The Peacemaker (Lesson 8, Sermon on the Mount) | Nate Fritz | October 11, 2026

In the book Lessons I've Learned in History, the author Durant claims the following War is one of the constants of history and has not diminished with civilization or democracy in the last 3,421 years of recorded history.

Only 289 of those have seen no war.

I don't know that that's actually true.

I've seen in other reports of days rather than years.

For example, 289 days compared to 289 years, as this author claims.

And if you were to uh do some new age stuff and go online and type on AI, how many years of peace has the world seen?

The ultimate answer there would be zero.

Uh, even though it gives some classifications, but ultimately ends up with zero days of no skirmishes, no wars, uh, no one human abusing another uh ever in world history.

Uh and I don't know about all this, but I do understand the point of all of it, and that is that both men and therefore nations know very little bit about peace.

And we see that even in modern times.

Nations and men know little about peace.

Sin, I will tell you, always, without fail, descends into some type of war.

Not just between nations, but in our own personal life, it descends into war.

And even in our relationships with one another and others outside of Christ, it will always descend into war.

But doing what is right without fail, according to what Jesus is teaching today, will always end in peace.

Now it may be difficult to get there, but it always results in peace.

Isaiah prophesied the effect of righteousness will be peace.

And the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.

You know why that is?

It's because one is placed in self and worldly desires and ambitions, the other is placed in God.

One always results in conflict, the other will always result in ultimate peace and trust and quietness.

That's true today, just as it was the day that Isaiah wrote that several thousand years ago.

The idea of peace permeates the Bible.

And we'll talk a little bit about that as we go forward this morning.

I want to take a minute to say good morning to everybody.

Sure, good to see everybody here.

I know that today's lesson will be especially important to us.

Who doesn't want peace?

We all want peace.

Everyone wants peace, from individuals all the way to world powers.

Everyone ultimately desires peace.

It's a matter of how we get there, and that's what we'll be talking about a lot this morning.

It's how we get there that matters uh immensely to us.

Uh, and I want to take a minute just a second just for a second to say that this this Friday, you may not know this if you're a member here, uh, but I want to I want to make you aware of it.

This Friday, uh, Brother Sam Wyatt and my son-in-law, Nate, Nate Morrow, are going to be heading to Mexico for mission work.

Did you know that?

We do more mission work than just Eastern Europe and Russia.

Uh, and uh, and this time it'll be a trip into Mexico.

And uh that they are going on this trip on not just God's behalf, which is most important, obviously, not just on those brethren's behalf, that's also important, but also on behalf of the congregation here and the mission that we see to be so important in the in the family, the kingdom of God.

And and we talked about that a couple of Wednesdays ago, how important that is that churches who can should be involved in doing God's work, not just locally, but wherever God allows them to do that.

Open doors come by way of God's providence.

He does that.

And it is up to us to step through those doors boldly and confidently in Christ and to take his power and his word and and his desires into other places, uh, whether it's through edifying or whether it's through spreading the gospel, which will happen uh, Lord willing, uh this this coming, starting this coming Friday, uh down into Monterey and some other areas in the vicinity there.

And uh it's not an easy task because unlike me, they're not gonna have great interpreters.

Uh, when I go away, I have good interpreters.

They may not have such great interpreters, and they'll be speaking in a different language uh while they're gone uh to a large degree.

That's that's a that's an added layer that really makes work a lot more difficult.

And uh so on their behalf, let's bow together uh briefly uh before we begin with our lessons part of our worship this morning and pray for them, okay.

Our Father in heaven, you are such a great and giving God.

And we bow before you at this time with special request.

Oftentimes our prayers revolve around ourselves and they revolve around the things that we want, but at this time, Father, it is much deeper than that, and we want you to look into our hearts and see that.

We're praying now on behalf of your kingdom, we're praying on behalf of your glory and your honor being done through the men that we're about to send into a different part of the world to preach and proclaim your message, to build, to construct, to edify, also to proclaim your saving message to those who are without you.

