For the past several weeks, we have been studying the first recorded sermon that Jesus preached which is called the Sermon on the Mount. And at the beginning of this sermon Jesus has given a series of statements which are called the Beatitudes. They are characteristics of someone who belongs to the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom, ushered in by the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He is the King of this spiritual kingdom. And those who are citizens of His kingdom exhibit the characteristics of these Beatitudes.
We have been looking at these each individually over the last few weeks and we are now on number 7. It is found in vs.9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” As we have previously noted, all of these characteristics are essential for all who are a part of the kingdom of heaven. A citizen of the kingdom of heaven will exhibit all of these characteristics. And the other thing we have noted is that these characteristics build upon one another. There is a definite order to them that is not haphazard. But they build upon each other and are related to each other.
Many of you here this morning look old enough to have been around in the 60’s during the hippy movement. And you may recall the peace protests that were emblematic of that period. But the desire for peace did not originate with the hippy movement, nor has it diminished since that time. Peace is the cry of the world, and it has been for centuries. There has never been a time when there wasn’t war somewhere on this planet, and even today there are wars going on all over the globe.
But the idea of peace encompasses so much more than just military wars or the lack of it. There are social wars, political wars, cultural wars, race wars, gang wars. There are wars in families and between family members. There are wars in neighborhoods, neighbor against neighbor. There is strife and conflict and all the consequent anguish and heartbreak going on all over the world in all kinds of ways.
James said in chapter James 4:1-4 “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
When James is talking lusts and motives and desires he is talking about the nature of our heart. Our hearts are the source of our conflicts. Man’s heart is the source of war, of hatred, of murders and all the rest of the evils of this world. For there to be peace in the world, there must first be peace in the heart.
Imagine for a moment a river which has at it’s head a factory. And the factory produces toxic byproducts as the result of it’s manufacturing. Suppose the factory routinely dumps it’s toxic refuse in the river. As a result, the river downstream is polluted and makes the water and the land surrounding it foul. The fish are sickened. The animals which drink from the river are sick. The land along the river is sick and the foliage is dying. A possible solution might be to add chlorine and other disinfectants to the water to try to make the water potable. To make it smell better and look better. But as long as the factory is in operation upstream, operating in the same manner in which it has always done, then such efforts would be futile. The only real solution is to deal with the source of the pollutants, with the factory itself.
Such is the nature of mankind. The problems of society, the wars, the strifes, the contentions, the murders, the abuses of people towards each other, are not able to be fixed by trying to add something to society, whether it be laws or government programs, or educational awareness. The solution will not be found in a particular political party or their platform. The solution to the civil and social unrest has to be dealt with at the source. Mankind needs a new heart. The problem is the heart. The world reflects the heart of man. Jeremiah 17:9 says, ”The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” I like the translation which says that the heart is sick, but I would also point out that the KJV renders it the heart is desperately wicked. Mankind’s desperately sick, wicked heart is the source of his troubles. It is the cause of a lack of peace.
Thus God says twice in Isaiah, “There is no peace for the wicked.” And because the heart is wicked and knows no peace it simply projects itself into all of its relationships. The world that man creates is a world without peace. It's a world of chaos. It's a world of conflict. Jesus said in Matt. 15:19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”
In this world there is no peace because the heart is evil. And as a result of that wickedness there are murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lying, slandering, wars and more wars. The world needs peace. Mankind desperately needs peace. Yet the peace that God provides is not simply the absence of war at any cost, such as the hippies cried out for in the 60’s. The peace that really can change the world and the men and women of the world is the peace that Jesus gives. Jesus said in John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” Notice in that statement that Jesus ties peace to the heart.
