Blessed are the peacemakers Matthew 5:9 (John 16:31-33)

Blessed are the peacemakers Matthew 5:9 (John 16:31-33)

Peace, what is it? The people who listened to Jesus on the hillside needed peace. Like most people they would be happy if those fighting to gain power would just leave them alone. The Romans, Herod, religious leaders, and gangs all fighting for power, and who gets hurt? The average people who want to run their shops, farm their fields and raise their family.

The same thing is going on today. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Detroit, Chicago, even the Twin Cities, people like you and I desire peace. We want to work, raise our family, and pursue some happiness. But because of that sinful nature each person is born with peace in any form is hard work. Along with the sinful nature is the fact that we have no idea of what to do to bring about peace.

Luke 19:41-44 “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.   For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.””

While we are called to be peace makers we are also called to defend the helpless, things that will bring us into conflict, even war.

Zechariah 8:16&17 “These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace;  do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.””

Jeremiah 22: 3 “Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.”

Yet Jesus told us in our passage that in Him we will have peace, and 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. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” 

How can we live in a world of conflict, tribulation, and yet Jesus says He gave us peace? As Jesus wept for Jerusalem “if only you knew the things that make for peace”. Jesus must be talking about a different kind of peace. The peace He gives is “not as the world gives” it is peace with your father in heaven. This is the peace Jesus gives and it is the peace we are to make in the world. We are to be peace makers. To bring people first and foremost peace with their creator.

How can we call people to change their hateful ways with each other if God does not change the sinful nature within them.

The sinful person.
The only way to transform the world is to transform the person.

Have I been a peace maker? Have I been bringing people to peace with God? How have you been bringing people to peace with God? How has our church been bringing people to peace with God?

The people of God are to be peace makers, and their reward will be that they will be called the Son’s of God