Jesus is famous for many things, and one of the things He’s famous for is calming the storm. He does it several times. Once when he walks on the water and gets into the boat that the disciples were in and then the raging storm quiets down. Another time he was fast asleep in the boat while the sea was furiously tossing the little boat with him and his disciples. After they woke him up he looked out at the storm and famously rebuked the weather and instant calm came over the sea and the sky.
Our verse has to do with peacemakers. Jesus made peace you could say in the middle of that storm. Like Jesus, we who follow him are to work to create peaceful conditions in the sea of our fellowship. Instead of stirring up storms we should be bringing calm, harmony, and peace.
REVIEW
Peacemakers are people who produce a greater peace in the groups they’re part of. They take up the responsibility of making relationships more peaceful. This is based on important theology like God’s righteousness is peace-producing and God Himself is a peacemaker, whereas Satan is the anti-peace, division-causing “fomenter of hostility.” We then began to explore practical guidance for being a peacemaker as a Christian. This week we want to offer 5 more practical tips and then finish with what it means to be a child of God as Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.”
HOW TO BE A PEACEMAKER
Last week we covered three: 1) Be personally committed to peace, 2) Be willing to help others come into peaceful harmony, and 3) Don’t try to solve everyone’s problems. This week we cover 5 more, and finish with being children of God.
- BE A PEACEMAKER BY GOING TO SOMEONE YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH. Matthew 18 says “If your brother has sinned against you to go to them.” Unresolved issues with people are peace thieves. We have to address issues, and we have to do it in a godly, patient, loving way. Notice what Jesus says in Matthew 18:15, “If someone has sinned against you to go to them,” and then it says, “if they listen to you then you have won them over.” Won them. The goal is to win them over, not revenge, not rubbing their nose in it, not winning the argument – but winning your brother and friend. There’s a difference.
Notice specifically again in that verse it says *you* go to someone. Being a peacemaker means you go to someone with whom you have an issue. It is common in churches for people to try and weaponize the pastor or an elder or a Deacon against someone.
- IF YOU WON’T ADDRESS AN ISSUE WITH SOMEONE THEN THE ONLY OTHER OPTION IS TO FORGET IT AND MOVE ON. What is not an option is holding something against someone forever and never talking about it. If you won’t sit down with them about the issue then the only other path is to sincerely let it go. “Bear with one another and forgive whatever grievances you may have against each other” Colossians 3:13 says.
That includes having a loving, hopeful attitude rather than a cynical attitude that says “well its not worth it because they will never change” and going forward with bitterness. First Corinthians 13 says “love always hopes.” And 1 Peter 1 says we are to “love one another sincerely from the heart.” We have to give it some good at-bats.
It takes some self-reflection, prayer and maturity to learn what things you need to go address and what things you just need to “forbear” with someone on. “Bear with one another” the NT teaches.
APPLICATION: People aren’t perfect, and loving people means loving them even while seeing their flaws.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: It also means humility and remembering that you force people to bear with you in ways too.
- HELP BE A PEACEMAKER BY HELPING OUT WITH MERCY MINISTRIES. Mercy ministries promote peace among believers. First Corinthians 12:25 says, “there should be no divisions in the body, but every part should have equal concern for each other. This is like Philippians 2:1-4. Turn there with me and follow along…. it reads, “then make my MISERY complete by being divided, having no love, and openly disagreeing with each other on everything. Do everything out of selfish ambition and vain conceit. In arrogance value yourselves above others, looking out for your own interests and completely ignoring the interests of others around you.” See how peaceful a fellowship will be if we live like that? No. Lets read what it actually says….READ
Mercy ministries SHOW real love, and real love promotes real peace. Meals, Deacon Fund help, raking, shoveling, rides to appointments, cards, little care gifts and gestures, practical help, and so on all are what peacemakers do. If you’ve never made a meal for someone in church you need to start doing that when we put it out that meals are needed for someone. If you’ve never sent a card to someone in church you need to do that. If we have a shoveling or raking party for a widow in our church you should come out. If you’ve never given to the Deacon Fund you should seriously start doing that. Mercy ministries build peace because they make people feel loved and when people feel loved by others it goes miles in helping them get along and have more affection for others who’ve loved on them. - PEACEMAKERS DON’T ARGUE OVER STUPID THINGS. Turn with me to 1 Timothy 6:3-5. Turn to 2 Timothy 2:14 and 23. Turn finally to Titus 3:9-11.
The idea in these verses is that there are people love to disputes over trifling issues, and be contentious over empty and trivial matters. They love making a big deal over things that are not a big deal. Specifically these verses mention people who obsess over genealogies and lineage, or the law (of Moses) – issues which are plaguing the Church more so now than when I preached through Titus a couple years ago.