And we pray your blessings on their behalf for your honor.

We thank you for them and thank you for their willingness and their courage.

Do recognize, Father, that life is different in different places and it's more difficult.

Most often it's more difficult than it is in this nation and and in this city, in this congregation.

We pray for them uh that the strength might come from you, that they might be most effective in the work that they're about to do and undertake.

We thank you for that, and we thank you for your uh for your promises, the assurances that we gain through you, that you'll be with us in all times and during all situations, and that that you'll help us in the times that we need you, and the times that uh that that we don't know what to do or how to do, but you'll see us through those.

And we pray that for them at this time as well.

Forgive us when we fall short, Father, this morning, and help us to concentrate and think on the things that bring peace in our life, the way that you have described.

Pray that you'll help us in our study together even this morning.

We ask all these things in the name of Jesus, our Savior.

Amen.

Not much permeates the Bible more than the outcome of peace for the Christian and for the sinner who needs to come to Christ.

Not much.

I mean, there may be one or two other things.

Maybe we could talk about grace.

There might be another thing.

We might be able to talk about salvation in general, but peace ranks up there within the top few things that is talked about more than anything else.

Nearly 400 references to this occur in Scripture.

And it comes in many different categories.

As you can see on this chart, you have peace with God and peace with Christ, and peace in our hearts, and peace with others, peace in the kingdom of God.

We have peace, this eternal peace.

In other words, when this life is over, we have peace when we are at peace with God during this life.

And that's just to touch a few of those.

Here in Matthew chapter 5, in Jesus' sermon, his introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, we read, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

In fact, the Bible opens with peace.

I don't know if you've thought about that, but between God, man, and woman, there was peace.

And then there is a fall.

In fact, the place they were placed, the place that they were placed, was peaceful in the Garden of Eden.

There was no conflict, there was no war, there was no enmity with one another.

In fact, man and woman didn't even have their first fight until after the fall.

Peace comes with God, and discord comes with sin.

Comes the fall, and peace with God is interrupted.

Peace in the world is interrupted.

Peace with all of creation actually is interrupted.

If you think about Romans, the first part of Romans describes how even the world is at war.

There is no peace even in the world because of sin.

Peace on earth is interrupted.

You might recall the announcement at the birth of Jesus, God's angel and the multitude of heavenly hosts are pictured as praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it would be through him that peace would ultimately be restored, which we get to enjoy even now today.

The story of redemption is a story of peacemaking between God and mankind.

And so anything that we are to do or to be in order to bring peace into this world, God has done first.

That's how great his working of peace has been in the world.

Paul reminds us in Romans chapter 3 and in verse 16 destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Paul tells us the only time in which there is no peace is when we revert to letting sin become ruler in our lives.

I just want to remind you as we go through this lesson, and all the lessons through the Beatitudes for that matter, and on through the sermon that Jesus is to is to declare in these three chapters of Matthew, of the guy who, as we saw a few weeks ago, is walking, who is the prince of the king.

He's the child of the king, and he's walking while his slave is up there riding on the steed, the princely steed.

But there is the slave, and there is the master of the slave walking, and how we can do that in our lives.

We let sin rule while we ourselves, who are meant to rule over sin, are walking.

And we are loathing our existence as children of God because we know that's not the way it's supposed to be.

And what Jesus is telling us is how to get back up where we belong, as children of the king, as princes and princesses of the king.

But you know, that has been a problem for mankind, allowing sin to rule in our life all the way back to Grandma Eve and Grandpa Adam.

And we can become victims of the very same type of living that we see in that example.

James asks us in chapter 3, verse 14 and 15 of that text, what causes things like discord having to do with jealousy and selfish ambition and disorder?

And he says there as a blanket statement, every vile thing.

What causes that?

And he answers it in verse 15, out of verse 14, when he says that which is earthly and unspiritual, and then he uses a very heavy word, demonic.