So what is the peace that Jesus gives? It is the peace of reconciliation. It is the peace between you and God. Whether or not you realize it or not, the unbelief of a person is not simply an innocuous thing. But his unbelief is actually rebellion against God, so much so that the Bible characterizes it as being at enmity with God. In other words, as an unbeliever you are actually an enemy of God. You are in rebellion against His sovereign, divine order for the universe. You are in rebellion against your Creator. And that rebellion has brought about the judgement of God against sin which is death. There is a war going on, and you are either on God’s side or you are against Him. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” There is no neutral ground. You’re either in the kingdom of heaven or you are in the kingdom of darkness. One or the other.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Now it should be evident these sons of God are the very citizens of the kingdom of heaven. So to be a peacemaker is not only a requirement to enter the kingdom, but it must also be a characteristic of the citizen, the children of God. I would submit that you have to receive peace with God before you can have the peace of God. And the way you receive peace from God is for God to give you a new heart. So that you become a new person, motivated by a new heart, new desires, living in a new way, that is pleasing to God.
That new heart comes as a gift in God in response to your coming to Him, realizing your spiritual bankruptcy as in the first beatitude, “blessed are the poor.” Coming to Him in repentance for your sins, as in “blessed are they that mourn,” mourning over your sin is true repentance. Then humbling yourself before God as in “blessed are the meek,” recognizing that you need a Savior, that you need forgiveness, that you need to be remade, then hungering and thirsting for righteousness, that you might be made right before God. And then that righteousness comes by transference, by faith in Christ, your sins are transferred to Him, and His righteousness is transferred to you, so that you are made pure in heart. Then and only then, can you have peace with God. As Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
That peace with God provides the basis of our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven as the children of God. Col 1:13-14 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” That spiritual transaction is what Jesus called being born again. That is how we obtain a new heart. That is how we become a new creation. And that is how we become peacemakers. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”
Listen, before we can go any further in examining this principle, you must ask yourself honestly, have you been born again? Have you come to God in your spiritual bankruptcy, confessing and repenting of your sins, and like David in his prayer in Psalm 51 cried out to the Lord to create in you a new heart, a clean heart. There is no other way to become a child of God. You must be born again spiritually, and that means you must be given a new heart by God. You cannot try in your natural state to add some of the beatitudes, hoping to make your sin smell better, or look better. The source of your new life has to be the product of a new heart which is a gift of God.
God spoke of this new heart in Ezekiel 36:25-27 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
Now then, what we are given, then we must give. As we are given peace with God, so we must be makers of peace with men. We must be makers of peace for the kingdom of heaven. Now what does that mean? What is a peacemaker? I would suggest that to be a peacemaker one must be peaceable, but that is not all that is included. That is only the beginning of his character. He must have the peace which comes from God abiding in Him. But more than simply being a peaceable man, he must make peace. To be a peacemaker you must make peace. In other words, you must actively make peace. You desire peace. You desire for the world to know peace, the true peace of God. And to that end you deliberately do things to accomplish peace in the world.
This principle builds upon the previous one. The previous beatitude was “blessed are the pure in heart.” As the recipient of a pure heart, then our motives are pure. A person with a wicked heart brings forth all the terrible things such as murders and envying and slander and lying and fornications and so forth. So you must have a pure heart, in order to lay that old nature aside and look out not for your own selfish interests but for the interests of others. The peacemaker is not always looking at everything in terms of how it may benefit them but how it may benefit others. That is really the essence of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Having a pure heart towards God and towards man, that is more concerned about others than themselves.
I believe that our culture has elevated narcissism to an unprecedented level today. And I’m not speaking just in the realm of “selfies” either. I think the whole current attitude in our culture is that everything has to be centered on me and on my rights and my preferences. I was speaking with my kids the other day about the danger of cell phones and computers and how it isolates us from society because we now have this technology which can cater to our every whim and individual preferences to the point that we find it more desirable to cocoon ourselves in this self serving, self gratifying cyber world that caters to our specific desires. And so we end up isolating ourselves from society. We don’t have the patience for other people, or for normal interaction. We become narcissistic introverts.
The citizen of the kingdom of heaven though does not exhibit that sort of self love. If they truly mourned over their sinful condition, if they truly humbled themselves before the Lord, if they really realized that their heart is desperately wicked, then they don’t operate any longer in the realm of self love. They agree with Paul who said there is nothing good in me. I have actually read Christian literature that talks about self love and the need to love yourself first before you even love God. That’s a false doctrine. Actually, the exact opposite is true. Jesus said he that loves his life shall lose it. He was talking about the natural man, loving ourselves, putting ourselves first.
