Blessed are the Peacemakers

Good morning and welcome to Church at the Grove.

My name is Nathan, and I'm one of the pastors here at Church at the Grove.

And we're so thankful that you're joining us today for our services online.

If you are just joining us for the first time, we're in the middle of a series called The Good Life, walking through the teachings of Jesus and ultimately seeing how we can live the good life in our world today.

And today we're looking at being peacemakers.

Now, in the world that we live in today, reality TV has become a huge, huge maker of money, and it's something that people spend a lot of time watching.

Back in the 40s and in the 50s, you had shows like Candid Camera.

In the 60s and 70s, game shows really took off.

In the 80s and 90s, you had shows like Cops and MTV The Real World started to develop.

And then that led to other shows like Survivor and Big Brother and The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, America's Top Model, Top Chef, Fear Factor.

And now you've got Real Housewives of Orange County, New York, Atlanta, New Jersey, DC, Beverly Hills, Miami, the Potomac, Dallas, and Salt Lake City, pretty much every city you can imagine.

And they become huge money-making shows, and people love to watch these shows.

And there's a reason that they're successful.

One, it's because they don't cost a whole lot of money to make, because you're not paying professional writers and actors.

But at the same time, they also draw in viewership because there's tons and tons of drama.

You're putting people that have huge personalities, that really have some of the worst traits that you could possibly imagine, and are willing to say anything and do anything in a room together, and there's just a huge train wreck that typically unfolds.

And you know how we are.

We hate to turn our eyes away from a train wreck.

And so people love to watch these shows and get engrossed in the drama that unfolds.

But as much as people love to watch these shows and the ratings of these shows might be large, what I realize is that most of us, if not all of us, would not want the lives of the people that are in these shows.

Sure, you might want some of the clothes they wear or maybe eat at some of the restaurants that they eat at or have some of the money that they have, but we don't want the drama that a lot of times these people's lives are full of.

We don't want to have this absence of peace in our lives.

We want to have peace.

We want to have a good night's sleep where we're not worrying about the things that are going on around us.

We want to be people that have lives full of peace.

We don't want the drama.

We don't want the things that we've said in the past to come back and haunt us.

We want to have peace in our lives.

But let's just be honest for a second.

We all at times in our lives have made decisions that have caused drama in our lives.

We've done that with nasty divorces.

We've done that with alcohol addictions.

We've done that with talking about someone behind their back.

We've done that in breaking promises or neglecting our children or adult kids maybe neglecting their parents.

We've all done this at a time or two in our lives.

And some of us reoccurring, we this is something we do reoccurring in our lives all the time, where we make decisions that are destructive and ultimately lead to a lack of peace in our lives.

But that's not what we want, right?

Everybody's in this search for peace.

Everybody wants peace.

Everybody wants to sleep well at night.

But here's the reality, here's the truth.

As much as we want peace, we find it really difficult to make peace.

As much as we want to have peace in our relationships, as much as we want to have peace where we can lay our heads down on our pillow at night and have a good night's rest.

It's a lot harder to achieve that and to actually put that into practice in our lives and become the peacemakers that God has called us to be.

Because most people find it easier to hold a grudge rather than forgiving and apologizing and humbling themselves for others.

Most people find it easier to avoid confronting difficult situations in order to just kind of appease other people.

Most people find it difficult to just sign the divorce papers and move on rather than forgiving and truly loving their spouse.

Most people find it difficult to talk to about someone, more difficult to talk to someone rather than talk about someone.

Making peace and being a peacemaker is a difficult venture.

But here's what Jesus tells us.

Jesus tells us ultimately that happy are the peacemakers.

Happy are the peacemakers.

And that's what he tells us in the Beatitudes that we've been looking at in the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus is telling us what his kingdom is ultimately all about and ultimately what the blessed life is really looking like.

And he tells us all throughout this Sermon on the Mount and all throughout the Beatitudes, these kind of novel countercultural ways of living, but ultimately that's where true happiness, this fullness in life is found.

Listen to what it says in Matthew chapter 5, verses 3 through 12 in the Beatitudes.

Matthew 5:3–12

It says, 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.

Let me read that again.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

I love what the message paraphrase says.

It says, You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.

That's when you discover who you really are and your place in God's family.

And so ultimately what Jesus is saying here is he's saying, if you want to be happy, then make peace.

If you want to be happy, if you want to live the good life, then be someone that is the peacemaker.

