Blessed Life - Part 3

Blessed are the peacemakers

Good morning. In 1943, C.S. Lewis wrote The Abolition of Man. That's not one of his more well-known works, or not one of the most more famous, but I think it's gonna prove to be one of his most important. He was concerned that there was a problem in the schools, culture, society, that it was producing men without chest. As he was alluding to a Greco-Roman idea, the chest was the place where virtue was understood to be, the place that determined value, to know what was right and wrong, what was good, to recognize what was true and good, to promote it and protect it. It's significant this was published in 1943 because, thinking about the context in which he's writing, Nazi Germany is pressing in on London and bombs are being dropped on the city. His society is being attacked and he's considering what kind of men were producing who would, well, fight for what's right, fight for what is good. He uses an anecdote in this book that points back to a grammar school book. And he recognizes there's a real subtle shift in the way that the students, the young children are starting to be taught. They're not being told the waterfall is sublime. They're told the waterfall makes them feel sublime. Now that might seem like a real subtle shift, and that's what makes it so deceptive and dangerous. You see that he's recognizing hear what we now call the shift from modernity to post-modernity, to use some nerdy language for you, but by the shift from recognizing what is true, right, good, and beautiful, and you can make a real judgment about it, to how I feel being what rules how I think. He's articulating a danger about this move towards expressive individualism that we now live in. He's recognizing this back in 1943 when it's just starting to seep into society, but, well, now we're swimming fully in the waters. The danger is your feelings rule how you think and what you determine is right, rather than making real judgments about real truth, real beauty, real goodness. The Western world is still trying to figure out what to do in the midst of this problem. Well, his concern is, what will a society be like if this is the way we make judgments? What will society be like when we don't have folks who really don't understand what virtue is, what goodness is? Well, this morning we're turning again to Matthew chapter five. And here our king has declared, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And what we just heard read, for the sermon text and the entirety of this sermon is helping us understand what is good, what is true, what is right, what is beautiful, so that we can be protected from how we feel and we can know what our King has truly said is right, good, and true. Our King is good to tell us the virtues we should be embracing, what truly is a virtuous life, What makes it all the more fantastic is that these are virtues that in our own thoughts and ideas we would not have listed as the most important virtues to begin with. Poor, mourning, meek, hungry, merciful, pure, peacemakers. This morning we're going to again hear from our king. What kind of citizens he saved us to be. What kind of citizens he's recreated us to be? What kind of citizens he blesses with great blessings of his kingdom? This morning, we're going to wrap up the attitudes. We're going to consider Jesus the King and what kind of kingdom he is building with us. There are great promises, if you look at the text. The characteristics are the first kind of thing you see there, with blessed are the poor and the mourning and the meek. Well, the promises are the kingdom of heaven, comforted, inheriting the earth, satisfied, receive mercy, see God, be called the sons of God. As more I've wrestled with this text, I mentioned in the first sermon on The, these be attitudes. I, I was looking at it as a three, one, three, one structure. There's, there's three that go together. This versus three to five. And there's one that stands out. It's kind of a hinge to the next three, seven to nine. And then there's one verse 10 blessed with the persecuted that is in stated three times. And I'm more convinced that that's the right structure. The three that begin are poor, mourning, and meek. There's an emptiness. There's a recognition. There's a sanity to one understanding who they truly are. And then the hunger directs them in the right place, the right solution, hungering for Christ, the righteous one and his righteousness. Those next three, we introduced the first two, merciful and pure in heart last week, but those next three are who we're supposed to be becoming, what kind of new way we're supposed to be living as God's merciful people, as God's pure people, as God's peacemakers. So 3131, well that last one is doubled down upon and really emphasized. Augustine says it's the completion of all the Beatitudes. It is the last one. There's a book ending. Notice verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There's a book ending. And he then explains further, blessed are you, verse 11. He personalized it. He's speaking now in the second person. He breaks the pattern of blessed are those, blessed are those. Blessed are you and They revile you and persecute you. And then the one command of the text, rejoice in persecution. There's something to the flow and the order of these. We're supposed to see how impoverished we are so that we hunger for Christ and we receive his mercy and that mercy makes us peacemakers. We hunger for that righteousness and that hunger for righteousness leads to being a peacemaker. And then we're persecuted for righteousness sake that we're hungering for. We see certain patterns moving. We will see some of these continued as we look at the rest of the sermon. We're going to look at only those last two, but four verses this morning.