The Overlooked Trait of God’s Children | Matthew 5:9

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways.

Hey, everybody, my name is Chris and my name is Jeff,

and we ares I.

Could have done that a little better.

Hey, we want to welcome you here, and we are

in the middle of a series talking about the Beatitudes.

But before we get into that, we are going to

take time to read, Jeff one of the best articles

I think I've.

Ever read, some of the very important. We're always looking

for special interest pieces, yeah, that are useful to our listeners.

And since we're called the Bible Guys, right, we thought that,

you know, there's probably people as they're in the new year.

Now you're a couple of weeks in and you're trying

to think, you know, maybe you've already missed a couple

of your your New year resolutions.

Fourth weekend now probably yeah, yeah.

But you've probably already missed a few resolutions, and you're thinking, man,

I just want to be a better Christian. Yeah, And

so we scour every good resource we can find to

help our people be better Christians. And what better place

to go look than the Babylon b yes, right. So

The Babylon b is our favorite news and self help

website on the entire Internet if you don't know.

Just to be clear, it is literally just as reliable

and I sort of mean this as every other news

outlet out there.

It is, it is. But this one is seven simple

ways to be a better Christian this year from the

Babylon b. This is under the heading of Christian Living.

Which I love this article. The premise of this article

is great.

Here's what they say. If you're hoping to make a good,

make good on your New year's resolution to become a

better Christian, then you've come to the right place. The

staff of the Babylon Bee has collectively read the Bible

at least once, so we know a thing or two

about being a better Christian collective as here's a few

good tips. One stop sinning. It's simple, really, it's so great.

It's so great. Hey, we know the answers. Just stop sitting.

It's so good. Yep.

Number two, take a double helping of communion each time

we heard this might work.

That is so funny, It is really funny.

Number three, try to read the Bible at least as

much time as you spend playing that one little mobile

game where you do simple math calculations to multiply your

soldiers to fight these zombie people who are marching towards you.

Oh my goodness, that's every advertisement.

Ever, right, that'd be a huge improvement over last year.

So good, it's so good. I love this next one.

This next one makes me laugh.

Make Number four is make a donation to k Love.

If you don't know, k Love is the one of

the top Christian music radio stations, and it says the

Holy Spirit has been urging you to support positive, encouraging

family music for years.

Oh my goodness, it is so funny because that's all

you hear, right.

Support them.

Number five learn to do a backflip. It's not particularly Christian,

but it feels like a Christian who can do one

is better than one, and can't I love that.

It's so great. It is so good.

A Christian who can do one is better than one

who can't do one. That makes sense to me. Yeah,

I never thought of it that way, but yeah, we

should put that in a discipleship process. It's random, right,

You need to read more, you need to pray more,

you need to come to church more, and if you

learn to do a backflip that puts you top ten percent,

it can't hurt. Yeah. Number six, own more people in

theological debates online. Just like the Apostle Paul. He'd be

online just typing all caps.

It's the altimate way of busting on those people. It's

so good, just like you know, how just you know,

just the Apostle Paul. Did he actually just like you

and your theological debates online?

Oh my goodness.

That's right. And then number seven, don't wait until you're

suffering from an existential life crisis to pray. It makes

praying during your life crisis come more naturally. Right, So

that makes sense. So follow these simple steps and you'll

be holy in no time. Being a Christian has never

been easier. There you go.

I have a thought that I want to share about

people who debate theological things online. Yes, and then share

political thoughts online. Okay, so I'm opening up can of worms.

You're you're nervous, aren't you.

I know I'm for it.

Okay, here's here's what I want to say to you.

Because I hate social media.

If you're a person who I have one, let me

say it this way. This is a better way to

say it. I have a friend whose wife she has

no identity other than the identity.

Of like.

Sort of like, you know, expressing her anger against her

opposing political view, right, because that's sort of what it is.

Right, So her identity is being upset at people who

don't believe what she believes politically correct.