Now, here's the interesting thing that Jesus is ultimately saying.

He's not telling us to be peacekeepers, but rather peacemakers.

Peacemakers, not peacekeepers.

And there's a big difference in these two things.

A peacekeeper is someone that in order to maintain peace, they avoid conflict.

They don't want to rock the boat.

They don't want to have any type of disagreement with another party because they don't want to cause issues and tension in the relationship.

And so they ignore the inevitable and they move forward and they just try to hold all of this inner temptorm oil inside of them.

But God has called them not to be peacekeepers that just sit on the sidelines, but peacemakers.

And peacemakers will actively work to seek the absence of conflict and ultimately shalom.

That's the word that is used here in describing peace.

It's this word shalom, which means wholeness and completeness.

It's complete restoration.

And that is what Jesus is calling his followers to be a part of.

He wants them to become people that are bringing completeness and wholeness and complete restoration in our relationships, not just with our Heavenly Father, but also with each other, our horizontal relationships.

But now our world in which we live, we have a negative view of peace.

And here's what I mean by that.

The negative view of peace that our culture holds to is this peace that always has to identify an enemy, and then in order to have peace, you rid the world of that enemy.

And this is where cancel culture comes from.

This is where you know you have someone that maybe has said something, done something in their past, maybe they hold views that are contrary to popular culture.

And as a result, if you don't like what somebody has to say or if it's offensive to someone, then you all of a sudden just cancel them.

You push them to a side.

They are no longer relevant.

You block them on social media, you cancel their accounts, whatever it might be, and you cancel them.

That's a negative view of what God is calling us to be.

Peace is not a negative piece, but it's a positive piece.

It's not where we cancel people, but we seek to have restoration in our relationships.

Nelson Mandela said this: when we dehumanize and demonize our opponents, we abandon the possibility of peacefully resolving our differences and seeking to justify violence against them.

That's the negative view of peace.

It's when we see an enemy, we identify the enemy, and then we try to our best to remove the enemy from the course of conversation.

Martin Luther King Jr.

said this in his book, The Beloved Community.

He says, it's amazing the violence people will commit in the name of peace.

It's amazing the hate people will show in the name of love.

It's amazing the oppression people will exert in the name of justice.

Jesus' followers must embody another way.

And if you can't find this type of community, you create it.

This is what God has called us to.

Not to be peacekeepers, not to be people that have just a negative view of peace, but people that have a positive view of peace, that are seeking to bring wholeness in the relationships and fulfillment and restoration in our relationships.

And in the promise that we're given is that blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God, or sons or daughters of God.

This is the beautiful thing that if we are actively being peacemakers, then we are literally taking on the characteristics and the traits of our Heavenly Father.

We are people that are literally taking the DNA of our Heavenly Father and living that out because our God is a peacemaker.

Our God is someone that has not just made peace with the world, but he has started and he's initiated that through his life, the life of Jesus.

And so when we become peacemakers, we're taking on the DNA of our Heavenly Father.

Now, I've got two kids, we've got one on the way, but we've got a five-year-old and a three-year-old boys right now, Sam and Ben.

And uh, you know, there's some really great traits they have that they take from their mom and from myself, and then there's some negative traits that they take from us as well.

And there's nothing more prouder as a father when you look at your son or you look at your daughters and you see the positive traits that you've taught them and that you've embodied, and they're living that out.

There's just nothing greater than that because they are showing that they are truly your children.

We play this game in our house and uh it's the tickle monster.

I know that sounds like something every dad would probably be about, but we play this tickle monster game, and so just in the middle of the conversation, we'll be watching a movie, uh, we'll be playing with Legos or whatever it is, and all of a sudden I'll just say uh-oh.

And as soon as I say uh oh, my kids know exactly what I'm about to say, and I pretend to be this robot, and it's uh oh, I am the tickle monster.

I will tickle Ben, Ben in three, two, one, and then we chase around the house and we tickle and we roll around on the ground and it's a lot of fun.

Well, Ben, our three-year-old, he's just picked up on how he can be the tickle monster now.

And so just out of the blue, he'll occasionally go, uh-oh, and he'll pretend to do this best robot voice, and he'll try to tickle me.

And it brings me so much pleasure because he's showing that ultimately he's my child.

He's taking on some of the traits of the things that I am currently doing, and he's doing those as well.

When we're peacemakers, we're taking on and we're living out the traits of our heavenly father.

We're showing that we belong to God, that we belong to Jesus, that he is our heavenly father.

