Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 44 – November 1991

 

Are You A Peacemaker?

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde on Matthew 5:9

 

Introduction

 

Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Christmas is probably the saddest time of the year, and it will be sad in a very profound way.  On the one hand there will be a lot of talk of peace.  Millions of Christmas cards will be sent with their messages of peace.  Songs of peace will be wafting through department stores.  And in churches throughout the world we will again commemorate the birth of the Prince of Peace.

But then, on the other hand, we know that reality presents such a painful contrast.  As I watched the news on television this week I couldn’t help but analyse what was going on.  If there were perfect peace there would be very little to report.  Think of the majority of news items:
            – Murders, industrial disputes, political infighting and blood-letting and mud-slinging.
            – And then dominating everything else is the ongoing and deepening crisis in the Middle East.

And perhaps just as significant are those other crises that may never capture the news headlines – the marriage break-ups and family feuds, tensions in business and partnerships and government departments.

Just quickly glance around the world today and you will soon see that peace is a rare commodity indeed.  Everywhere you look people could do with the gift of peace.  But peace is not a passive thing.  It often comes because there is a peacemaker at hand.

How marvellous it would be if someone could come up with a peace plan for the Middle East.  One of the crowning achievements of President Carter’s term of office was the Camp David Accord of 1978.  Israel and Egypt resolved some of their major differences and there has been a measure of peace between the two ever since.  Would that a similar settlement could be found today!

And how marvellous it would have been if there had been a peacemaker when that young couple’s marriage was beginning to fall apart.

And what a difference it would have made if there had been a peacemaker on hand before that teenager became totally estranged from the rest of his family.

And indeed how many churches and schools and colleges and families were spared disaster in the past and are thriving today because there was a peacemaker in their midst; someone who could speak a timely word, who could relate to both parties, and who had the wisdom to pull it all together.

And as Christians we are called upon to be such people.  We are all called to be peacemakers.  Whether we are parents or teachers, students or ministers, employers or employees, teenagers or senior citizens, there will be times when we are cast in the role (sometimes the very difficult role) of peacemakers.  There will be times when you will be God’s man, God’s woman, God’s child in the right place, at the right time, to resolve a very difficult situation.  The burden will fall on you, and then the promise of Christ in our text will be very precious indeed:
            ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.’

And that promise didn’t stand in isolation.  It comes in a context; the context of the Beatitudes.  And you’ll remember that these Beatitudes have a logic to them.  And let me now go over that for about the fourth or fifth time.  Some of you may never have heard it, others may have forgotten it:
            – You are poor in spirit when you realise that in God’s sight you are a miserable sinner.
            – You mourn when you know in your heart that you are a miserable sinner.
            – You are meek when you can take other people telling you that you are a miserable sinner.
            – But of course you don’t want to stay a miserable sinner, so you hunger and thirst for righteousness.
            –  And when that appetite for righteousness is satisfied you become merciful and pure in heart and a peacemaker.
            –  And if you do that well you will be persecuted for the sake of righteousness, says Jesus.

So peacemaking is a fruit of righteousness, but it is more than that.  To be a good peacemaker you have to be everything that has gone before, and perhaps especially what has come immediately before.  You have to be merciful and have a pure heart.  And a good dose of meekness won’t go astray either.

Let’s be honest, you’ll never make peace, in fact you’ll probably do the very opposite, if you’re not meek and merciful and don’t have a pure heart.  If you look at the context of our text that should be absolutely obvious.

But today I also want to say more than that, and to do justice to this matter of peacemaking.  I believe that we must look at this saying of Jesus in the broadest possible terms:
            Firstly, I’d like to preach about the peace of Christ.
            Secondly, about peace among Christians.
            And thirdly, about peace in the world.

So I couldn’t have a simpler outline: peace related to Christ, Christians and the world.

1.  ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.’

And why is this so?  Because they are reflections of Christ of whom we can truly say:

‘Blessed is the Peacemaker for He is called the Son of God.’

He is the Prince of Peace.  He is the Peacemaker par excellence.  He is the model peacemaker.  So if we are going to be peacemakers then we must model ourselves on Him.  We must look to Him as our supreme example.  He is the Son of God and He was a Peacemaker.  If we are sons of God then we must be peacemakers too.

It is not an option, brothers and sisters.  It is a must.  It is a divine command.  If you want to be called the sons and daughters of God; if you want to be known as His children, then you must be like His Son who was a peacemaker.  It’s as simple as that.  Peacemaking is not something that we can take or leave as Christians.  It is our duty, it is our solemn obligation because we are followers of Christ.  And Christ was someone who was absolutely qualified for the job because of all people He was meek and merciful and had a pure heart.

