven into a coffin. Inside the coffin lies the corpse of a false understanding of salvation. The false understanding said that a person can be saved without being changed. Or: that a person can inherit eternal life even if his attitudes and actions are like the attitudes and actions of unbelievers.

One after the other the beatitudes tell us that the blessings of eternity will be given only to those who have become new creatures. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

If we don't obtain mercy, we receive judgment. If we don't see God, we are not in heaven. If we aren't called the sons of God, we are outside the family. In other words these are all descriptions of final salvation. And it is promised only to the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers.

Therefore the beatitudes are like long spikes holding down the lid of the coffin on the false teaching which says that if you just believe in Jesus you will go to heaven whether or not you are merciful or pure in heart or a peacemaker. In fact, from beginning to end the Sermon on the Mount cries out, "Get yourself a new heart! Become a new person! The river of judgment is at the door!" You recall the words of verse 20: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20).

“God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9

Most translations use the word peacemaker. In the translation I just read it is worded, “those who work for peace.” Peacemaking is proactive. It means that you and I seek to make peace between warring parties or we actively seek to end conflict. Peacemaking is far different than peacekeeping!

When looking up Peacekeeper in an Encyclopedia one would find some of the following; various weapons like the Colt 45 called by Sam Colt “the peacekeeper” you would also find a missile system built during Ronald Reagan’s administration by the same name. You will find various soldiers, militia, and even heavily armed Law enforcement personnel. But is this what Jesus meant by this Beatitude? Notice Jesus uses the word Peacemaker. What comes to your mind when you think of making peace or waging peace?

We live in a world characterized by fighting and rivalry. From sibling rivalry to civil war, we see is the affects of animosity at every level of society. It is everywhere.

Funny: Lady Astor once said to Winston Churchill, “If you were my husband, I’d put poison in your coffee.” Churchill responded, “And if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

It’s easy to be naïve about peace, yet peace can be very elusive. One moment you can have peace at home, at work, or in your relationships, and the next it’s gone.

I recently heard of a group of people walking across America on a mission of peace. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get along so they divided into (2) groups in Arkansas!

History bears this out. History reveals that most peacekeeping efforts by and large have failed. In fact, in nearly 4000 years of recorded history, the world has been at peace a total of only 286 years including over 8000 treaties made and broken.

“Peace is merely that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stops to reload.” (John MacArthur)

The fact that the lack of peace is so pervasive is nothing new. We can trace it back to the book of Genesis. Humans have been at war with God ever since Adam and Eve sinned. And, beginning with the conflict between Cain and Abel, which eventually led to one brother killing the other, we’ve been in battle with one another.

When Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers” he totally shocked those around Him. How could the Jews hope to overthrow Rome and restore their nation to a place of prominence if they were going to have to be “peacemakers?” The Romans weren’t going to just lie down and let Israel have their way.

It‘s within this context that Jesus promised to bless the people who’d become His agents for peace saying that the peacemaker would be called the “son of God.” This means that every Christian, according to this Beatitude, is responsible to being a peacemaker in their home, church, community, nation, and ultimately, the world.

1. The Condition

Before we proceed, let’s describe what biblical peace isn’t: It’s not the absence of activity, the absence of hostility, or the escape from reality. The biblical concept is much deeper than an absence of conflict or a vacation to get away from it all.

In the O.T., the word for peace is shalom referring to a state of wholeness and harmony intended to resonate in all relationships. When used as a greeting, it was a wish for outward freedom from disturbance and an inward sense of well-being. A common Old Testament blessing for peace would be:

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.” Nm. 6:24f

Let me give you three descriptions of attitudes that people take toward waging peace:

A Peace-BREAKERS

We all know someone who falls into this category. These are people who infringe on others rights or private space. These are people who have no regard for the privacy of others nor do they value relationships. People who disturb the peace are often tormented souls who delight in stirring up some kind of controversy.

Do you know that the Bible has something to say about people who break the peace in the church?

“I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.” Romans 16:17-18

The Bible is very clear about how we should live toward others.

“Don’t let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, and slander, and every form of malice.” Ephesians 4:29

B Peace-FAKERS

Peace-fakers are people predisposed to having peace at any cost in an effort to avoid conflict. They prefer peace over truth, over healthy relationships, and over what’s right. Peace-fakers see ‘peace’ as the absence of any kind of argument or discord. They’ll go to great lengths to avoid conflict, confrontation, and unrest. In doing so, they’ll settle for a counterfeit peace based on avoiding reality. Peace-fakers know there’s a problem but will not say anything because they don’t want to disturb the peace.