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This morning we're going to see blessed are the peacekeepers who belong to the family of God and are persecuted in a world that hates God. Blessed are the peacekeepers who belong to the family of God and are persecuted by the world who hates God. First, happy are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God, verse nine. I want to begin there with, for they shall be called sons of God. And that word there, called, that means you're identified as, you're declared to be, you're receiving a new name and identity. It's not you have a new nickname. This is now truly how God is going to call you. Similar to how God called Abraham a friend. That changes everything for Abraham. Here, though, it's more significant. You'll be called a son of God. You'll be called sons of God. There's a rich theological background to this, and I would love to walk through the entirety of the Old Testament, but God says to Israel, I carried you like a son through the exile. God treated Israel like a son, but not his son. God told David, one of your sons will be like to me a son, and I will be like to him a father. But the most significant background is just a couple chapters prior. When at the baptism of Jesus, a voice from heaven declares, this is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased. That is the background to appreciating and understanding how significant it is that we can be called sons of God. You see that the names father and son, those are mutually dependent names. You can't have a, you can't be a father without a son, a son without a father. Those are mutually dependent upon one another as relational names. God the Father has always been with his son. These are two eternal identities or persons in the Trinity. And the significance of this is we're adopted into a real pre-existing family of God. The sonship we receive already has significance in that God the Father has always loved God the Son. And we are being brought into that family to be treated and called and given all the benefits and privileges of being a son. It's not a generic adoption, it's being truly brought into the very family of God. This is tied to the fact that we can see God, that was last week, verse eight. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. That's renewing the right relationship we have with God. Adam lost that blessing he had to see God, wanting to see like him. Now we can come into the presence of God and see him because Christ has purified us and we're pursuing purity. But this one's going a little step further than just reconciled to be able to see him face to face. We know him in his fatherly love. There's a personal intimate communion that we can have being called sons of God. And sons here is tied to an inheritance. You can go back into verse five, for they shall inherit the earth. The earth was created through Christ, and the earth was created for Christ. And this, again, is all tied up in this being sons of God who will inherit with him. Now, the ladies of the church, you have to wrestle with being called a son of God here. We're not going to flatten this out and call it sons and daughters, because that would lose the power of it. Because a son, as Christ does, as the firstborn son, it means the lion's share of inheritance. For to flatten it out, we want to make sure you understand that it's you too, but we can't just erase the idea of sonship because that means the great inheritance of the son is yours. All right, you've got to wrestle being called a son of God. We've got to wrestle being called a bride of Christ. We're all going to do that together. It's a radical statement for an image bearer made in God's image, who's a female, to be given that right and privilege of sonship to know God in that personal way with that incredible inheritance. To be called a son of God means we know we belong to the family. I don't know how often you're in an unusual situation with an in-law or a family, or if you feel like you don't belong sometimes, but there's something wonderful about being welcomed into a new life of a new family. When we had guests once coming from out of country, I made the young man go open the refrigerator to make sure he knew he belonged and he has all the rights and privileges of someone who's staying in our home. You belong. The whole idea of seeing the face of God draws that Hebrews passage, enter boldly into the presence of God. This makes it even more personal. Enter boldly into the presence of your heavenly father who's adopted you, who longs to see you with his love. We can see how these three blessings build up from verses seven to nine. There's mercy. We receive mercy so that we can see God and then we see him in all of his love. There's a building up of receiving the kindness and forgiveness, seeing him personally with boldness because he's reconciled us, and then seeing him in his love. This relationship of sonship is built upon grace and love. The father loves us even while we are sinners and sent his son to die for us. Jesus died for us so that he can share his inheritance with us. And now the blessing of sonship means we become peacemakers. The blessing of being a child of God, a son of God means we are peacemakers. Let's look at these Verses 7 and 9, these three blessings. All right, verse 7, that makes sense. There's a clear tie. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. All right, those two clearly connect with merciful and mercy. But the next one, purity and seeing God, well, the connection there is God is pure. He's perfectly pure. So we can only see him when our eyes have been purified and we've pursued purity, when we're looking at his direction. Well, sonship and peace make it. The son of God has come to be about his father's business, and his father's business is to bring peace to the chaos of this world that we cause to be chaotic because of our son. A son does the work of the father. The son pleases the father. The son undoes all the curse and brings about righteousness and truth. That's why a son produces Peace. We're seeking to reflect the true God. So that rich theology of adoption, which we could go on and on about, but we need to make sure we understand what it means to be a peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Because we have been adopted, we