And how did He go about establishing peace?  How did He achieve reconciliation?  How did He prove conclusively that He was the Prince of Peace?

I think we all know the answer to that question.  There was only one way that He could make peace and that was through the cross.  There is only one other verse in the New Testament that used this expression ‘making peace’ and that verse has to do with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Col.1:20:
            ‘For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Christ),
             and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
             whether things on earth or things in heaven,
             by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.’

That’s the price that Jesus had to pay for being a peacemaker.  It was a costly, painful, sacrificial business.  There was no short-cut and there was no easy way out.  And yet He did it, He went through with it.  He stuck it out till the job was done.  He persevered till He had fulfilled His purpose.  And what was that purpose?  I’ll continue reading from Colossians 1:
            ‘Once you were alienated from God and were enemies
             in your minds because of your evil behaviour.
             But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body
             through death to present you holy in his sight,
             without blemish and free from accusation…!’ (vss.21,22).

And that, my friends, is the Gospel; it is a message of peace.  We have peace with God, but it is a peace that had to be made, and it was made when Jesus Christ died on the Cross.

And that’s the message that Jesus conveyed to His disciples on that first Easter Sunday and again on the Sunday after that.  In John 20 three times He says: ‘Peace be with you.’  And under the circumstances that’s not some hollow greeting; it’s not just a polite form of address.  He stands before them as the Conqueror over death, sin and the devil.  He is the Victor over the dark domain.  He is their Saviour, Lord and Liberator.  And so when He pronounces His peace on the disciples it is because:
            “The strife is o’er, the battle done,
             The victory of life is won.”

The war is over.  He’s the winner.  And now He announces peace.  And I’m sure there are some of you who will remember as though it were yesterday that day in 1945 when peace was announced.  It could only be announced because the enemy had been defeated and victory had been won.

And that’s what Jesus did on that first Easter Sunday.  It was his V-Day.  The greatest battle of all history had been fought and won, and now peace had become a reality, peace in the very deepest sense of that word – peace between God and man.
‘Having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

Do you have that peace?  Have you put your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ?

But Jesus goes even further than that.  He not only makes peace between God and man.  He also makes peace between man and man.  His peacemaking is not only vertical.  It is also horizontal.

And this is the point being made in that remarkable chapter, Ephesians 2.  Paul is talking about Jesus and the Gentiles.

In those days they hated each other with a passion.  Probably the best example of that hatred was shown in the year 70 A.D. when the city of Jerusalem was levelled to the ground by the Roman general Titus.  The streets ran red with blood and an estimated one million Jews were killed.  But in the midst of this seething animosity there was a haven of peace in the ancient world and that of course was the Christian Church.  It was there that Jew and Gentile were brought together as never before.  And how did that happen?  It happened through the blood of Christ!  As Paul says:
            ‘For he himself is our peace…
             His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two,
             thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God
             through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.’ (vss.14–16).

So how did Jesus bring Jew and Gentile together?  He did it through the cross.  And how did He bring us together?  Through the cross.  It cost Him his blood and it cost him his life to give us peace with God and to give us peace with one another.  Don’t you see that the implications are staggering?  If we don’t live in peace with one another we are making a mockery of the cross!  On the basis of the Bible I must say this.  By our lives we would be denying the very thing Christ came to do and that was ‘to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace’ (vs.15).  Our church will either be a witness for that truth or it will be a witness against it.

So that’s our first point this evening the peace of Christ.  He establishes peace vertically (between man and God) and He establishes peace horizontally (between man and man), and He did both through His death on the cross.

2. We come now to the second point which has to do with peace among Christians.

And again let me emphasize that every Christian is called to be a peacemaker.  That is a responsibility that none of us can escape.  And for that task we need those basic qualifications of purity in heart and meekness.  You must pass these two tests if you are to qualify for the job.  It’s a little bit like getting a driver’s license.  There are two tests.  Knowing the rules and driving the car.  If there weren’t these tests you’d be a menace on the road.  And if you don’t pass these tests the Bible gives, you’ll be a menace as a self-styled ‘peacemaker’.

And the two test questions are simple:
            Are you pure in heart?
            Last time we saw that the word ‘pure’ means
                        ‘without hypocrisy’ and ‘cleansed’.

If you’re two-faced or insincere you’re unfit for the job.  And if your heart has not been cleansed by the blood of Christ then how can you ever hope to bring His peace to others?

The next test question is:
            Are you meek?

Before you answer that let me remind you of the definition of ‘meek’ that I gave in the sermon on the subject a couple of months ago:
            “The “meek” are the mild, gentle and patient…
             when they are wronged or abused they show no resentment
             and they do not threaten or avenge themselves.
             The opposite are the bitter, the wild and the violent.”

