Be a Peacemaker
Matthew 5:9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
What do we mean by peace? How do we see it as God sees it? Some people think that peace is the absence of conflict, that peace is the absence of strife. Well, there’s no strife and there’s no conflict in a cemetery, but we can hardly use a cemetery as a model of peace. No, peace as God sees it is far more than the absence of something, it is the presence of something.
Peace is not just stopping the war; peace is creating the righteousness that brings the two parties together in love. Peace is never sought at the expense of righteousness. In other words, if two people are fighting, it’s because there’s sin. Eliminate the sin, the fight’s over. If two people are fighting, you just separate the people, that does nothing. If something’s between you and God and you’re at war with God, what must happen is the removal of what has come between you, which is sin, and God and man can come together.
Peace must be made. Peace never happens by chance. That is why Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. He came to reconcile God and man. He came to remove the barrier of sin by paying the price for us so that we can have peace with God.
Only after we have peace with God can we become a true peacemaker. This Sunday we are going to look at what Jesus means by calling Christians to be peacemakers and how we do it. This is going to be one of the most powerful truths of this whole series because our world doesn’t have peace. It is not capable of having peace because of sin. When God’s people become true peacemakers, it will change the world. You don’t want to miss this one!