are to be peacemakers. Peace. This word gets thrown out and around quite a bit. We hope for peace. We pray for peace. Peace is talked about throughout the world and that there's wars right now. We want peace between those different countries. We have a significant divided country. We hope there's peace among our own country. We hope there's peace within the church and that we're relating to one another well and reconciled. We hope for peace after a storm, especially the hurricanes that came through North Carolina. The world longs for peace. And there's a clear recognition it lacks peace. Peace, what is it? Man cannot make peace in his own strength. Reminds you of Kellogg Peace Pact of World War I. If you've forgotten about this, they outlawed war. Great job, guys. This is why we only eat General Mills products when we go home. The world wants peace and it can't make it. But this is where God has broken in. Heaven has come in to produce peace. If you go back to creation, there's peace there. Very important we understand this in light of creation. God made us and infused in creation peace. Man had peace with God. Man had peace with his neighbor, Eve. God had peace with creation. God had, man had peace with himself. Man had peace in all these different ways and we've lost it because of sin and God has come to bring it back. In Romans 8, Paul even speaks of how creation knows peace, remembers peace, groans for the peace that's been lost. The kingdom of God is one that receives the peace from God and promotes the peace of God. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's a kingdom that's supposed to be bringing righteousness in the midst of confusion. The kingdom of God is God's people rightly responding to God's rule, and that means peace. It isn't just a feeling. There's a human flourishing tied to peace. There's a goodness tied to peace. It fits, it works. It means no worries. There's happiness, fulfillment. Blessed are those who produce peace. They oftentimes say you are what you eat, but here you produce who you are. Have you received the peace of God? Have you received the adoption of God that brings a peace within so that you can then produce it around you? Again, this word blessed that controls all the beatitudes, the blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, Blessed are the peacemakers. That means happy and flourishing. And there's a way in which they're two words, but they have overlap. Happy are those who produce happiness. Blessed are those who are producing blessing. Flourishing are those who are helping others flourish. As we receive the grace of God, as we receive the blessing of God, we're producing the blessing of God. As we know Christ and his peace, we're seeking to be peacemakers. It means we make straight what is crooked, we heal what is broken, we comfort what is painful. But in order to be a peacemaker, you must first and foremost know Christ, who comes to preach the same message to us all, peace. And it's peace by his blood. We are an enemy with God because of our sin. He comes to put an end to the wrath of God by satisfying the wrath of God. He comes to forgive us and free us from the wrath of God. He comes to make us whole again. He comes to reconcile us to God so that we can see him and know him as father. And then we're able to extend that peace among ourselves. We cannot miss this. Seven, eight, and nine are a unit. In order to be a peacemaker, you must be merciful and pure. There's no making peace without mercy. There's no making peace without pursuing purity. These are necessary ingredients to peacemaking. Knowing how to apply mercy, assuming the best and hoping for the best and showing kindness and grace and forgiveness and purity, knowing what's true and right and good and seeking to align yourself with it. Now, Christian, I want to lean in on here, the mercy that allows for peace and the truth and the purity that allows for peace. And we need to make a distinction here between what a peacemaker is versus what I'm going to call a peacekeeper. Peacekeepers are passive. They're aware of problems but don't want to address them. They see leaky pipes and they just keep applying one more nice application of duct tape. They delay explosions. They never diffuse them. They're driven by fear and there's a cowardliness to it. They don't want to confront. They keep repeating, let love cover a multitude of sins without actually trying to solve sin or bring about a Christ solution to sin. Peacekeepers do not provide solutions or really peace. They simply try to keep things okay until it explodes. Peacemakers see problems and seek to make sure God's solution is applied the right way. They see this world as full of problems and that Christ is the solution and trying to wrestle with it if there's a matter of a lack of forgiveness, a problem of behavior. And there's a confrontation that says this is wrong and it's wrong because it breaks God's law. It's wrong because it is opposed to God and Christ can restore you and fulfill you and change you if you repent and believe. Peacemakers are confrontational and always invite backup to Christ. See, if you're only confrontational, you're kind of just a social justice warrior. You're just pointing out problems without any solutions. Whereas the peacemaker points out sin and applies the balm of Christ. He wants to make sure mercy and purity, grace and truth are presented. To try to contrast another way, between empathy and sympathy. Empathy says, I see you're in pain and I'm going to come and I'm just going to acknowledge your pain and try to feel the pain with you. Whereas sympathy says, I'm going to come alongside of you and try to help you out of this pain. And it might mean I need to make some judgment decisions on what that pain is and how to respond to it. Christian, we need to have some good self-evaluation. We all have different tendencies. Jesus Christ came full of grace and truth. One day we'll all be full of grace and truth, and until then, some of us are gonna lean towards grace and some of us are gonna lean towards