BEATITUDES | P7 | SECRETS OF PEACEMAKERS

     Peacemaking is hard work.  It isn’t a passive thing.  So many today engage in the war for our rights and freedoms, but Jesus contrasted this by laying down His own freedoms and rights.  This is how He made peace with us.  Believers have peace with God through Jesus but have the peace of God because of the Holy Spirit.  You can’t give what you don’t have.  We must first experience peace with God in order to have peace inside, so that we can make peace with those around us.

Beatitudes Part 7 – July 17, 2022

Matthew 5:9 (NIV2011)
9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Peacemaker” = “Eirene” (from “eiro”) = to bind or join together that which is broken or divided.

“What this beatitude demands is not the passive acceptance of things because we are afraid of the trouble of doing anything about them, but the active facing of things, and the making of peace, even when the way to peace is through struggle.” – W. Barclay

Peacemakers have peace

Peace with God 

Romans 5:1 (NIV2011)
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Philippians 4:7 (NIV2011)
…the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 5:22 (NIV2011)
22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…

Example: Apple tree bears apples

Peacemakers make peace with others

Romans 12:18 (NIV2011)
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
 
And in the preceding verses of Romans 12, he tells us how to do this.

Romans 12:15 (NIV2011)
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
 
They have empathy

Example: Jesus

Romans 12:16 (NIV2011)
Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

They have humility 

Example: Jesus

Philippians 2:5-8 (NIV2011)
5  In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7  rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Application: Rights & privileges

Romans 12:17 (NIV2011)
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

They don’t repay evil for evil 

Example: Tennis

Example: Jesus

Peacemakers help others have peace with God

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NIV2011)
18  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

They are truthful about sin 

Romans 8:7 (NIV2011) 

7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 


Application: Tolerance

“Our peaceableness is never to be a compact with sin, or toleration of evil. We must set our faces like flints against everything which is contrary to God and his holiness: purity being in our souls a settled matter, we can go on to peaceableness.” – C. Spurgeon

They present Jesus as their only hope

1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NIV2011)
5  For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
6  who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

Example: Airport