Yeah, and and and and and so. But either way,

even if she's for what she believes, or if she's

against what she doesn't believe, she's more against what she

doesn't believe. But but even if she's for what she believes,

she has no other idea. Like if you go over

their house and you sit down and you talk with them,

it's like, do you have a personality other than political views?

Right? Like do you do?

You?

Do you talk about? Are you? Are you more than that?

Because I sort of don't think you are right? And

so I started and anyway, let me just say it

this way. The number of people who are persuaded by

her political views, let me think, let me try to

add them up. Carry the two oh zero, right, yes,

and and the people who are persuaded by your political

views online are zero. And the people who are persuaded

by anybody's view is zero. And and I feel the

same way about theological debate online because it's not a

real debate, right. A real debate involves care, it involves friendship,

involves respect, right, it involves all those things like like

productive debate. Uh, but online trolling and and caps, you know,

opposition yelling, inserting.

Opinion, especially typed debate. I do think that there have

been a lot of beneficial video debate because you're watching

humans interact with humans. Yes, that's a different thing than

me typing my argument against you and waiting for an

hour until you have time to type yours back. And

then I do a little bit of chat GPT research

and you do a little bit of chat GBT research,

and we come back and clash again. That kind of stuff.

I don't know how much effect it really has. It

has zero, but watching others debate helps helps us form ideas.

So here's so here's what I'm going to say.

I'm going to say that if you really think about

the heart of this, both of those things is really

not about changing anything, right, although you may think it is.

If you're that person who does those things, you may

think you're doing good. And yet the whole world knows

that you're not doing any good, right, and that that's

an overstatement. But but but really, truly it's almost zero

point zero percent good.

Right.

So here's what I'm gonna say, if you really think

about it. I'm no psychologist, I'm no counselor, right, although

I've done those things. It really comes down to people

wanting their voice to be heard. So it's about It's

really about whether or not you feel like you have

a voice that is heard somewhere. And I believe that

the people who have a voice that is heard, Like

if you grow up and your family listens to you,

your friends listen to you, and you have meaningful conversations,

I think you don't have that tendency to spit off

online because you live a life where your voice is heard.

In general, I'm not talking about being a political person.

I'm saying just you are a person whose voice is heard, right.

But if you're a person who you feel like your

voice has not been listened to, those are typically the

people who are characterized in that manner. And so really

it comes down to, like insecurity, it comes out it's

the same thing if you grew up in a family

and you experience unconditional love, acceptance, and value, then you

don't have to look for love, acceptance, and value in

unhealthy places. Right now, people go off and they join

gangs right because they don't have acceptance right growing up

in their home. So you're designed to receive those things,

and you're designed to be a person whose voice is

heard in a healthy way. But if you're not a

person who receives that in a healthy way, you're going

to look for unhealthy ways for your voice to be heard,

and that is those people online.

Yeah, and then we have to also understand that the

algorithms are against us. We're not going to change the

world with our opinions because algorithms are designed to feed

you more of what they what the algorithm already knows

you believe and what you want. And then your message

is only getting out to a portion of your friend

group that agrees with what you agree with and only

a portion of your friend group that disagrees, very small

portion that disagrees, because the algorithms are designed to give

your friends more of what they also believe. And so

what happens is you fight with your nieces and nephews

and that's about it. Occasionally you get one of their friends.

We'll see a thing, but that's a deep diver that

eventually finds what you what you say, So there's better ways.

I do believe in legit dialogue. I do think that

you should be active in your in your engagement with

your government and with your voting and those things. I

think you should have a strong, strong opinion that should

be well educated on these things. I'm just saying I

don't think that social media is the place to get educated.

And you're not actually gonna get more prayers answered if

you keep forwarding things, right, and don't let this chain break,

God's gonna bless you. Right, Let's see who really loves

Jesus kind of stuff. That's all just junk. It's just junk.

And when I said I hate social media, what I

hate is what it turns people into. For the most part, right,

it's a useful tool, but I say all the time

it gives a plus play formed a lot of d

minus ideas, right, And uh that's a that's the disadvantage.