You see a good friend taking a direction with their lives that you can see is leading them into trouble - they’re becoming workaholics, or alcoholics. And so you want to shake them to their senses, but every time you broach the subject it causes an argument and you’d rather just be at peace with your friend. So after a while you just let it go. You avoid the issue, and talk about more agreeable subjects.

Bill Hybels tells of a time that he did just that. He went to a close friend whose life was obviously taking a bad turn, and asked him to come to lunch so they could talk. When the time was right, over that meal together, Bill Hybels said to his friend: “I’m not trying to run your life, but I’m concerned about the direction it’s taking”. He said that friend of his go so mad, he just about jumped over the table and punched Bill’s lights out. So, Bill backed off and said, “SORRY, I’ll never mention this again.” And he didn’t mention it again, and his friend shipwrecked his life. Bill Hybels has seen that friend since, and he had to say to him, “I failed you. I should have said, ‘Hit me if you have to, if it makes you feel better, but I’m going to stay on your case because I’m concerned about your future, my friend’”.

“Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” Eph. 4:25

One of the things I have wrestled with in preparing to talk about this teaching is what to say about war. It is interesting to note that way too often Christians seem willing to wage war instead of seeking to make peace. Yet on the other hand, there are times when war prevents further disruption of peace and protects people from evil. It is a bigger topic than I can cover in 25 minutes but I would encourage you to not just accept every war that comes down the pike as being just. Ask the hard questions, seek to understand, dig beyond the evening news and form an opinion based not on flag-waving but justice and the word of God. There are times I believe when war is waged in and effort to wage peace. Listen to the call to arms in an effort to have peace in these classic words:

"If we wish to be free...we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us...It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" SOURCE: Patrick Henry, from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 15th edition, rev. and enl., ed. Emily Morison Beck, Boston, MA: Littel, Brown & Co., 1980, p. 383.

C Peace-MAKERS

It’s much easier to either break the peace or fake the peace than it is to make peace.

Hatred looks for a victim, while love seeks a victory. The man of war throws stones, and the peacemaker builds a bridge out of those stones. Wiersbe

Imagine a mother looking out her living room window at her three year old son, who is riding his tricycle in the driveway. Her heart spilling over with love, she goes to the kitchen, pours a glass of lemonade and takes it out to him. After he drinks it, she picks him up and hugs him and tells him how much she loves him. The little boy feels wonderful. BUT while mom is back in the kitchen rinsing out the glass, he gets back on his tricycle and cruises right into the street where he was told never to ride. His mom looks back out the living room window just as a car screeches to a stop, and then carefully eases its way around her precious son. She flies out the door, rushes into the street and picks up the boy, bike and all. As soon as they’re back in the safety of the house, she raises her voice and spanks him.

The little boy wonders what’s wrong with his mother, who just moments ago was hugging him and giving him lemonade. Where has all the love gone? But what WE all understand is that this IS love in a different form, but just as real. His mom is saying, “The happy time five minutes ago with the lemonade and the hugs is a distant memory right now, because we are dealing with life and death. Your well-being is far more important to me than constant warm fuzzy feelings.”

Peace-makers are motivated out of love - real love. If there is any other motivation behind what you are doing or saying then you are NOT acting as a peacemaker.

Telemachus was a 4th century monk who sensed God’s call to leave his monastery for Rome. When he arrived in Rome people were thronging in the streets b/c the gladiators were fighting and killing each other in the coliseum. He thought, "Four centuries after Christ and they’re still killing each other for enjoyment." He ran to the coliseum to find the gladiators saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "This isn’t right." He jumped the rail and went to the center of the field. He stood between the gladiators, holding up his hands, he said "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd protested shouting, "Run him through." A gladiator hit him sending the monk sprawling. He got up and said, "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd continued to chant, "Run him through." A gladiator plunged his sword through the monk’s stomach and he fell, turning the sand crimson w/ his blood. One last time he gasped out, "In the name of Christ forbear." A hush came over the crowd. Soon one man stood and left, then another and w/in minutes the crowd emptied the arena. It was the last known gladiatorial contest in the history of Rome.

Peacemakers are willing to stand in the gap – violently if necessary – to usher peace.

2. The Response

A. Make Peace with God

1 Christ IS Our Peace

“But now in Christ you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law w/ its commandments and regulations.” Ep. 2:13-15

2 Christ PURCHASED Our Peace

“For God was pleased to have all of His fullness dwell in Him 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.” Col 1:20

“Being justified by faith we have peace w/ God through Jesus Christ.” Rm. 5:1

You will never have or experience true peace until you turn your life over to God.

