Peacemakers and Persecution
Why are there wars? Because of sin in the heart of man.
Jesus, the Prince of Peace, came to make peace…
- between God and man, by taking upon himself the penalty for man’s sin
- between man and man, by removing the pride principle which causes enmity.
e.g. - in an argument, or in a family feud, or in a war between nations, each side cannot hear what the other is saying, because they are interpreting everything through the grid of their own interests. They attribute the worst motives to the enemy. Their own pride and self-interest is like a hearing deficiency, cutting them off from others.
Only a person who is operating without this pride handicap can be a true peacemaker. We saw a couple of weeks ago that each of these beatitudes is linked to the other beatitudes in a logical order…
poor in spirit merciful
mourn hunger and thirst pure in heart
meek for righteousness peacemakers
Only a person who is meek can be a peacemaker. As long as you are thinking about yourself and shielding yourself, as long as you are defending your own self-interests, you can never be a peacemaker.
What’s involved in being a peacemaker?
1. Learn to keep quiet.
James 1:26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
A. Don’t be argumentative.
James 1:19-20 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
B. Don’t be critical.
Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
C. Don’t gossip.
Proverbs 16:28 A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.
Proverbs 17:9 He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.
2. Learn to look out for God’s interests…
Ask “How is my conduct going to affect the cause of Christ?” Many people have been turned off by the unthinking insensitive remarks of Christians.
Ask “Will what I say or what I do help to bring someone to Jesus Christ?”
If you seek the glory of God, there will be peace. You will be a peacemaker.
If you seek your own interests, there will be war.
3. Learn to do good to your enemy.
Romans 12:18ff If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Ancient ritual of carrying a basin of hot coals on your head to show repentance.
1. Learn to keep quiet and keep ourselves under control.
2. Learn to look out for God’s interests.
3. Learn to love our enemies.
Peacemakers will be called “sons of God.” (KJV - children of God). To be called the son of someone meant to partake of the character of that person. It was also used as a way of describing what someone was like.
e.g. Jesus called James and John the sons of thunder.
The early church called Barnabas the son of encouragement.
If you are a peacemaker, you will be partaking of God’s character, because he is a peacemaker. Look at Christ…
Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Jesus was quiet. He didn’t stand on his rights, or loudly insist on getting what he had coming to him as the Son of God…
1 Peter 2:22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
Isaiah 53:7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her [shearers] is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Jesus was looking out for God’s interests…
In the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
The author of Hebrews tells us in relation to Jesus sacrifice of himself on the cross that Jesus said “Here I am, I have come to do your will.”
Jesus loved his enemies…
When he was dying on the cross he said, “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
If we are going to be peacemakers, we are going to be like Jesus Christ, the great peacemaker.
The final beatitude talks about persecution. It describes the world’s reaction to the changes that God makes in you when you become a citizen of his kingdom…
Matthew 5:10-12 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Righteousness is the desire to be right with God. Anyone who is hungering and thirsting for righteousness is going to be persecuted for it. Jesus says “This is what is going to happen to you if you become a true follower of me.” To the extent that true righteousness is present in your life, to that extent you will be persecuted.
Now notice what this beatitude does not say.
It doesn’t say “Blessed are those who are persecuted.” Countless people down through history have been persecuted. But the mere fact of their being persecuted does not make them blessed.
It doesn’t say “Blessed are those who are persecuted because they have lived unwisely.” Many Christians bring persecution upon themselves, and then think that they are being persecuted for righteousness. But they are really being persecuted because they have been stubborn, objectionable, hard to get along with. They have been persecuted because they have had an inconsistent testimony.
I remember working in a summer job in a chemical plant in Montreal. One of the workers always used to bring a Bible to work with him. He made quite a show of reading his Bible at lunch in the lunchroom. But the men did not respect him. In fact, they laughed at him and, in a way, they persecuted him. Why? Because he was inconsistent. The men knew that he had a reputation in the community of running around with women when he should have been home with his wife and family. They mocked him for his hypocrisy, not for righteousness.
This beatitude doesn’t say “Blessed are those who are persecuted for their fanatical devotion to a particular cause.”
We live in a day of Christian activism. Many Christians have taken to the streets for a variety of causes, and they are almost fanatical in their devotion to those causes. And some of them have been persecuted for their political and social activism. Many of them have developed almost a martyr complex about this. But they are largely being persecuted for their strident activism. They are being persecuted because their political agenda has collided with society’s agenda. That, I would submit to you, is quite different from being persecuted for righteousness.
What does it mean to be righteous? Well, Jesus gives us the answer right here in this passage. To be righteous means to be identified with Jesus Christ. Notice in verse 10, Jesus says “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness”. But then in verse 11, he changes it slightly… “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” “Because of righteousness” means the same thing as “because of me.”
If you are being persecuted for righteousness, you are being persecuted for being identified with Jesus Christ. Let’s go even farther to say that you are being persecuted for being like Jesus Christ.
John 15:18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.
When Jesus was on earth, he was persecuted. It is important to realize that he wasn’t persecuted for being good, he was persecuted for being different. The Pharisees opposed him not for the good works he was doing, but because he wasn’t toeing their line. In their eyes, he was a renegade.
That is true today. The world will not persecute you for being good, but it will persecute you for being righteous. The world doesn’t persecute good people. In fact, the world often honors good people. It praises them and admires them. It gives them Nobel prizes, and accolades, and it creates monuments to good people. That’s understandable, because in a way, when the world honors a good person, it is honoring itself. It is saying “See. This is how good a human being can be when he really puts his mind to it. We can all aspire to be like him or like her.”
So the world won’t persecute you if you are good. But the world will persecute you if you are righteous. Because if you are righteous, you are different. If you are righteous, it’s because you have come to the place where you realize that you can’t be good. You’ve come to understand that there is nothing good in the heart of man, nothing that can make you acceptable in God’s sight no matter how many Nobel prizes you might win, or how many hospitals you might have named after you. You realize that the only way to heaven is to receive Jesus. That’s being poor in spirit, and that’s the gateway to the kingdom of heaven.
Before you can become righteous, you have to become poor in spirit. You have to set aside this idea that you can excel to goodness and godliness in your own strength. That is something that the world simply cannot accept. It goes totally against the grain of the world’s “pride principle”. So they persecute people who are righteous.
2 Timothy 3:12 …everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
But, Jesus says, we can rejoice and be happy if we are persecuted for righteousness because it proves three things…
1. It proves that we belong to God.
Acts 5:41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.
2. It proves where we are going.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
3. It proves that we will be rewarded when we get there.
Hebrews 11:37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
The Beatitudes are like a road map for the kingdom of heaven.
1. They tell us how to get there - by being poor in spirit, by mourning over our sinfulness, by becoming emptied of pride and filled with meekness instead.
2. They tell us how to live once we’ve gotten there - our burning desire, our hunger and our thirst, our consuming appetite will be for righteousness - to be pleasing to God.
3. They tell us of the results that this kind of living will bring in our life - we’ll learn to look on others with new eyes of mercy; we’ll desire to be pure in heart as we examine ourselves; we’ll want to be peacemakers, bringing reconciliation between men and God and between man and man.
4. And finally, the beatitudes tell us how the world is going to react to the fact that we’ve become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. We’ll be persecuted. The world will disown us. But we can be happy anyway, because we belong to God.
The rest of the Sermon on the Mount is an elaboration of the themes that are introduced by these eight beatitudes we have studied. May God give us understanding as we explore his word further.