Matthew chapter 5. And as we have been doing, as we've made our way through the Beatitudes, we'll read the first 12 verses once again of Matthew chapter 5. And if you remember last week, we'll focus again on verse 9 as we continue looking at Blessed are the peacemakers. Matthew chapter 5, again, beginning in verse 1, reading through verse 12. People of God, Again, you are reminded that this is the word of the living God. And so you are called and commanded to give heed and to hear the word of the Lord. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the 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 persecuted they the prophets who were before you. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord is forever. We'll take a little time this morning as we begin to remember where we were last week. Last week we learned that as Christians, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we have an obligation, a responsibility to be peacemakers. And that responsibility isn't a passive one, but rather an active one, that we have the calling upon us to seek and to pursue peace. Last week we looked at the fact that we have an obligation and a calling upon us to pursue peace with those whom we have personal conflict with. We understand that we are not permitted to harbor bitterness and resentment within us or just to simply let conflict go and avoid it because we don't like conflict, but rather we have an obligation insofar as we are able to pursue peace, to seek to be reconciled with those with whom we have conflict. Well, this morning we'll continue looking at that obligation we have to pursue peace, but we'll shift from our own personal interactions, our conflict with others, to what we are to do in terms of pursuing peace with parties outside of ourselves, when we know that there are people who are in conflict with one another in the church, or how are we supposed to do that, or are we supposed to do that? Likewise, we'll look what it means to be peacemakers in terms of pursuing peace in the broader world in which we live as we move outside of the church and the church family and into the world as a whole. And as we'll do so, we'll learn that the call remains the same. That last week, just as we are as individuals called to be peacemakers in terms of our own interpersonal relationships, so also are disciples of Christ called to be peacemakers both in the church at large, even when the conflict isn't ours personally, but in the world as well. And so we'll follow along those two lines this morning. First, we'll look at what it means to pursue peacemaking in the church. And then secondly, we'll look at what it means to pursue peacemaking in the world at large. So then turning to that first element of the sermon this morning, peacemaking in the church. Before we begin the idea of what it looks like to make peace, or rather how we should go about seeking to make peace between other people who will find themselves caught up in conflict, we have to make sure that we understand the foundational principles that prepare us for peacemaking. Because the reality is, as I talk about the idea that we ought to be working to pursue peace between people outside of our own relationships, many of you probably feel a bit of a recoil at that. The idea of you don't want to meddle, you don't want to get into other people's businesses, so you'd rather just leave that alone and sort of let them work it out for themselves. But the fact is, as Christians, we don't really have that freedom to simply allow conflict to exist without in the proper spirit and through depending upon wisdom to find a way to take apparent disunity and see unity born out of the reconciliatory process. because it's foundational for us to understand that we are a church community that has a responsibility to seek and pursue that persistent unity within the church itself. And it begins with understanding and embracing the purpose of the body of Christ and our common pursuit. It's something that we've investigated before, but that we ought to always be bringing our minds back to. Because living in the age in which we live and in the land in which we live, whether it's subconsciously or purposefully, we have an individualistic mentality that needs to be put to death. The idea that the Christian faith is our own, that we pursue more on the individual level while we're less concerned about how that works out in the body at large, and about our responsibility in terms of seeing unity in the body of Christ at large. We come to Ephesians chapter 4. We read the first four verses there. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Note verse three, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. The idea there that the Apostle Paul is getting through, in which all of chapter four carries out, is this idea of walking worthy together. The problem that we have is when we come to verse one and we see that idea of walking worthy of the calling by which we are called, we immediately take that and drive that into the individual sphere. And I think to myself, well, I need to walk worthy of the calling. by which I have been called. And that's true. As individuals, we do have that obligation to pursue the life of faith. But notice the context here. He's not leaving it in the individual sphere, is he? He broadens it out and seeks and appeals to this body of believers on the basis of their common unity in the gospel so that all together they might walk worthy of the calling by which they have been called with humility and gentleness and patience and bearing with one another in love. If we are walking individually, then why do we have to bear with anyone in love? It's not bear with yourself in love, is it? It's bear with one another in love. And we are to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." In other words, as a body of believers we are to have an