When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and
after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to
teach them, saying…Matthew 5:1-2
The eight sermons from the Beatitudes
display the development of Christian character as each beatitude leads to the
next. The logical flow of these
teachings should display the journey we make to become disciples of Christ in
the way we live our lives. Yesterday’s Beatitude was Blessed are the pure in heart.
Today we look at:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of
God. Matthew 5:9
We live in a
world torn apart with strife. The
absence of peace is not just related to nations. Life is relationships and
there is no place Satan can bring greater chaos in our lives than in the
destruction of relationships at all levels.
Political, personal, public or private strife destroys peace. We need
peace. It is the cry from every corner. Everyone talks of peace and longs
for peace, but few have found the secret of it.
God is a
peace-loving God, and a peace-making God. We can do nothing more God-like than
bring peace to those who are separated from God and others. The whole history of redemption, climaxing in
the death and resurrection of Jesus, is God's strategy to bring about a just
and lasting peace between sinful man and Himself, between man and man and also
within man. Jesus is the Prince of Peace who came to bring peace
on earth. As children of God, we should
have the character of God to pass on to others.
We should love what He loves and we should pursue what He pursues. He wants peace for us and wants us to model
and help spread peace for a hurting world.
Peacemakers:
- Seek solutions - not
arguments
- Calm the waters - not
stir them up
- Lower their voices
rather than raise them
- Generate more light than
heat
Peace does not mean the absence of conflict but the
absence of strife. There will be conflict in life. That’s a given. But as Christians God wants us to handle
ourselves differently than the rest of the world. …for they shall be called sons of
God… As Children of God, we should look and act like God’s
family. We should strive to resemble our
roots. When God’s love, compassion, and
peacefulness pour into our lives, we can overflow to others.