The Christian needs to remember that he has two natures in him, the old man and the new creation. The flesh and the spirit. And he must mortify the flesh if he is going to live in the spirit. And furthermore, he needs to see in others that same principle. When he sees the unsaved man who is acting in rebellion against God’s design, then he needs to recognize that man is still dead in his sins. That he is blind to the truth. And if you have that attitude, then you will act with mercy towards that person. He realizes such people are still under the captivity to the kingdom of darkness. So if he loves that person, then he will try to show them how they might have peace with God. How they might be forgiven and receive new life. That is a peacemaker.
That’s what Christ did for us, was it not? Did He not see us dead in our sins, held captive by the lusts of the flesh and under the domination of Satan? And did He turn up HIs nose at us and let us drown in our sinful condition without pity when He knew the way to make us reconciled to God, when He had the means by which he could give us new life? No, of course not. Phil. 2:6 says, Jesus, though being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be held onto, but He humbled Himself, taking on the form of a man, and became a servant to man, that He might lead us to God. Jesus was Himself a peacemaker. He is called in scripture the Prince of Peace. And in like manner, we should consider how we might make peace for those who are outside of the kingdom of heaven, by imitating what Jesus has done for us. We are to have the same attitude that He had.
That means that we even love our enemies. Jesus said, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him.” Your enemy may have said terrible things about you. Not only do we not retaliate, but we have mercy on him and pray for him, and look for an opportunity to show him the way to peace. God had mercy upon us and forgave us when we were enemies towards Him, then should we not show the same consideration on our enemies? I realize that does not come easily. It certainly doesn’t come easy for me. It is not natural. But if you have received mercy, then you will show mercy. If you have been forgiven, then you will show forgiveness. If you have been shown kindness, then you will show kindness. We operate not out of the natural tendencies, but out of the spiritual heart which Christ has given us.
That does not mean that being a peacemaker is always going to be without conflict. We are not told to seek peace at any price. Real peace cannot exist without righteousness. And so we don't accommodate sin for the sake of peace. We can never turn a blind eye to sin in order that we may keep the peace. Listen to James 3:18, "And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Peacemakers sow the seed of truth whose fruit is righteousness. They confront sin with the truth because the only true peace is the peace that is gained when sin has been dealt with. There must be a dealing with sin according to the truth of God’s word. And sometimes the truth is offensive. But it can still be sown in a way that produces righteousness as a fruit of that truth. You don’t hate the sinner, but you should hate the sin. And the person you are dealing with should recognize that difference.
Psalm 85:10 says, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." You're not going to have peace without righteousness. As long as a person is unrighteous, as long as a person is still in their sin, as long as a person is untransformed, there will never be any peace because righteousness and peace kiss each other.
And lastly, being a peacemaker is nothing less than living a life of sanctification. It’s growing to be like Christ. Not just being born again, but learning and growing and maturing in your walk with the Lord so that we act like He acted, we love like He loved, we speak like He spake. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Once we have been born again, it’s time to start growing like Christ. In Hebrews 12:14 we are told to “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” So the writer there correlates being a peacemaker with sanctification, without which we display the fact that we are not children of God. If we are God’s children, then we will act like Him.
Galatians 5 reminds us that there are two natures. And if we are children of God, then we are going to operate in the spirit and not in the flesh. Starting in vs19 it says, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
I close by asking you again to examine yourselves. Have you received a new heart, have you been born again into the family of God? Without a new heart, you cannot be a child of God, and you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins that you might have peace with God. Simply believe in what He has done for you, and repent of your sins, and you will receive a new heart that can know the peace that only God can provide. I pray that today you will recognize your spiritual bankruptcy, and repent of your sins, mourning over your condition, humble yourself before God and ask Him to remake you, and make you into a child of God.
Do you want to know the peace of God which passes all understanding? I urge you today, make peace with God. Surrender to Him as Lord and Savior, trust Him to give you a new heart, to create in you a clean heart, a pure heart, that you will have peace with God. When you make peace with God, then you can know the peace of God. That offer of peace is extended to you today. Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and become a child of God today.
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