eagerness to come together, be united in our common pursuit of the life of faith, and seek to ensure that we as a body are characterized by the same peace that characterizes our relationship with God. Remember, this is the gospel of peace, the gospel of reconciliation. God reconciling men and women and boys and girls to himself, removing the enmity that exists because of sin and making enemies into sons and daughters. And that same peace that we experience with God is the peace that should characterize our common relationship with one another as a body, not as dismembered pieces of bodies floating around without any real relationship to each other. So we have to understand that as a body, we have the common purpose to see that we all are embracing unity and peace and that we are working together to ensure that all of us, growing up together as the rest of chapter four states, into our head, into Jesus Christ. There's no more individual pursuit of the faith without due and full consideration for the body if we are to be peacemakers and properly understand our duty and our obligation to be peacemakers outside of our own interpersonal individual conflicts. Along with that foundational principle is understanding the communal nature of the faith and the need to be involved in that community, we also have to have the necessary traits for peacemaking. You notice how Paul talks about that in verse two, with humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. If you remember Philippians chapter two, right, when he's calling those people to be like-minded and once again calling them to be lowly of mind, to be meek. to not be so concerned with their own things that they don't understand or know or pursue the well-being of others as well. In other words, we see Paul carrying into the actual life of churches after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ the truth of the Beatitudes that we're already seeing, right? Humbleness, patience, gentleness, lowliness of mind, have we not already seen that in the Beatitudes that we've found listed already, that we've already covered? Poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, the pursuit of righteousness, right? Mercy, purity of heart, all of these things. or what ought to characterize us as believers so that in that proper frame of mind, with those necessary dispositions, we can pursue our common peace and pursue common unity. Those are the foundational principles for peacemaking and understanding and engagement with communal life in the proper disposition, with the proper frame of mind, with the proper attitudes that have already been laid out before us. And then understanding that, understanding those essential principles and really folding up into them, we recognize then our obligation to pursue corporate peace. We've already seen that in Ephesians four verses one through three, right? We don't walk alone. And even our individual walks should have peace and unity in the growth of the church in mind. Let me put something before you, saints. For many of you, if not all of you, when you think of your individual walk of faith, you think purely in the terms of making sure that you are walking right before God, that you are living righteously in the power of the Holy Spirit, and that's a good and a right thing. But how often have you thought about, because you walk the way that you ought to walk, because you're striving to walk this way, that's beneficial for the body as a whole as well? that you're not doing it just to develop a deeper personal relationship with God, but to ensure that the body of Christ, through its individual components, is developing a deeper relationship with God, and as a body looking like the community that God is creating, looking like the people that He has created to declare His praise. Your walk as an individual is about so much more than just you. It's about everyone who is your brother and sister gathered here today and even not with us in that local community. We strive to be righteous for ourselves in terms of our relationship with God, but we should be striving to be righteous for the betterment of the body as well. We have an obligation to do that. In Romans 4, verses 17-19, we won't turn there, but the Apostle Paul again continues to drive that point home when he tells these people that they are to pursue the things which make for peace. and which edify and lift up. If you read Romans 14, you should know what that context is. It's the idea that we as human beings within dwelling sin, we get opinions into our mind that we attach more significance, more theological weight to than we ought to, right? That we attach a command to something that's not really a command and we take our opinions of what ought to be and turn them into what God says they ought to be. And division arises when we do that. And Paul is telling the believers in the Roman church, he's telling them that in those things that are outside of what God is requiring of us, those things indifferent. where it's okay if you do A or okay if you do B, we shouldn't allow those things to bring disunity and division within us. And he concludes that with the idea of pursue peace, rather than pursuing that your own opinions and your own ideas be what drives the entire assembly, pursue those things which tend to peace, right? pursue those things which tend to edify. In other words, the church working together in humility has as its goal that which continues to foster unity, to foster peace, to edify, and puts aside those things which cause division, where division isn't needed, where division is sinful. Colossians 3 verses 12 through 15. Paul tells the Colossian believers that they are called to peace. that they're a united body of the reconciled, right? That's who we all are. We are all those who have been reconciled and made at peace with God. We've been called to peace in Jesus