The Village Church is currently in the middle of a series on the be-attitudes from the Gospel of Matthew chapter five called "Blessed : From the Inside Out"
As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been encouraged to be more spiritually and practically disciplined. So today I've decide to reflect on the focal text for this upcoming Sunday's sermon. Essentially I'm prepping a sermon. After studying this is what I would want someone to know about themselves, and about God, from this verse. I don't know what direction my pastor will be led to take this text, this is in no way a substitution, just an attempt to be a better teacher and student, even if only to the children in my home. Here are some thoughts that I have taken away so far...
Matthew 5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."
My big take away from the study of this verse is that "Heirs with Christ are, led by the spirit, to seek peace with all, by the life and power of the one who gave all, that we may have ultimate peace with the one who made all. "
This is my nifty concise way to say that because Christ lived in perfect peace and obedience with God the father, we can now have peace with God the Father. Peace that was disrupted and obliterated by our own sin and our own disobedience. Now, free from that sin, we can seek to make peace with all others in creation where peace still no longer exist, inviting others to join us with Christ as brothers and sisters.
Let me hopefully explain how I got there. The text breaks down, for me, in three parts. "Peacemakers", "shall be called", and "sons of God." When I started cross-referencing these parts in my study bible it led me to James 3:13-18, 1st John 3:1-24 & Romans 5:1-11.
Fortunately none of these phrases are rare through scripture, and in these verses, as well as many others, we begin to see a full picture of what Jesus may of had in mind.
I read through these passages and then begin to ask three questions that Tim Keller says should be asked in every sermon. (I'm paraphrasing the questions a bit)
Question 1. What is God telling us to do?
Simple enough, he's telling us to be peacemakers! But why is he telling us this? Obviously, from God's perspective (the only perspective that matters), peace is broken or even lost and needs to be made again to fill its void.
When God evaluates all of his creation he looks down and sees no peace. So what is God talking about when he talks about peace? Well he's not just talking about any peace, but a perfect peace, more than just a mere end to conflict. I mean we are talking about God and he wouldn't settle for anything less than perfect.The bible is as helpful here, as it is just as helpful anywhere. It shows us what this looks like; we had perfect peace in the beginning, and will have perfect peace in the promise of the coming kingdom. Now somewhere between the begining and the end, perfect peace was broken.
We are told through the narrative in Genesis that we once lived in peace with God, we walked through the garden like a friend, or even better like sons and daughters. Everything was "good" God even proclaimed it to be so. We read in revelation that peace will return again forever once Jesus returns to reign as king.
This perfect peace has three dimensions that we need to be aware of. We lived in perfect harmony with God, in harmony with each other as seen through Adam and Eve as husband and wife, and with the whole of creation and nature through careful and loving stewardship. Peace with God, with men and with creation. Peace, once broken among our relationship with God, our relationships with each other, and with the rest of creation began to swiftly crumble.
Question 2. How do we mess this up?
We disobey God's instruction and sin, this was not only true for our first parents, but true for us today. From then on we became wise in our own eyes and vainly began to seek how to restore peace by ourselves, and apart from God. The effects of sin on this peace are complete and evident in all of culture, in all societies, and through all of history. We don't have peace with God, we don't have peace with each other, we don't have peace with nature and if truth be told we all feel this loss of peace deep within ourselves.
James 3:13-17 helps to show us the difference...
James 3:13-17 ESV
"Who is wise and 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 and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere."
Take note that trying to find peace by our own wisdom instead of the wisdom from above leads to "bitter jealousy... selfish ambition" it is "earthly, unspiritual, demonic" it produces "disorder and every vile practice", this should read to us as: produces more and more sin.
Doesn't this sound like the world we live and the relationships you have? Think about it, you may not use these exact terms, but even in your best and most healthy relationships I bet there is some disorder, some sin. Have you ever thought that your spouse was being selfish? Do you get upset when your children refuse to listen and ruin your plans? All of this is the result of our loss of peace with God. Let's look back at Genesis for a bit.