A person cannot have that exist in them unless they are possessed by that which comes from hell itself.

Again in chapter 4, verse 1, he asks, What causes quarrels and what causes fights or strife among you?

Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?

A lack of full commitment to Christ creates fertile ground for the absence of peace, and it brings the presence of full-blown and born sin in our life.

It is a road that Jesus calls us to avoid.

In fact, He He doesn't just call us to have peace.

I want you to notice that in your text as you're looking at it there.

He doesn't say have peace.

He doesn't say keep peace.

He says make it.

Be a peacemaker.

That is a productive and a proactive attitude toward war and sin.

Look back at Matthew chapter 5 there with your eyes and notice that he says in these beatitudes, blessings don't simply come by the absence of some things.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

I'm saying in general, but by the promotion of some things.

So, for example, look at the earlier beatitude.

Being poor in spirit is not just about poverty.

You'll notice that what he says is it's really more about being rich in the kingdom of heaven.

It's not just the absence of something, it's the presence that comes from something.

The same is true.

Blessed are those who mourn.

It's not just about sorrow in our previous state, what a terrible state I was in, and how horrible that state is.

And then we throw our hands up.

No, the the the idea here is it is about comfort in the present state.

Peace isn't just about the absence of war.

Well, I like to think of myself as a pacifist.

Great, but it does no good just to be a pacifist.

That's not where we're meant to be.

It is a source of promoting harmony in our relationships.

So Paul says it this way in Romans 12 and at verse 18.

If possible, well, that does uh assume one thing, and that is sometimes it's not, because peace is a two-way street.

Now it's not a two-way street inside of me.

I can choose to be at peace, no matter if my enemy is not at peace or not.

But if it is possible, he says, as depends on you, not depends on somebody else, as depends on you, be at peace with all.

That's a very personal statement by Paul.

Jesus is basically asking for us to put forth the maximum effort to maintain and create peace, not just with himself, but even in all our relationships, and obviously it would go as far as having proper peace with God Himself, even as we see all the way back in the Garden of Eden.

It was up to Adam and Eve to come to God and make peace.

What might that look like?

It may mean a willingness to risk pain.

I know we don't think of peace that way.

Most of the time we think of peace as just this joyful and wonderful state of being where everything is going my way.

And I'm happy.

It's a woeful description of the word blessed, actually, as we've covered already in this series.

If you don't remember, blessed is more than just joy, it's a state of being.

If we have been wrong in what we have done or said, it is oftentimes a very painful thing to humbly apologize.

The alternative is worse.

And when we apologize, just in passing, apology sounds like this.

I'm sorry for what I said or what I did.

It doesn't sound like this.

I'm sorry you took it that way.

We've all had those apologies that they're not really apologies.

We don't need to preserve our own pride when it comes to being sorry.

What we should do is just say, I am sorry.

What if Jesus said, I'm sorry that you had those sins, but sorry is something that cuts to the heart.

It's something that is worth saying.

What if we came to Jesus and said, I'm sorry about these sins, but and we began to make it as though it's really kind of, you know, it's really, you know, things just happen.

Sometimes we do what we shouldn't, but you know, he gets it.

Sorry is something that we should be forward about.

It shows a break in our character, it shows what is generally not true in ourselves.

And when that happens, it's not a it's not a sin.

In fact, it's a great thing when we recognize it and can just simply admit it and then move forward in a relationship.

James chapter 4, verse 6, God opposes the proud.

James 4:6

He gives grace to the humble.

Pride isn't just a personality flaw, ladies and gentlemen.

What James teaches us is that it puts us in opposition to God.

But my problem's not with God, it's with this other thing, this other person.

No, that makes it with God.

Please understand.

When we have a problem with a family member, that's a problem with us and God and that family member.

He is the one who brings us together.

He is the one who has made it possible to have a spiritual relationship through the blood of his son.

That's a personal thing to him when we have a personal problem with someone else.

And a proper response of forgiveness is something that Christians are excellent at giving.