Christ and we're called to peace with one another. Remember that idea of the sons of God, right? Reflecting who they are as the children of God. God is the God of peace and as his children, we're called to be peaceful and to pursue peace as he does. The obligation to pursue corporate peace lies heavily upon the body of Christ and should be one of the defining characteristics of every local assembly of the body of Christ and of the church at large. And it's a sad thing when the church is known more for division, known more for conflict, known more for their inability to resolve and to reconcile disunity than they are for the pursuit of peace, when they don't look like the God they claim to serve. Brothers and sisters, we cannot let conflict go unaddressed. We have an obligation to pursue unity and peace individually and as a body. To see that in action, we can turn to the Epistle to the Philippians, chapter four of Philippians. In the first few verses, we read this. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yet I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. What's happening here in Philippians chapter 4? It's the very real outworking of what Paul has repeated over and over again in Romans, in Ephesians, in Colossians, in the former part of Philippians. You have these two women who have labored for the gospel. They're very clearly sisters in Jesus Christ, but there's a conflict between them. There's a disunity. And notice what Paul doesn't stop with. He doesn't just stop with saying, I beseech you two sisters. to be united, to overcome your conflict. Notice what he does as far as the church is considered. He tells the church to come alongside them and to help them resolve the conflict that they find themselves embroiled in. Church is to come alongside and to foster peace between those within the body that find themselves roiled in some sort of conflict, that need to be reconciled, that need to be restored to right relationship. In other words, it's not just us passively living in such a way that fosters peace, which is indeed something that we ought to be doing, it's us also actively seeking to help others live in the same way with one another, that active component that continues to be the refrain of this particular beatitude. the active pursuit of peace between warring factions and members in the church. Of course, the question is, is how do we do that? It's all well and good to know that indeed we ought to be peacemakers. We ought to actively seeking to mediate and to reconcile those who are in conflict with one another. But once we recognize that, the question becomes, well, how do we do this? I imagine in sermon discussion later, we'll get even more in depth into that idea of, well, how do we do this in these particular circumstances? Well, as we work through the Sermon on the Mount, we'll see more and more examples of what this actually looks like. So let me give you some general principles now, and trust that as we work through the rest of chapter five, six, and seven, we'll continue to see this idea fleshed out. The first how-to is the responsibility of the church to begin to cultivate an openness in order that we might be peacemakers. In other words, when we think of the church and we think of conflict and the idea of conflict resolution, we need to be honest about where we are. For the most part, we're closed off, aren't we? We don't want people to help us, and we don't want to get engaged in someone else's conflict, for whatever reason it may happen to be, to the point that we feel uncomfortable if we see fellow believers caught up in a lack of peace, uncomfortable to go up and to find out whether or not there's anything that we can do, uncomfortable in offering advice. We don't want to transgress their boundaries, and we surely don't want other people to transgress ours. We like to put up our little bubbles around ourselves and we engage in our nice superficial relationships as long as those bubbles keep us suitably apart from one another and no one can really get beyond that personal boundary, right? A church that rather than being as open as this tent is in which you all sit, we are so often so closed off. so unwilling to let anybody come inside. And if that's the case, how can we ever expect to pursue peace as a body when no one's willing to engage at the level necessary in order to make peace? It begins understanding the nature of the church. but essentially this is an extended family. You can look around and you are surrounded by your spiritual grandfathers and grandmothers and aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters. That's the way you're supposed to view this body. You are to be just as close as your flesh and blood family is in terms of your love for one another, your concern for one another. How many here, parents, If your children are at war with one another, are content to let that go because really you don't want to get involved, hopefully none of you are like that. Right? parents and children? How many of you, when in the older stages of parenthood and when you're getting into that adult phase of your growth as the child of your parents and you find yourselves banging heads, how many of you are fine with when a rift develops for whatever reason, just letting that be and letting it lie there because you don't want to deal with it? Because you don't want them transgressing your boundaries and you don't want to transgress theirs. So we're just going to go ahead and let this conflict sit. Hopefully none of you. The same idea applies here in this body. That so much do we love one another and so much do we know one another and care for one another that we can't just let it sit. And it wounds us if we do. to cultivate that culture of openness, being open to being corrected and being willing to correct others as our obligation is. Secondly, it means a refusal to countenance