But uh, you know, you know what, rather than picking fights,

my desires just to to try to make as much

peace as possible, is it? Jeff it is Corean is

at the core of who I am. I just want

to be you know what, you know what I want

to be.

It's just part of the wonderfulness of me.

I just want to be a peacemaker. That is what

I want.

That's a b renoldsol.

It's just a wonderful.

Yeah.

Lannie Anderson looked at Burt Reynolds in the movie Struck

Uration and she goes, you were just you were just

so great because you did this thing, you know, and

he goes, that's just part of the wonderfulness of me.

That's huge. Well.

In Matthew chapter five, verse nine, it's amazing because it

says God blesses those who work for peace, for they

will be called the children of God.

This is a brand new beatitude.

That's an incredible that's the brand new one there.

I have taken note that you've read it.

Yes, I just read it right there. God blesses those

who work for peace. They will be called the children of.

The Last be attitude. I didn't hear that.

You officially read it, and that's twice right there.

Oh, you said it. Well, blessed are the peacemakers, for

they called the children of God.

That's a good one. That's one of my favorites.

Yeah.

So so other translations would say blessed are the peacemakers. Yes,

and I love this translation. Blessed are those who work

for peace? Right. It's not people that are are. It

doesn't say God blesses those people who like peace.

Right.

It doesn't say God blesses those people who never have confrontation.

Correct.

It doesn't say.

It's so good, it's it's such an unbelievable distinction.

Right. It doesn't say that God blesses those people who

avoid difficult conversations or difficult topics. It doesn't say that

God blesses people who choose neutrality.

Right.

It says that God blesses those people who work for peace.

That's right.

Peace always requires work, always the peace. Because we live

in a cursed culture, because we live in a cursed world.

All of creation is cursed. We live under the curse

of sin. Say things degrade, they don't get better. Things

don't move towards the utopia, they move away from them.

Things don't go We don't go from chaos to order.

It goes from order to chaos every single time, every time. Right,

And it's the same thing with peace. Peace is something

that has to be worked on and maintained. It has

to be cultivated in order to thrive. And if you

don't cultivate it, the weeds will grow up and eventually

peace will fall apart. And this is true with every

good thing in your life. Every single God made us

to cultivate the garden, paradise, any piece of paradise we

want in our life, we have to cultivate it. If

you want more peace, you have to cultivate it. You

have to be a peace maker. You have to be

working for peace. You want joy, you need to be

a joy maker. If you want love, you need to

be a making. I don't know how to say that one.

Now you need to be working to have more love

in your life. Did you quite know? I walked myself

right into that one.

That is so good. That's so good, But it is true.

Yeah, right, you have to work at it. You Romance

in a marriage doesn't just keep happening, right, You have

to work at it, and everything like that, every good thing.

If you want paradise, you have to cultivate that part

of it, otherwise it all falls apart. And so peace

is not a thing just because you have peace today

doesn't mean you have peace tomorrow. You have to keep

working on it.

Yeah. And by the way, uh, just that's hysterical.

That's one of the funniest things I've done in this show.

It's really funny.

I'm really glad I avoided it. I almost stepped in it.

Oh, I don't think it'd be that good.

Yeah, the the let me go back and say, I

want to say something fun. So whenever I teach on conflict,

one of my favorite things to do is I usually

have like a picture of an ostrich in a rhino. Right,

So the ostriche has its head buried in the sand,

and then there's a rhino who charges toward everything, right,

and the rhino is blind, Right, the rhino can't see

more than like a few feet in front of its face.

Yeah. They can run forty five miles an hour and

they can only see like fifty feet in front of

them in that y Yeah, there's one of the most

dangerous animals on the planet, just because they don't know

where they're going. Yeah, but they weigh what five pounds

or whatever? Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you know we've all heard the phrase a charging rhino, right,

and so so, yeah, we liken it to you know,

either running into conflict like a rhino or hiding, you know,

burying your head in the sand. And we've used that

phrase too. And the funny thing is there are people

who lean toward one and lean toward the other. Now,

what's interesting is you and I are a different breed

of people.

