SERMON OUTLINE

Peace-Makers Like God        Matthew 5.1-10

Introduction

-Seventh Beatitude

-The Beatitudes are a progressive description of

  Christian salvation and maturity.

–Peace is: -a gift from God to a bankrupt soul

       -repentance and the comfort of God.

                     Peace with God and Peace of God

       -submission to the will of God

       -hungering for righteousness

       -mercy to the conflicted

       -single-minded devotion to the God of peace

Peace-lover or Peace-maker?

Peace-lovers:

-Avoid hard decisions and confrontation and settle for

  artificial peace and not true peace

-Allow wrong attitudes and evil to continue unchallenged

-Are willing to give up personal freedom for personal

  peace short term artificial peace

-Cause more conflict in the end

Peace-makers:

-Confront others

-Call others to right behavior and attitudes

-Are willing to have short term disturbance and disruption

 for long term true peace

-Share the Gospel of peace in Jesus Christ.

True Peace and Artificial Peace

-More than the absence of trouble

-Not peace at any price that avoids the issues

-From Hebrew greeting of Shalom – God’s richest good

-The blessing of right relationship with God and with others.

Sons of God

-Others call peace-makers sons of God

-God like character seen in those who are peace-makers

-The world may hate us but they should see God in us

Conclusion

Peace-makers bring the message of God’s peace in Jesus Christ to unbelievers, the message of forgiveness and righteousness to the conflicted, and help those in personal conflict find the peace of God.

Christian, God has called you to the ministry of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5.18-20

SERMON NOTES

Peace-makers Like God               Matthew 5.1-10 (v9)

-On Communion Sundays we have been working our way through the eight Beatitudes and this morning we have come to the seventh Beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God”.

-I want to encourage you to think of the Beatitudes as a progressive description of Christian salvation and maturity. In these Beatitudes there is an outline for us of the process of spiritual growth. This process always begins with the recognition of our spiritual need and progresses through repentance, humility, learning and obedience. This process produces Christ-like character.

-Let’s trace this progression toward becoming a peacemaker. The first beatitude reminds us that peace is a gift from God to a bankrupt soul. When we came to God and presented ourselves before God as beggars, our life was filled with guilt, hate, anger, stress, and emotional pain. We had no peace with God and no peace within ourselves.

-The second beatitude tells us that in mercy God led us to repentance over our sin and rebellion against Him. God forgave us, accepted us by faith in Christ, and comforted us with His peace. God justified us in Christ. “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5.1) God also comforted us with the peace of God within. This experience of peace from God is the starting point to becoming a peace-maker. Those who are at peace with God seek to bring God’s peace to others who are either in conflict with others or within themselves.

-The third beatitude is vital to being a peace-maker. Submission to the will of God is essential to bringing peace to others. Without submission to the will of God there is no peace. Meekness is not weakness but strength submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

–Righteousness is indispensable to peace. The Christian must hunger and thirst for righteousness to be a true peace-maker as the fourth beatitude tells us. A true peace-maker does not overlook evil in order to prevent trouble and conflict. A true peace-maker demands right behavior between people in order to achieve true peace. Sometimes the demand for righteousness produces conflict before it can bring peace.

-Blessed are the merciful is beatitude number five. Mercy is essential to peace-making. A call for righteousness carried out with mercy produces peace.

-Finally, beatitude number six, the peace-maker is motivated by selfless, single-minded devotion to the God of peace, Who seeks to bring peace to His creation through His peace-making people.

-I hope you can see how the Beatitudes provide a description of Christian character and how the development of Christ-like character takes place.

–Notice first of all that those who are blessed, those who enjoy fullness in their relationship with God, are not called peace-lovers but peace-makers. Most everyone is a peace-lover but not everyone is a peace-maker. Most of us want to live in peace, free from tension, and trouble, and conflict. The problem is that if we are only peace-lovers we may be willing to avoid the hard decisions and the confrontations, required to bring true peace to a conflict. Avoidance is easier than confrontation, but avoidance creates an artificial peace not true peace. As peace-lovers we may be willing to allow wrong attitudes and even evil to continue as long as we can live in relative peace. As peace-lovers we may even be willing to give up our personal freedom in exchange for the promise of peace and prosperity for the present. In the end peace-lovers may be the cause of far more conflict, not less conflict. Because hard decisions and confrontations have been avoided, and wrong attitudes and evil have been ignored, conflict is allowed to simmer to an explosion point.