slander or gossip or ill-speaking from one member of the body to you about another member of the body. It's to refuse to become that sounding board for people to unload their frustrations at other members of the church as opposed to their actually going and dealing with whatever that conflict may happen to be. Peacemaking says to that, that you need to stop and you need to go and you need to be reconciled to whoever is causing all of this frustration. Right? Rather than letting bitterness reside and dwell and being the source of fostering bitterness in others. When people come to us with that slander, with that gossip, with that ill speaking, rather than listening to it and allowing it to continue to go on and doing nothing to address it at all, we need to point them to their need to reconcile. to seek peace, to restore relationship. We need to point them to the gospel itself. Remember who you are. You are one who's been reconciled to God. The enmity has been removed because of God's work of peace in Christ. You need to live that reality out in your relationship with the one you have conflict with. Saints, if you would pursue peace, don't allow other people to use you as a means to allow conflict to persist. Point them in the right direction to peace and reconciliation. Thirdly, be willing to be a mediator if necessary. Oftentimes when that happens, it's because one or both parties have a trust in you, for better or for worse, right? And so thus we have what we would call some relational capital, to use that terminology, though I'm sure that might rankle some. The idea that you've built up a rapport, there's a friendship there, there's personal relationship that's built up that's allowed you to be in that, or rather put you in that position, as much as allowed. And so you might be in a position to be a mediator then. to bring the two together and to help them to work through their particular problems, to apply biblical principles so that one or both parties might be able to see their fault and work through those issues biblically. Not just being content with saying, hey, you shouldn't be talking about that person, go and pursue peace, but adding to that, and let me help you do it. Right? And let me help you do it. And then finally, seek the advice of the elders. Those situations sometimes can spiral well beyond what you're capable of dealing with, right? Seek the help of the elders. Come to them, seek their advice, get them engaged in the conflict so that they might use their God-given gifts in order to foster reconciliation and restoration. It doesn't mean that we're turning the church into a version of the NSA in which we are constantly looking for ways in which there might be some sort of conflict. It's talking about clear conflict. It's talking about clear lack of peace. And we need to seek reconciliation and be instrumental in people seeking reconciliation and restoration. We are to be peacemakers in the church. Likewise, just as we are to be peacemakers in the Church, we are to be peacemakers in the world. Right? We have a calling to be peacemakers in the world, beginning with the fact that we have a calling to live peaceably in the world, pursuing peace by not being the source of conflict ourselves, by not being the source of contention, by not living in such a way to cause that sort of contention. Romans 12.18 tells us that we are to, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. We have an obligation to live in such a way that what we are carrying through in the body of Christ works its way out into the world in which we live. It's not okay for us to seek unity and peace inside the body and then to live openly hostile to those outside of it. But the same dispositions, the same attitudes are to characterize our relationship with those outside the church as well. The same humility, the same meekness, the same mercy, the same sincerity, all of that is supposed to permeate the whole of your life and carry with you everywhere you go, inside or outside the body of Christ. peaceably as much as it depends upon you. You can't determine what other people do. Live peaceably before all and with all. It's the same idea that we read this morning in 1 Peter chapter 3, right? as He's calling those believers to live those righteous lives, to live those peaceable lives that show forth the truth of the Gospel. So that the world, when it looks at us, has no right reason to cause shame to fall upon us. It might revile us for our good. They might despise us for our pursuit of righteousness, but that's okay. What we shouldn't suffer for is because we're just a bunch of jerks who cause problems everywhere we go. On the contrary, we're to live peaceable lives in the world, just as we live within the church and pursue peace in the world, just as we pursue it in the church. But the reason that we do that isn't just so we can live comfortably peaceful lives. Rather, we need to understand something that that passive living out the peace of the gospel in the world should provide us with and will provide us with the opportunity to actively seek peace in the world. And the primary way that we are looking to find peace in the world is through the gospel of peace. You live peaceably that people might see your God of peace and inquire about that God. Peter gets into that. He talks about that as you're living that peaceable life, as you're living that good, quiet, godly life, and people look at you, And they begin to ask and inquire about the hope that lies within you. You should be ready to give an argument, a reason why you can live with and in that peace. Because ultimately you're seeking so much more than your peace with them. You are seeking their peace with God. The primary, we're peacemakers in the world, is spreading the gospel of reconciliation so that those who are lost and dying, those who are the enemies of God, might be