2 Corinthians 13, verse 11 says, Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these words be joyful, grow in maturity, encourage each other, live in harmony and peace.

2 Corinthians 13:11

Then the God of love and peace will be with you.

See, the God that we have is a God of love and a God of peace.

And when we live in peace and harmony with others, then we are as a result taking on the DNA, we are taking on the characteristics of our Heavenly Father.

Now, that all sounds well and good, right?

That all sounds fine.

Yes, Nathan, we need to be peacemakers.

That sounds great.

We need to actively work to have shalom and wholeness in our relationships, but how?

That's the hard question.

This is not an easy thing to do.

This is not for the faint heart.

This is varsity Christianity.

This is really, really difficult for us to actually apply in our lives.

So, how do we become the peacemakers that God has called us to be?

Well, I've got three things for you to put into practice this week.

The first thing is this that peacemakers initiate reconciliation.

Peacemakers initiate reconciliation.

If you're truly a peacemaker, someone that's seeking to do the will of God in this world, then you initiate reconciliation.

It means that you make the first move.

Jesus tells us about this in Matthew chapter 5, verse 23.

Matthew 5:23

He says, so if you're presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar, go and be reconciled to that person, then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

And so what Jesus is ultimately telling his audience is he's saying, listen, if you want to truly be my followers, then man, you got to seek out to initiate reconciliation first.

If you're at church, if you're in the temple, if you're presenting your sacrifice, and all of a sudden there's someone that you are not right with, man, you need to leave the church.

You need to leave the temple, leave your sacrifice, and you need to go and make things right and then come back to worship.

In other words, what Jesus is saying here is that if we're not right with our brothers and sisters, if we're not right with people in the world that we live in, then it ultimately prohibits and it makes a barrier for us to truly worship God in our lives.

And there's nothing more pharisaical and hypocritical if we are people that have experienced incredible grace and mercy and love from God, where we have a relationship, where Jesus initiated that relationship with us, that we now have a heavenly father and we have a relationship with him.

There's no barriers, sin has been dealt with and taken care of, and we fail to let grace and love and mercy fall from our lives.

And instead, we hold on to grudges and bitterness.

That's not what God has called us to do.

God has called us to be people that initiate reconciliation.

Now, if you're married, I'm sure that you probably have the perfect marriage and you've never had an argument and you've never had a fight, but that certainly is not the story between me and my wife.

We are really good at fighting.

And I say that jokingly, but I do mean that.

Some people talk about how them and their wives don't have fights, they have intense fellowship.

No, me and my wife, we have fights and we have arguments.

And especially when we were married in our early life earlier in our lives, um, man, I am and still, and I've hopefully God's worked in my life to some degree, but I used to be a super proud individual.

And I had the very, very hard time ever admitting that I was wrong.

And so when me and my wife would fight or would argue, man, I would never want to admit my fault.

I would never want to admit my wrong.

I would instead wait for her to come to me to apologize because it obviously couldn't be me that was messing up, it was her.

But as we've matured, as we've grown spiritually, I feel like the Lord's really worked in our relationship, and we're both very quick to try to make things right.

We're both very quick to try to initiate reconciliation.

And it's really hard to stay mad at someone that's trying to initiate reconciliation, trying to make the first move to make the relationship right.

When we were doing premarital counseling, we had a counselor that was talking to us about conflict, and he said, uh, you know, how do you handle conflict?

And he compared it to a football field.

And he said, most couples think in order for conflict to be solved, then you come out of your end zone and you meet at the 50-yard line and you settle your differences there at the 50-yard line.

In order, in other words, both people are having to make a move here.

They're meeting in the middle.

But that's not what biblical peacemaking looks like.

Biblical peacemaking is ultimately when we leave our end zone and we go to the other person's end zone.

That we make the first move and we initiate reconciliation.

This is how God has called us to do that.

And this is hard.

This is difficult.

It means laying aside our pride, laying aside our selfishness, laying aside the this knowledge or this thought process that we know that we're right, and instead humbling ourselves to the point where we are recognizing our faults and we're seeking to bring reconciliation.

It's more important for the relationship to be right than for me to be right.

So that's the first step.

If you're gonna be the peacemaker God has called you to be, then you initiate making peace.

This is also true in Jesus and his relationship with us.

Jesus was not someone that waited for us to make the first move, but instead, he made the first move.

He initiated reconciliation.