      1 ADMIT your need
      2 TURN from your sins
      3 BELIEVE that Jesus is the one and only son of God
      4 INVITE Jesus to come in and control your life

B Be at Peace with Yourself

Once a person has found peace with God, it should translate to peace within. God not only provides for our eternal peace of mind, but also for our daily peace of heart.

“Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, w/ thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Ph. 4:6-7

“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also you are called in one body; and be thankful." Col 3:16

This is the kind of peace that will sustain us in the storms of life. Our sense of self-worth and well-being comes from understanding that we have value to God.

C Live in Peace with Others

Peanuts – Lucy said, “I hate everything I hate everybody I hate the whole wide world.” Charlie Brown responded, “But I thought you had inner peace.” Lucy replies “I do but I also have outer obnoxiousness.”

Those who have made peace with God don’t have to settle for outer obnoxiousness. The peace of God can give you peace within and peace with others.

“If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men.” Rm. 12:18

“ 19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” .Romans 14:19

There’s something radically wrong with people who always seem to be looking for ways to create discord and confusion – people who enjoy destroying peace in others.

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle w/in you? You want something but you don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.” James 4:1-2

Desires (hedonon) from hedonism – the doctrine of self satisfaction and self-pursuit.

James is saying that the cause of all human conflict is man’s deep rooted determination to get his own way – pride, greed, anger, pleasure, power. Our lust for self always leads to conflict w/ others. Overcome the battle w/in and you can live at peace w/ others.

D Proclaim Peace to the World

We who have made peace with God and know God’s peace within must strive to live in peace with others by proclaiming and living the gospel of peace before the world.

1 The Work of the Peacemaker is EVANGELISM

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings; who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, Your God reigns!” Is. 52:7

2 The Work of the Peacemaker is RECONCILIATION.

We who have been reconciled to God must help others to be reconciled to God.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Cr. 5:17-21

3. The Promise

The benefit of being a peacemaker is that you will be called a child of God.

Word: Sons (huios) refers to the dignity, honor, and responsibility a child has due to bearing his parents name.

In this instance, being a peacemaker is a quality of being a Christian. But if you’re continually disruptive, divisive, and quarrelsome, then you have good reason to question the validity of your salvation. A person who isn’t a peacemaker either is not a Christian or they’re a very “disobedient Christ follower” and that sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Not only does God determine how a person will be saved (by faith in the cross), He also determines the qualities which determine the genuineness of a person’s faith. In this particular case, Jesus says that being a peacemaker is a distinctive quality.

Word: Called means “to give a name to…to bear the title of…sons of God.”

In declaring blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God, Jesus is expressing that those who bear His name, must also bear His character. It is Jesus character to be a peacemaker – and in ushering in peace we bear His name.

The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but also make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods. . . . His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce all self-assertion, and quietly suffer in the face of hatred and wrong. In so doing they over-come evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate. The Cost of Discipleship

Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of her nephew Will’s first birthday party. The family was gathered around for the usual traditions of birthdays, the cake. And the presents. Will let them know how pleased he was by doing his new dance-a slow twirling movement that he had invented several days before with lots of fancy arm work.

The whole family was circled around Will, admiring his dance when little cousin Jason couldn’t stand it any more. He charged through the circle, put both hands on Will’s chest, and shoved. Will fell hard, hitting his rear end first, and then his head, with a crack. He looked utterly surprised, and then let out a howl of pain. His mother hugged him, and helped him to his feet, and he calmed down. The first thing Will did was to totter over to Jason. He knew Jason was at the bottom of this thing, only since no one had ever done something like this to him before, he didn’t know what the thing was. So he did what he had always done. He put his arms around Jason and lay his head against the mean little boy’s chest.

Taylor says, "at that moment all my Christian conviction went right out the door. I will buy him a BB gun for his next birthday," she thought. "Brass knuckles. A karate video for toddlers. It just about killed me to think how this sweet child would have to learn to defend himself, but it was either that or eat the dust on the playground for the rest of his life."

But, of course, Will was right, and she was wrong. On the playground of life, it’s little Will who was somehow close enough to heaven to know the Father’s will of Peace.

Let’s review the last few weeks:

Poverty of Spirit + mournful + humbleness+ Hunger for God’s way + Merciful + Pure Hearted = Peacemaker

Peace by Henry Van Dyke

With eager heart and will on fire,
I fought to win my great desire
“Peace shall be mine,” I said;
but life grew bitter in the weary strife.

My soul was tired,
and my pride was wounded deep:
to Heaven I cried,
“God grant me peace or I must die,”
The dumb stars glittered no reply.

Broken at last, I bowed my head,
Forgetting all myself, and said,
“Whatever comes, His will be done;”
And in that moment peace was won.

Prayer

"Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." --St. Francis of Assisi



2007/03/04