made at peace with Him, might be called His sons and daughters, just as we are called His sons and daughters. And the way you live, saints, The way you live is a chief end to put you in the position to declare that gospel of peace and reconciliation. So no, it's not about our own comfort. We're not looking to be peacemakers in the world and to live in a peaceable way in the world so that we're not having to deal with the difficulties of conflict, but because we want people to have the ultimate peace. when they cease to be at enmity and at war with God, and become citizens of His kingdom, just as we have experienced. I put before you, saints, that you have an obligation as a peacemaker in the world in which you live to be about the gospel of Jesus Christ, living it and proclaiming it, so that lost humanity might be reconciled to God. Saints, we are called to be peacemakers. We're called to be peacemakers in terms of our individual interpersonal relationships. We're called to be peacemakers in the Church, striving for and eager even for that bond of unity in the Spirit. We're called to be peacemakers in the world, calling people to peace. in reconciliation with God. So as we close this morning, let me ask you the question, are you pursuing peace? Is seeking peace and pursuing it a defining characteristic of who you are because it ought to be? Because it's part and parcel with being a child of God. being recreated in his image so that you look like your God. Are you pursuing peace with one another? It's time to put to death the excuses that keep us from doing what we clearly know we ought to do. There's some of you here today who are thinking to themselves, but I don't want to. I don't want to. For whatever reason it may be, I don't want to. Saints, if that's your disposition, then at this point in time your obligation is to repent, to get back to that very first beatitude, and recognize that not wanting to shows how utterly spiritually impoverished you are, leading you then to mourning over the fact that you don't want to look like your God. and grieving over that and crying out to Him that He might lift you out of that disposition. And then in gentleness and meekness, in the pursuit of righteousness with mercy and sincerity of heart, pursue peace with those with whom you are in conflict. I don't want to is the worst excuse that could exist and it needs to go away. Some of you are thinking to yourselves that others should make peace with me. But we've already seen today and last week that peacemaking isn't the passive receipt of others' attempts to make peace with you. It's your active pursuit of it. We don't wait for others to come and make peace with us. We go and we make peace with them. The Beatitude puts its obligations squarely on our shoulders, not on the other party's shoulders. That we are to go and pursue peace. That we are to seek peace and pursue it. We'll see it when we get into the Sermon on the Mount. A very real application of this principle. Don't wait. Stop waiting. If God had waited for us to come and seek peace with him, we'd all be dying and going to hell. Stop waiting and do what you're called to do. The obligation rests on you as much as it does the other party. For some of you, the excuse is fear. You're afraid you'll be hurt because you've been hurt before. You're afraid of whatever it may happen to be. A saint's fear is no excuse to disobey God. Yes, it may well hurt because you can't control what other people do, and as you seek to pursue that peace, they may well rebuff your efforts. That's a real possibility. They might want nothing to do with it. But that's on them, right? For you, it's to overcome the fear of what may happen and just be obedient to your God. Skepticism for some of you. Well, peace isn't really going to be attained here, so why even bother? I'm skeptical that we'll actually have any reconciliation, or I'm skeptical that these two parties are ever going to be reconciled, or I'm skeptical that any lost person is ever going to listen to me proclaim the gospel of peace, so I'm just not gonna do it. You get two problems there, don't you? One, depending or relying too much or focusing too much on the fallen nature of man and not enough on the power of God to actually achieve his ends. Basically, what you're saying when you're skeptical is that, well, yeah, God calls us to do all of these things, but He doesn't actually add any power to it. So there's no real point because God's not going to do anything with it anyway, never mind that He called me to do it. Right? You're saying something about God when you're saying, well, I really don't think this will work, so I'm not going to do it. Right? Finally, what about just pure laziness? Indifference and apathy. I know I need to do this. I feel the prick of conscience to go and to make peace. I know that I've sat here and listened too much to the slander and the gossip of these parties. I know that I haven't really tried to offer up any reconciliation between God and men with my unsaved friends and coworkers. That's because, you know, it's too much effort. It's too much effort, right? Brothers and sisters, it wasn't too much effort for God to send his Son. It wasn't too much effort for Jesus Christ to empty himself and to be clothed in the flesh of a servant. Wasn't too much effort for Him to live a life of rejection. Wasn't too much effort for Him to see what we do Him doing in the Gospels in order to procure redemption for all humanity. It wasn't too much effort for Him to be hung on the cross. It wasn't too much effort for Him to be risen from the grave. It wasn't too much effort for Him even now to be interceding on our behalf. And if it's not too much effort for Him, As those created in His image, it shouldn't be too much effort for us. Saints, we are called to be peacemakers. Let's be about the business of seeking and pursuing peace.