Yes we are.

Right, so we're it's not like we love conflict, but

for our personality type the way that God has made us.

Uh.

You you often say debate is a sport, right, yes, yeah,

so we are e NTPs to the.

Mind debates sport. Yeah, so we will get into arguments

because we sometimes where others would avoid the debate, we

would jump in it sometimes because we just like, yeah,

we like it for a few minutes.

Yeah.

And and the funny thing is that I think you're

at way slightly more than me. Uh but but but

I think.

Because I'm quicker quick, I have more answers. Actually I

have more answers.

I know you're joking, but it actually.

Has stronger opinions.

But it actually is true.

You have stronger opinions, and honestly, you have self assurance.

I think, and I think that that plays into the

fact that you think you're right more.

But yountps do tend to be very clever and very quick, Yes,

and so we tend to know that we can get

one over on the person who's arguing. And especially if

it's a dumb argument, if it's a dumb argument, doesn't

it just it just you can't help it. Dumb arguments

are like chumming the water, and we're chumming the water.

We can't help it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

But but but I think all those things play into that.

So because of that, you and I have a tendency

and it's and it's healthy to recognize that, right, it's

healthy to understand that there are different person personalities. But

I would say more people, and I would say the

vast majority of almost.

All people lean toward the ostrich.

Would you agree, avoid avoidance, avoidan yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah yeah.

And they you know, as if you know, listen, if

you bury your head in the sand, you may not

be able to see what's around you, but your jugular

is still exposed.

Yeah, that's the truth. And so and so you're gonna

suffer a lot of pain. Yeah, You're gonna suffer a

lot of pain because that crazy rhino can only it

turns out it can only see thirty feet in front

of it can run thirty five miles an hour. So

I was close.

Oh it's close.

Yeah, that rhino you can't even see you, and it's

about ready I'll blast you. Yeah, And because you're not

paying attention, So it's definitely you're gonna get hurt.

It's definitely unhealthy for a person who loves conflict. Right,

then there's a person who doesn't mind conflict. Right, But

most people lean toward the people who avoid.

They avoid, and so when they're hiding, they're gonna get blasted,

they're gonna get hurt.

Yeah. Well, a lot of marriages, quite honestly, are that way.

You know.

There are people who just say it's not worth it,

it's not worth it, so they just avoid conflict. They

just they just pretend like it doesn't exist, and it

builds up and it's terrible and there's gonna be pain coming,

you know, or maybe the whole life is your whole

life is pain because you avoid conflict.

So that's that's not what Jesus is saying here.

He's not saying, Blessed be the peacemakers, you know, avoid

conflict that needs to be addressed and and just try

to keep the peace.

That is not it.

And I and I guarantee you that there are people

who probably uh, they'll say, hey, I've spent my whole life,

I just let that person say or do what that

person needs to say or do. I just I avoid

it because I just want to keep the peace. Well,

that is not that is not what Jesus is saying.

So I believe that we have to address conflict when

it needs to happen. Yes, but working for peace is

much much different that avoiding conflict.

Yeah. So I've spent in one of my roles with

TTI as Chairman of the Board, I spent a significant

amount of time which is called the Timothy Timothy Initiative. Yeah,

we work with hundreds of thousands of church leaders around

the world in fifty different countries and ex kins things.

So just the scale of that means that you have

to have some pretty strong infrastructure, and with that means

you have strong leaders. And then now because we're in

fifty different countries on every continent, that means that there's

all kinds of different cultural issues. And then there's tribal

issues because we're in developing nations and there's all these things,

and so there's a lot of tension among high level

strong leaders that we always have to be working on

diplomacy and working on those things. But some of my

role has been in the particularly different things. And I've

referenced this a few times on the podcast of some

particularly dangerous circumstances where if this blows up, it's going

to cause a huge loss of money and people are

going to go to jail, right, yes, and.