He left heaven, came down to earth, lived the perfect life, died on a cross for your sins and for mine, so that we could be restored to our heavenly Father.

Nothing of our own doing, completely and totally on him.

He made the first move.

And it's the same, we should be doing the same thing in our lives as well.

But what happens when you initiate reconciliation and someone doesn't forgive, someone doesn't allow you to make peace in the relationship, what's your next step from there?

Well, peacemakers are people that give unmerited grace.

Peacemakers give unmerited grace.

Now there's a difference between grace and mercy.

We talked about mercy a few weeks ago, but mercy is when you don't get something that you do deserve, and grace is when you don't, when you get something that you don't deserve, if that makes sense.

Now those sounds similar, but there's a radical difference here.

Um if you were pulled over by a police officer and you were speeding, and he pulls you over and he comes to your car and he says, You know you're speeding, but I'm not going to give you a ticket today.

I'm only going to give you a warning.

That's mercy.

You didn't get what you did deserve.

However, grace would be him coming up to your window and recognizing that one of your tires is flat, and him saying, Hey, why don't you go to the next gas station?

I'll meet you up there and I'll pay for the air and I'll pump your tire up for you.

And then as he's pumping up your tire, he recognizes that the treads on your tires are really worn.

And so he says, Hey, there's an auto body shop right up the road.

Why don't you drive up there and I'll pay to put brand new tires on your car?

Now we would all love that, right?

Because that's grace.

That's the beautiful thing about grace.

Grace is the unmerited favor.

It's when we get the things that we don't deserve.

And as peacemakers, this is what we need to dispose, this is what we need to give.

This is how we need to show reconciliation to the people around us.

We need to be people that give unmerited favor, unmerited grace to the people around us, even though they don't deserve it.

Even though they might push back, even though they might still hate us, we give unmerited grace towards them.

Jesus gave us an incredible illustration in Matthew chapter 5, verse 38.

Matthew 5:38

He said, You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But I say to you, do not resist an evil person.

If someone slaps you on the right cheek, what do you do?

You offer the other cheek also.

If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat as well.

If your soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles.

Give to those who ask, and don't turn away from those who want to borrow.

It's unmerited grace, even though someone doesn't deserve it.

The way of following Jesus is we give grace to those that don't even want it.

That we give grace to them in the process.

Easy?

No.

Hard, incredibly, incredibly difficult.

But this is the way of Jesus.

This is what God has called us into.

That we give unmerited favor.

And then finally, peacemakers pray for their enemies.

They pray to seek reconciliation.

They pray to see the favor of God poured out on their enemies.

And this is really difficult.

Because when we say pray for your enemies, you would think, man, what we need to be praying for our enemies is that for their destruction, right?

That God would rain down fire and destroy them and destroy their families.

And we want to see the vengeance of God and the wrath of God poured out on them.

But that's not what Jesus is telling us and telling us how to pray for our enemies.

He's praying for us to bless them, not to curse them.

Luke chapter 6, verse 27 says, But to you who are willing to listen, I say, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who hurt you.

Luke 6:27

This is what God has called us to.

He wants us to be praying for our enemies.

And I'm telling you, there have been people in my life that I have been at odds with, people that have wronged me, people that have hurt me.

And if I will make a practice of praying for them, it totally transforms my mindset when it comes to that relationship.

It's hard to be mad, it's hard to hold bitterness, it's hard to hold a grudge towards someone when you're actively playing, praying for the blessings of God to be poured down on your enemy's life.

And so that's how we become peacemakers.

We become people that initiate reconciliation.

We become people that show unmerited grace.

And we're people that are praying for our enemies.

That's what it looks like to ultimately be a peacemaker.

And the beautiful promises that blessed are or happy are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

So this means that the church should be full of peacemakers.

Because of what Jesus has done on the cross for us, because of the incredible grace that we have seen through his death and his resurrection on the cross, where he paid the penalty that we deserved to die.

As a result, we become peacemakers in the world that we're living in today.

See, here's the ultimate reality: that you can't be a true peacemaker until you know the Prince of Peace.

You can't be a true peacemaker until you know the Prince of Peace.

And so for some of you maybe listening today, the step that you need to take before you can really embrace the type of peace, the type of shalom that Jesus is calling you to be a perpetuator of.

You've got to know him personally.

And so if that's the step that you need to take, man, we would invite you to start a relationship with him today.

Start a relationship with the Prince of Peace.

We say here at Church at the Grove, there's three kind of initial steps to following Jesus.