Because he has forgiven us, we forgive one another.

I mean, we're really good at it.

All we have to do, as we'll see in a little bit, is think back to who we used to be and what God has done in our life.

That makes it easy to forgive.

Makes it easy to have unity, it makes it easy to be siblings again.

We should expect nothing less from one another, brothers and sisters.

I want you to notice as well what Jesus speaks of is more than superficial fixing of a situation.

It goes all the way to the core of who we are and who our family is here in this local church.

It shows our innermost characters with one another.

I'm reminded of Ezekiel chapter 13.

Ezekiel 13 · chapter mention

We read of God's warning against those who say the right things at right times, but don't actually promote true peacemaking, as seen there in verse 9 of our Matthew text.

Such are merely plastering over cracked walls.

I mean, it looks good and it may sound good for a time, but ultimately the rain will come and the storms will come, and the state of that wall will be revealed as the plaster begins to peel away again.

It begins to fall off of the wall, and there you see what was hidden all along, the cracks and the crumbling of that relationship.

It resembles Jesus' parable of the two builders in Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

And that also is a part of the Sermon on the Mount.

We'll get to that part of Jesus' lesson later on.

In all of this, God speaks of what is real life, not just hypothetical knowledge of some kind.

I mean, I know the right thing to do, I've heard the right thing to do, I know the answers to war and conflict that go on either in me or around me.

I know the answer to these things, but hypothetically, no, this is real.

Not just a hypothetical situation of what could be in a relationship.

If we're not careful, brothers and sisters, we find ourselves, though we might have all the right knowledge, just puttying over cracks as if all is well, when all is not really well in my attitude or in my life.

In the way I think about this or that, or this person or that person, or even my relationship.

To my Almighty God.

And God is speaking to each of us in this section of text.

Well, actually, all of it, obviously.

Not just to, is what I mean, not just to someone in another seat that we think might have a problem.

But he speaks to me personally.

James tells us that when one promotes or is okay, fine, with conflict with a spiritual sibling, rather than seeking to make peace, he or should be putting oneself in a just in a uh putting oneself in a in a functional relationship again.

I'm not okay keeping a dysfunctional and unpeaceful relationship with God.

Therefore, I'm not okay with keeping a dysfunctional or unpeaceful relationship with my sibling, who's also a prince or a princess of the king.

It occurs to me, brothers and sisters, we need to be doing all that we can to make sure that we're all riding on that stallion instead of walking like a slave.

What does James say?

Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world.

Now, how do we become?

I know how we usually use this text, I understand.

We can use it in a variety of ways, but I just asked the question, how do we become a friend of the world?

Isn't it by applying worldly attitudes and actions to our conduct and our thinking?

How is that not true when it comes to peace and making peace?

Do you suppose that it is of no purpose that the scripture says that God yearns jealously over the spirit, your attitudes, your actions that He has made to dwell in us.

The world is full of hate, brothers and sisters.

The world is filled with jealousy.

The world is filled with warring and hurtful, damaging behavior.

And we overcome the world.

Jesus says, I have overcome the world, and my peace I leave with you.

That shows that we too overcome the world.

But it won't be through worldly attitudes.

We cannot be at peace with God and do Satan's bidding at the same time.

Can't do it.

It cannot be done.

And God says he wants us to be blessed as his children.

How?

I mean, in what kind of relationships?

Make quick application.

Won't take much time for this.

We could talk, uh, actually make a whole sermon out of this, but think about your home.

He wants you to have He wants you to have peacefulness in your home.

Don't just keep quiet when there's a problem.

Deal with the problem the way God wants you to deal with the problem, with the attitudes, the spirit that God has put within you to deal with the problem and make peace.

God wants you to be blessed in your interpersonal relationships as a church.

Don't just gloss over a problem like mud on a wall, waiting for the rain to come, and then it all falls to pieces.

But make for peace.

God wants us to have individual peace within us between Him.