Adam and Eve sin against God, they attempt to make right by covering their nakedness. God confronts them, and instead of turning to him they try to reestablish peace by turning against each other with blame. Their sons have some strife and one thinks the best solution to end this strife is to get angry and kill the other!
It only gets worse from their. See how these family fights lead to wars against nations?
We try, without success to restore the peace. Environmentalism, psychology, counseling, self-help are all efforts to "make peace"! All ultimately fail because, even though they are not all bad, they are not sufficient enough to handle the scope of our broken peace. At best the can only offer help to one aspect a time. For example, environmentalism seeks to restore peace with nature, but not peace with each other, or peace with yourself, and definitely not peace with God.
May I suggest a different approach. Instead of handling the fallout, let us go back to when and where and to whom peace was broken originally and seek to restore peace there. The narrative of Genesis is yet again helpful. Again, peace is broken with God, then husband and wife, the with their children and shortly from that brokenness, nation vs nation, the whole creative order is out of whack. We can strive for peace with the world, but without peace with God we are still lost.
Let me try and string question 2 together. We, in our sin, have lost peace with God, We try to restore this peace with efforts to manage the brokenness in the areas of life affected by this loss of peace. When in reality we need to go back to the one who peace was first lost with.
Well then, how do we have peace with God? The answer that is always the answer, is Jesus.
Question 3. How does Jesus fix this?
Here it is best to let the bible speak for itself.
"Romans 5:1-11 ESV
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."
You should probably just read all of Romans 5, or better yet all of Romans, but verse 1-11 make the point.
Here's what you need to understand from this text concerning peacemaking.
-Because of sin there is no longer peace between us and God, here it says that we are his enemies. (As a side note, we are his enemies, he is not our enemy, don't flip this.)
-The way to restore the peace is perfect sinless obedience, but as the text points out, we are too weak to do this on our own.
-So Jesus on your behalf, inspite of yourself, "while we were yet sinners" died for you as a sacrifice in your place.
His death gives you access, but it's what he did before his death that gives you acceptance.
-His perfect, sinless, obedient life is given to you over your imperfect, sinful, disobedient life, and sealed but his blood marking the new covenant. His perfect life gives you acceptance!
-Placing our hope in Jesus for this peace with God we receive new identities as children of God, as evidence by our character that is the fruit of regenerated hearts. Out of these new identities as sons and daughters we can seek to make peace in all areas of life, as we await for the return of our king.
Peace with God is now restored! Praise God! We no longer are subjected to futility, now our attempts to "make peace" are no longer in vain, because peace with the person that peace was first destroyed had been restored!
So what does this mean? We have peace with God but we still live inbetween the two bookends of perfect peace.
Here is what I think the practical implications are.
1.With peace with God restored through Christ you can rest knowing that peace will stay restored. Nothing will ever break it again, when Christ saves someone, he never loses anyone.This is the founding hope for all future peace.
2.If peace with the God of the universe has been made, then peace with your neighbor is possible. I won't say it's easy, but compared to restoring peace with the creator of all things, it is. It is still difficult, and I'm sure that in some cases it may never happen. However, we are free to pursue peace with all, because Christ gave all that we may have peace with the one who made all.
3.We can pursue making peace in all other relationships with confidence and humility. Confidence that Christ is the king of peace and thus reigns over peace, and humility that he has given it to us when we least deserved it, that we might make it with others.
I think there is more, actually much more, but this is sufficient to get us started as peacemakers. God has given us a lofty task to make peace, but he, through Christ, has neither left us alone or made us unable. He is with us as we seek to make peace.
Who do you need to make peace with? Where do you need to have peace?
Make peace with God, then make peace with your neighbor. It starts on the inside, peace overflows from the heart that has been given peace with God. Now that we have been reconciled we can now offer reconciliation to others, from the inside out.