Yeah, people's freedom, maybe even somebody's.

Life, religious freedom, and so I've had to be a

part of that, and and it's something that I enjoy.

So on the one side, debate is a sport, but

oftentimes that's that's our our us not at our best,

that's right, that's right, at our best. Sometimes e NTPs

also can be good peacemakers, navigation, navigating through because we

also what makes us quick to be able to debate

is because we're seeing the motive and we're seeing the

dangers behind everything being said a little quicker, and so

sometimes that can help. But so I've done a lot

of that work and I'm in the middle of writing

this book on Biblical Diplomacy our leaders. It's not done,

but I've got like twenty twenty little you know, six

page chapters, so the not long chapters, and there's a

few premises that I'm starting with. First of all, we

have to understand that God made us to be his ambassadors.

That's not just pastors with the NTPs personalities, that's all believers.

That's right.

God made us to be his ambassadors.

Whatever style or approach that you have, you shtill have

that responsibility.

That's right, right, And that means that I have to

start with God's end in mind, not mine, Because an

ambassador doesn't speak for himself. An ambassador speaks for the

king or the president that he serves, right, So I

have to begin with God's end in mind. So when

I go into you know, something's blowing up in my family,

something's blowing up at work, and I'm trying to think

how do I help make peace here? I have to

think what would Jesus do? And what does Jesus want

from this? And it's not just that people start being

nice to each other. Jesus' core value is not polite, right,

he wants peace, and so I have to start with

that what's God's end in mind? And then I have

to be working on the idea that for a win

win rather than a win lose. We tend to mostly

think that the win is when I come out victorious

and you finally submit and surrender. And peace making is

not victory labs. Peace making is making sure that, if

at all possible, we maintain as much dignity and that

there's a win for everybody if possible, which means then

we have to spend more time listening before we speak.

We have to hear what's really going on in your heart,

what is your because most of the time the threat

or the anger isn't directly associated with the issue. The

issue was the trigger, but there's this Usually the underlying

portion of the of Theleisberg is way bigger than what

you're seeing on top. Right, There's something else, there's another root.

It's rooted in something, something else. You have to listen

in order to be able to figure out what that is.

Because it's possible to do or say the right thing

at the wrong time or in the wrong way, and

you're still going to get the wrong answers because you're

trying to address the wrong thing right, And so then

if we're working on the idea of building bridges rather

than burning them. There have been times when people have

told me off and quit their job, or told me

off and quit the church. And as much as I can,

as often as I can. It hasn't been every time,

because I'm not a perfect human, but as often as possible,

and most of the time, I try to leave the

door open and say, hey, listen, I want you to

know I love you, I wish you the best in

your next step, and this is always home. The door's

always open for you as much as possible, right, And

we've had a number of people who try to come back.

So if you're trying to build bridges rather than burn them,

I think that that's incredibly powerful. And then there is

a moment where sometimes as Christ's ambassador, we have to

just decide forgiveness is the answer. There is no other

solution except I'm going to take the beating for you.

Sometimes that's the answer, because that's what Jesus did for me, right, right,

and that's what that's what he would do for that person.

So when we make peace, it's way more work than

just getting everybody to stop being so loud. It's way

more work than just trying to make everybody be more polite.

Politeness is not peace making, right. We have to get

to the core the issue and figure out what the

win is for everybody according to whatever God's end is

in this what what end in mind? What end does

God have in mind for this issue? And that means

we need wisdom in a sermon. We need to go

know God's words.

You summed up pretty well there.

I kind of dominated that conversation a little bit, didn't

I just it?

But again, I sometimes I think that when you have

a handle on things and you and you lay it out,

I think it's just great.

Man.

Well that's the first nine chapters, the first nine do

you mean that's the first nine chapters of that diplomacy book?

I'm righting.

Oh yeah, all right, Well, hey, that seems to be

our time and we will see you hopefully on Monday

on the Bible.

Guys.

H