You can understand that bitter, wild and violent people don’t make very good peacemakers.  That should be obvious and yet how silly some people can be!  In the 60’s and early 70’s here in Australia as well as in America there were so many violent peace demonstrations.  What nonsense!  Here were people who were living examples of the very thing they were so opposed to.

But, brothers and sisters, we’re often so guilty of this very thing ourselves.  We want peace in our church.  We want peace in our homes.  We want peace in our families.  And yet by some strange twist of logic we sometimes seem to believe we can achieve this by being angry and bitter and losing our tempers.  What a load of pagan nonsense that is!  Don’t we know our Bible which says that ‘the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God’?  (Js.1:20).

So before you go on your peace mission you must have passed these two tests:
            (i) Am I meek?
            (ii) Do I have a pure heart?

But now on the mission itself there is one thing you must be prepared to experience and that is pain.  When Jesus came on His peace mission He experienced pain in the profoundest possible way, not just in His physical suffering on the cross but also in the agony of rejection.  Pain is something every peacemaker can expect.

When we ourselves are involved in a quarrel there will be pain of apologizing to the person we have injured.  Or in the case where we have been wronged there will be the pain of having to rebuke the person who has injured us.

And even if it’s somebody else’s problems we’re concerned with we can’t expect to be immune from pain.  I’d like to quote what Rev. John Stott says on this subject:

‘We may not be personally involved in a dispute, but may find ourselves struggling to reconcile to each other the people or groups who are estranged and at variance with each other.  In this case there will be the pain of listening, or ridding ourselves of prejudice, of striving sympathetically to understand both the opposing points of view, and of risking misunderstanding, ingratitude or failure.’ (p.51).

So you’ll notice that in all our peace-making efforts we’re closely following the example of Christ being meek, having a pure heart, being willing to suffer pain.

3.  And finally we come to the third point which is about peace in the world.

Let me begin by clearing up a misunderstanding.  ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ does not mean, ‘Blessed are the pacifists’.  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is not declaring a political manifesto.  He is not talking about the kingdoms of this world.  He is talking about the kingdom of heaven.  He is not addressing governments.  He is addressing His disciples and He is telling them how to live as citizens of His kingdom.  It is to his disciples that He says: ‘Do not resent an evil person, and if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also’ (5:39).  He is not saying this to the law courts.  He is not saying it to the civil authorities.  He is saying it to His disciples.

The Bible has quite a different message for our government and our law courts.  And that’s not in the Sermon on the Mount, but in Romans 13.  There the apostle Paul says that the ruler, the man in authority, ‘does not bear the sword for nothing.  He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoers.’ (vs.4).  And that sword that God has placed in his hand is not only to be used against the criminal within his borders, but it can also be taken up in defence against the foreign invader.

So Paul in Romans 13 is talking about the state, about society.  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is talking about Christian ethics, about the code of His kingdom.

And yet what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount is still very relevant for our world today.  You see, He’s getting to the root cause of all our problems.  He’s getting to the root cause of war.  It’s not a political problem or an economic problem.  It goes far deeper than that.  The problem lies in the human heart and that problem is sin.  The trouble is in the heart of man and until the heart of man is changed, you will never solve his problem by making manipulations on the surface.  You’re only treating the symptoms and not the disease.  That’s what Jesus is teaching and we’re all guilty.  The problem of war is not some academic problem that doesn’t touch us.  It’s the problem of every human heart.

Many years ago, I had a group of young people write a poem about peace.  There was a 16 year old girl who very sharply summed it all up in just a few words.  She called her poem ‘Peace is a Great Thing’ and it went like this:
            “There’s not much peace in this world today,
             So what can we do?  So what can we say?
             There’s hatred all over and war too,
             And the sad thing is it’s between me and you.’

And I don’t think these were the words of some disgruntled kid who hated the world.  Here’s someone who as young as she was had real insight into the problem.  It’s everyone’s problem, and it’s a problem of the heart.

Conclusion

As Christians we can and must make a contribution towards peace.  It is possible and we can do it.  Otherwise Jesus would never have said:

            ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’

But we still anxiously await the Prince of Peace to complete His work.  What He started at Calvary, He will complete on Judgement Day.  As Isaiah says:
            ‘He will judge between the nations
             and will settle disputes for many peoples.
             They will beat their swords into ploughshares
             and their spears into pruning hooks.
             Nation will not take up sword against nation,
             nor will they train for war anymore.’

Therefore: Come quickly, Lord Jesus!  Maranatha!

AMEN