It's admitting, believing, and confessing.

A, B, C.

That you admit that you're sinful, admit that you've broken the heart of God by your behavior, by your thoughts, by your sins, that you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, that he died on a cross for your sin, rose again on the third day, and now anyone that puts their faith and trust in him can have a reconciled, renewed relationship with our Heavenly Father.

They'll go to heaven when they die.

And then finally you confess him as your Lord and Savior.

That means he's now not only your Savior forgiving you and rescuing you from your sinful condition, bringing you back from the death and bringing life into your life, but instead, he is also someone that is your Lord.

That he's calling the shots of your life.

He's the captain of the ship and he's directing your life in the way that it needs to go.

And so before you can truly be the peacemaker that God has called you to be, you've got to know the Prince of Peace.

And so if that's the step that you need to take, we would invite you to start that relationship today.

We would love to be able to communicate and talk with you about how you can take some of those next steps and how you can really begin the relationship with Jesus this week.

And so if that's the step you need to take, just pull out your phone and text the word, start to follow, all one word to 97000, and we'll be able to follow up with you this week and give you resources that will help you take some next steps in your personal life.

But for those of us that are followers of Jesus, maybe there's some people in your life that you need to make peace with.

Maybe there's some people you need to forgive, that you need to, uh you've let bitterness and a grudge build up in your heart and soul.

And today you need to make things right.

Maybe you need to shut this video off and you need to immediately go and you need to make things right and then come back.

But we need to be peacemakers.

And so here's just a couple of things for you to wrestle with.

And if you're one part of one of our community groups, this is what our community groups will be wrestling with this week and how we can really apply these truths to our lives.

But here's some questions for you.

One, would people, here's how you know if you're a peacemaker, would people who know you most intimately say that you're a peacemaker?

It's not about what necessarily you think, but what do other people think about you?

Would people who read your social media post say that you're a peacemaker?

That one hits pretty close to home.

Would people who know you say that you participate in gossip, slander, deception, and lies?

That's not the signs of someone that's a peacemaker.

Number four, how would people who know you say you engage in conflict?

Do you just try to remove conflict altogether?

Do you avoid conflict?

Do you enjoy conflict?

How do you engage in conflict?

And is that showing that you're a peacemaker?

How would people say you interact with people on the opposite end of the political spectrum?

The people that think like you, the people that don't think like you, the people that don't believe like you, how do you interact with them?

Number six, would people say you pursue peace amid the racial division in our country?

Number seven, are you seeking to lead others to the Prince of Pea through your words and actions?

See, the ultimate symbol of a peacemaker is someone that not only brings peace in relationships, but also introduces other people into the peace that they can experience through Jesus as well.

There's an evangelistic heart here where we want other men and women to experience the same peace that we have.

And so let us be the peacemakers that God has called us to be.

And as a result, we will be known as the children of God.

For far too long, the church has not been known as a place of peacemakers, but rather as people of hatred and bigotry and people that are not full of love but full of hate.

But what if we were the church?

What if we were the followers of Jesus that were actively working to see peace in our world and seeking to make that in our relationships?

Let me pray for us.

Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for who you are.

And Lord, we thank you for being the ultimate peacemaker.

Lord, you made peace between us and our Heavenly Father, Lord, through your death on the cross.

And so we praise you and we thank you for that.

And Lord, if we're going to take on the traits of our Father, if we're going to have the DNA of God within us, then we must become the peacemakers you've called us to be.

And for some of us that are listening to and watching today, Lord, we've we've really allowed bitterness and resentment and anger and grudges to build up in our lives.

There's people that have wronged us and that have done things to us that are unspeakable.

And it's almost impossible to think that we can bring forgiveness and peace in those situations.

But Lord, if we truly understood the incredible mercy and grace that you have shown to us, Lord, we would want to bestow that same amount of mercy and grace and love and peace towards others.

And so, Lord, let us be peacemakers.

Let us forgive the people that have wronged us.

Let us actively work and seek to see reconciliation happen.

Let us not be peacekeepers that just keep our mouths closed and hope to avoid the difficult things of life.

But instead, Lord, let us engage with a godly spirit and let us see peace break through in our world and our culture today.

Lord, I pray that we would be a great example for the world to follow of what you ultimately look like, that we truly are your children in this world.

And so, Lord, we pray for better things ahead.

We pray that you would use us in powerful ways this week as we actively seek to live out the words that we've heard this morning.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.