Some people feel like they’re a big deal when they make a big deal over unimportant things. They feel they’re more important if they make unimportant things seem like the most important things. Galatians 6 and 1 Corinthians 8 and 1 Timothy 1 talk about people like this: People who think they are something when they are not and so they are deceived….People who think they know something need to realize they don’t know what they think they know.
I cannot tell you how many people over 16 years of pastoring get obsessed with particular niche ideas or beliefs and their confidence far exceeds their understanding of the bible. The range of issues is impressive too from the timing of the Rapture or the End Times, to a particular word in the bible, to Jewish things like the Sabbath, Mosaic dietary restrictions, to politics, to Calvinism or Arminianism, to baptism, etc… Over-confidence is often a substitute for knowledge
For example, last weekend at Christ is King Festival a guy came up to us and immediately corrected us saying God is not God but “Ya” is God and the word God is a perversion over history of God’s name and God’s true name is Ya…blah, blah. He went on to say said Ya is not a Trinity, but God is one person who manifests as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit at different times for different reasons. That is called Modalism, its a heresy – one taught by TD Jakes. The heresy cherry on top came when he said that only white people can be saved because only white people are descendents of Adam. I asked him where he’s getting his views and he said the bible – he’s been studying it for 30 years. I asked him where in the bible he gets these views and he couldn’t name one verse. I responded that not being able to come up with one verse after 30 years of study is a little disappointing.
So this point means this: Peacemakers avoid dumb arguments and rabbit-hole matters that have no value for godliness but actually lead us away from from it. These dumb arguments over stupid things make divisions in the church, cause strife and rob a church of the peace of Christ. By God’s grace that won’t happen at EFC.
APPLICATION: Mature Christians don’t obsess and divide over dumb and trifling matters. Instead they pour themselves into growing in their own wisdom and knowledge so that they can actually be useful for helping other believers grow too in wisdom and knowledge. In other words, the commit to their own discipleship so they can personally be productive in the discipleship of other Christians. If all you do is watch YT and podcasts and you don’t engage in discipleship with other believers then I’m talking to you.
- NOT JUST INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIANS, BUT AS A CHURCH THE BIBLE SAYS WE NEED TO DO THINGS TO PROMOTE PEACE.
- Church discipline promotes peace. Mt 18….Matthew 18 is divine guidance for dealing with a sinning Christian within the local church. Following Matthew 18 resolves offenses and promotes unity and peace. It also prevents open conflict, bitterness and division.
- Another way peace is promoted in a local church is having Biblically organized leadership. Acts 6 demonstrates this clearly when we see the division of labor between Pastors and Deacons on display. Read 1-7…..Acts 6 shows us the blessing of peace that happens when organizing leadership to effectively care for practical needs while also maintaining pastoral ministering, and the result being peace and harmony in the church body. The Deacons care for the practical needs of the church Body which allows the Pastors to focus on the spiritual ministry of the word, prayer and shepherding of the whole body. A disorganized, confused leadership will demoralize a church because it won’t effectively minister either spiritually or practically to the church body.
- Church discipline promotes peace. Mt 18….Matthew 18 is divine guidance for dealing with a sinning Christian within the local church. Following Matthew 18 resolves offenses and promotes unity and peace. It also prevents open conflict, bitterness and division.
CONCLUSION: Sons of God
Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.” A child of God is someone who has been born again. Turn with me to John 1:12-13….
Galatians 3:26 says, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” Jesus called the Pharisees in John 8 children of the devil. That’s what we were before faith in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2 says before Christ we were children of wrath. Now, because of Jesus Christ, we are sons of God.
What do these children of God do? They act like their Father. “But just as your Father who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.” (1 Peter 1:15). Conversely, the Pharisees, as children of the devil, were told by Jesus, “You want to carry out your father’s desires.” But we are children of God if we want to carry out our heavenly Father’s will. Matthew 5:43-48 says we are to love our enemies so that we will be like our heavenly Father, because He loves and blesses the wicked and the good alike. It says that if we love only those who love us then we are not raising the bar any higher than the pagans who do the same thing. But we raise the bar higher and love and bless our enemies because then we are like our heavenly Father. It finishes with this line: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).
Being children of God is a spiritual fact because we’ve been given new life from God. But it also carries with it the idea of likeness. We have life from God and we go forward then living in likeness to our God. You see this concept in the Bible where the Apostle John calls his churches his “children,” meaning they were submitting to his teachings and living like him. You see it also in Revelation 2:23 Jesus says that the Jezebel-like woman who was a self-styled prophetess had “children” – and he was referring to people who followed her teachings and lived like her. So being a child of God means having life from God, and living that life in likeness to God’s righteousness.
Are you a child of God?