He doesn't want us just to go on day after day knowing that really I'm living a hypocritical life.

I'm not really who I say I am.

But to have peace with God, to make peace with genuine Christianity and thoughts, the fruits of the Spirit that are to go with our lifestyle.

Peace is to permeate the entirety of the children of God.

Avoidance of others, avoidance of problems, avoidance of conflict.

If we let those rule, we will never enjoy real peace in our lives and in our relationships.

But how do we ensure peacemaking?

By reoccurrence of the previous beatitudes.

I know we're belaboring it.

But after all, we are in a study of right now, this section, of the Beatitudes.

And so you go back up to the first beatitude and you look at that, and you'll see what I'm talking about here when I say ensuring peacemaking comes only by implementing the previous beatitudes.

Think about that for a second.

It's easier to make peace, brothers and sisters, when we remember who we were in our previous lost and poor state.

You know what that does?

That brings a sense of mercy in my life.

It's easier to make peace when we have mourned over our self-imposed fracture that we have created with God.

I've been there and you have been there.

We know what that feels like to have a broken relationship with someone that we really want to love and that we care about.

We've all been there with our God in our relationship with Him.

What about with one another?

It's difficult not to make peace with others, to show meekness or maybe in a more simple term, gentleness, what the word meekness ultimately means in verse 5, when we realize how gentle our God has been with us.

Think if God had repaid us as we deserve it.

I'm telling you, it's one area that I'm glad there is no justice between me and my God.

He is overwhelmingly gentle.

Sometimes what I really deserved was a good whipping.

But many times over many times has he been gentle.

Caring about the relationship, wanting me to return, not just be disciplined, not just be pounded down, but actually wanting me to return.

Likewise, it's difficult to be a peacemaker when we have a steady diet of drinking and eating from the book, the source of God, where God teaches us what is right and righteous, and we are having this continual positive input instead of allowing the world to have the say-so in our life.

Being impressed by what is in the world rather than being impressed by God.

Romans 5, verse 9, we have been justified by his blood.

Romans 5:9

Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Thank goodness that we eat and drink from the book of God that reminds us of the positive things that we should be constantly feeding on and drinking from.

It's impossible to restrict being a peacemaker when we consider God's overwhelming mercy on us.

We can't help but have peacemaking mercy on others when we remember that Jesus says in Matthew 18, verse 33, should you not have mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?

Matthew 18:33

You see, it's just impossible to fail in being a peacemaker in our relationship to God, one another, and others when we are desirous of having a pure heart before God.

You see how each one of the parables builds upon the other?

Coming to the ultimate context of peace.

Peace from us and peace to us is God's message.

We'll be called sons and children of God by peacemaking, he says.

1 John 3, verse 1 popped in my mind when I was first looking through this again.

1 John 3:1

See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God.

And so we are.

That the light can produce someone who is our best friend, but it also can create someone who is a worst enemy.

Consider the illustration of the Lord when they arrested him and they tried him.

His presence of peace in their presence infuriated those who were seeking his demise, didn't it?

It did not make them better, it made them worse.

They went after him even more.

They desired not just some kind of retribution for who he was and what he was preaching, but they desired death to him.

They could not stand the peacemaking that he was calling for between themselves and their God.

It was too much for them, and they killed him for it.

They couldn't stand his goodness of making for peace.

But in doing so, Jesus becomes the atoning sacrifice, and he brings peace between himself and millions.

Even us who are here today have peace with God because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

He did in peace what they could never destroy in anger.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 13.

Ephesians 2:13

As we begin to wrap all of this up, the passage I think is fitting for kind of a conclusion to what we're looking at.

Ephesians 2, verse 13.

Ephesians 2:13

In Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Look at verse 14.

If you don't have it underlined or highlighted, you need to do it.

For he himself is our peace.

He is our peace.

Who has made both one.

I understand he's talking here about Jew and Gentile, but he's also talking about Jew and Gentile one in God, peace with God.