-Unlike the peace-lover, the peace-maker is willing to confront others with the problem that is causing conflict. A peace-maker is willing to call others to right behavior and to right attitudes in order to bring true reconciliation and true peace between people. A peace-maker does not live by the “peace-at-any-price” philosophy. Rather the peace-maker is willing to see more disruption and disturbance take place for the time being in the hope that it will lead to true and lasting peace. As Christians we need to go beyond peace-loving to peace-making.

-Let me give you a very practical example of the difference between a peace-lover and a peace-maker. I think we can all agree that there is no peace in the world because of man’s sin and because of the Devil’s opposition to God’s rule. Sinful man lives for self and is under self-rule. In his selfish-self-rule, man is under the Devil’s rule. Under the Devil’s rule there is only artificial, circumstantial, temporary, superficial, false peace. This lack of peace is evident on a world scale, a national scale, across racial lines, in families, personal relationships, and even within the individual. God has given to Christians the message of the Gospel of peace. Remember as soldiers of God we are to wear the shoes of the readiness of the Gospel of peace with God. Part of our mandate as God’s people is to tell others the Gospel of peace with God through Jesus Christ. We are also to tell them that the consequence of not believing the Gospel of peace with God through Jesus Christ is eternal separation from God in hell.

-So the question is, are you a peace-lover or a peace-maker? Are you a peace-lover who will not confront others with the message of peace with God through Jesus Christ because you want to avoid confronting them with their sin and their need of Christ? Do you prefer personal peace and falsely reason that others should also be left in peace? The peace you leave the sinner in is a false peace because in their sin they remain in conflict with God. As a peace-lover are you willing, for the sake of your own peace and prosperity, to let the conflict with God in the lives of the lost reach the final point of eternal separation from God?

-Unlike the peace-lover, the peace-maker, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with a deep love and concern for God and for the lost person, will tell the sinner about their sin and their unrighteousness before God, and the danger of eternal hell, and will risk the consequences of that confrontation. This confrontation may create disruption and disturbance, not peace, but the end goal is true peace with God, and with themselves, and with others as well. That is the difference between a peace-lover and a peace-maker.

-We attempt to be a peace-maker every time we share the gospel of peace with God through Jesus Christ with others. Listen to what the Bible tells us, “God reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5.18-20)

–True peace is more than the absence of trouble. The Greek word for peace takes its content from the Hebrew word Shalom. To greet someone with Shalom is to pronounce God’s richest good on them. Shalom is the peace which results from living in right relationship to God and enjoying the good of that relationship. We so easily settle for peace as the absence of trouble when God has fullness of life for us in Christ. As Christians we can enjoy the peace of God and have the privilege of declaring to others that they can have peace with God and the peace of God in their lives, God’s richest good upon them.

-This beatitude ends by saying that peace-makers will be called “sons of God”. Literally the verse says “sons” of God and not children of God. Notice that they do not call themselves “sons of God” but others call them “sons of God”. What this verse is pointing out is not so much the relationship of the Christian with God but the God-like character that is seen in peace-makers.

-Peace-makers reflect the character of the God of Peace and the Prince of Peace as they bring the attitude, and the message, and the actions of peace to this world. The world may hate us but they should recognize that we are like God when we live as peace-makers.

-Peace-makers bring the message of peace with God through Jesus Christ to the unsaved.

-Peace-makers bring the message of forgiveness and righteousness and peace to those who are in conflict.

-Peace-makers help those in personal conflict find the peace of God again.

-Christian, God has given you the ministry of reconciliation. First make sure that you are in right relationship to God and are living in the peace of God. Then help others to get right with God and to know for themselves peace with God and the peace of God. Then you will be a peace-maker and will be recognized as one who has the character of the God of peace.

Communion:

Romans 5.5-2, 9-11

Luke 2.14