truth. As a student of this body and as a student of humanity, everyone leans towards grace and some lean towards truth, and if you don't know which one you lean towards, ask someone close to you. The beauty of the church is we should be a people that are not all leaning towards grace and not all leaning towards truth, because that's just going to lead to a serious imbalance. But as the body of Christ, we should be able to apply God's grace and truth with wisdom together. A peacemaker knows how to apply God's mercy and truth, his grace and his truth. We need to make sure we understand what our tendencies are. We also need to know, most importantly, who we're called to become. by looking to the true son who is a perfect peacemaker. Christian, believer, member of Jefferson Park, every citizen of the kingdom is called to be a peacemaker. Very much like, and I think this is similar to being called to be a disciple. going and helping promote the peace of Christ in your life, at your work, in your relationships, by helping people understand the peace of Christ. But here's something very important. Peacemaker, peace, it's something easier caught than taught. I'm trying to teach you about peace, but really understanding peace is about knowing someone in their life, in their relationship, and being able to apply the balm of Christ when necessary, but there's a way in which it's caught in the way we relate to each other. Knowing God and His many blessings creates a certain kind of peace that then we seek to apply to every aspect of our lives. Merciful people promote peace by seeking to show the mercy of Christ. Pure people seek to promote peace by seeking to help people out of the chaos and practice of sin to repent. Another passage, rest of what it means to be a peacemaker, Well, you're making peace in the midst of problems, fights, and quarrels, so let's ask, what causes quarrels among us? James tells us. It's when our own passions war within us. So we need to know how to apply the balm of Christ that brings peace within, that washes and purifies and cleanses. Let me just read James 3.13.

Who is wise in understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast to be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly and spiritual and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, than peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

" If you just go back and meditate upon verse 17 there, you heard a number of the beatitudes mentioned there. risen from above, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, pure. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What a verse to consider in light of the text. Jesus, our King, came to make peace. He came to restore us to be a peaceful people as much as we remain the image of God to reflect His goodness and glory throughout creation, now we are restored to know the peace of Christ and shine it throughout all of creation. The most important thing you need to know peace and to promote it is the simple way of reconciliation, which means you know what it means to say I'm sorry, and I forgive you. That's by definition the reconciling peace. We're reconciled to God by saying I'm sorry and he says I forgive you. That is the most foundational element, what peace is. If you're a peacemaker, you're saying I'm sorry and I forgive you. If you're a peacemaker, you're saying I'm sorry and I forgive you. Those are the ingredients of reconciliation, and it's the most powerful tool you have to promote peace. Now, I like to have fun with a text, and one of the ways we try to have fun is to look at counterfactuals. How do I take this text, which is pretty clear? Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called sons of God. It's a blessing to be a peacemaker. Christ came to be peace. He sends us out to promote his peace. How does this relate to Matthew 10, 34, when Jesus himself says, I did not come to bring peace, but the sword? What follows is, I have come to turn parents against children, children against parents, husbands against wives, and so forth. These two texts are from the same Lord and Savior, and they are consistent in one truth. The peace we long for in this earth isn't going to happen. The peace we long for with God, he provides. The peace we have and the peace we make will lead to persecution. It will lead to things in this earth being divided. If you're a peacemaker of Christ and you are married to someone who hates Christ, there's gonna be division, pain, what Jesus calls a sword. If you're a child in a family and your parents are opposed to Christ and you're seeking to be a disciple, there's gonna be peace in that relationship, there's gonna be pain and trouble. It's important, there's a, peace that God provides and there's a people of peace that we're producing peace with each other and we're trying to live with others as much as depends upon us in peace but it isn't just peace all the time with everybody. There is danger which is why this passage ends in peacemaker and then the next one is really the most In your face, difficult blessing to think about. Blessed are the persecuted. All the other ones are counterintuitive. This one just boggles the mind, right? All right, mourn. I don't think anyone would have volunteered that one to be in there, but okay, we can see how what we've lost or the poor, and we can see all these things show us the gospel that we're empty and God fills us. but peacemakers will be persecuted. Jesus here is really clear to make sure we understand what he expects and what we should expect. Verses 10 to 12, blessed are the persecuted. I want you to hear there's three statements. They're all connected. They all flow from that number 10. It's really one beatitude with three statements now. So he's really emphasizing, this one he takes the time to explain more because of how important and difficult it is. Notice verse 10, it's in the same pattern of all the other blessings. Verse 11, it's in second person, blessed are you, it's much more personal. And then verse 12, the third sentence, rejoice and be glad.