And has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

Look at verse 15.

And so making peace.

Look at verse 16, and reconciling us all to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing hostility.

And he became and preached, he came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near.

For through him we have access in one spirit to the Father.

So then, you who are no longer strangers and aliens, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the great household of God.

Jesus, as we sang, is, and as Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 says, He is our Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

But brothers and sisters, don't miss the point.

He had to fight a war to get there.

He had to fight.

When he died on the cross, he did it in peace, but it took all of him to do it.

Through him, we are reconciled to him.

Whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed upon the cross.

I thought about John 14, verse 27, just this morning, as I was reviewing my notes this morning.

John 14:27

This popped into my head.

Maybe you are already there and you've been thinking about it.

Jesus says to his disciples, My peace I leave with you.

My peace I give to you.

Not as the world gives, do I give to you.

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Being a peacemaker can be scary.

It takes us going out there on the limb.

It takes us doing what the world refuses to do because it is scary and it's hard.

But Jesus says, I'm with you in that.

Jesus says, I know about peace.

And I know about conflict.

And I'll be with you in bringing peace to your life.

I'll be with you in bringing peace to your relationships.

I'll be with you in bringing peace between me and you.

I want to say to you that if you're seeking to be a peacemaker, you may receive the same kind of treatment Jesus received for a time.

We don't have to live too long to know that sometimes bringing peace also brings difficulty into our life.

People may misunderstand you because you want to bring peace in your relationship with them.

They may criticize you.

They may say all kinds of evil about you and even curse and condemn you, just like they did our Lord.

And yet, while a person of war throws stones, a person who is a peacemaker will use those stones to build bridges.

Do you know how long it takes to build a bridge one stone at a time?

While a person of war will come with a sword, the peacemaker will seek to disarm with love that beats that sword into a plowshear.

And maybe you're recognizing I'm pulling from the prophets about kingdom living, which is what those texts are about.

A person of war throws a spear.

The person will take that spear who is of God and beat it into a pruning hook, because that is the kingdom way of God.

It's not the world's way.

And when Jesus said, I bring peace, and he will help us maintain and create peace, he absolutely meant it, and he designed it that way, even from the times of the old prophets of old.

He prophesied of the kind of peace that we one day that we get to enjoy, you and me, in the kingdom of God.

Peace may not be immediate, but peace does come to those who promote it.

Those who make up God's family, God's nation, God's kingdom today.

We are the peacemakers.

We're not just those who want to have peace.

We are those who create it.

We create it within ourselves.

In other words, by the help of God, but I'm saying between us and God, we create peace.

We recognize ourselves as the prodigals who return time and time again.

We create peace with one another.

We recognize the importance of one another as children of God, heirs of the king.

Joint errors, errors with one another.

My encouragement to you is don't avoid the battles.

Instead, like Jesus, our example, transform those battles by the principles given to us in the Lord.

Even here in these beatitudes that we're looking at, He has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.

How can we be anything but replicas of our Father who do the same?

Therefore, we are the most blessed, because we are peacemakers who are called the sons, the children of God.

Maybe you've been trying to live without peace in your life, without peace between yourself and God.

I want to tell you something, it's a heartbreaking fact.

It's only going to get worse until you're willing to be blessed by the great attributes seen here in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

When you start implementing these things into your life, peace is a natural result.

In fact, it's impossible not to have peace when we apply the things we see.

Here in the beginning of Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

In Peter's first sermon in Acts chapter 2, he preaches that to have peace with God, one must turn from a life of sin.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

You've got to let go of one thing in order to grab another thing.

If you keep your fists clenched, you're never going to be able to grab what's good.

And he says, what's good is repentance, turning away from sin, being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin.

And not only that, but God living in you, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And you can have that today if you'll do what it takes to have peace between you and God.

He's made the provisions.

He's waiting for you to take the step.

And if we can help you in that this morning, why don't you talk to us more about it, or you can come forward right now while together we stand as we sing.