Blessed Are The Peacemakers

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. As I mentioned in the past, these nine Beatitudes are not nine different people. You can be the meek one and I'll be the pure in heart one. Wouldn't that be nice? I want to be the peacemaker but I don't want to be the persecuted. That's not the way it works. These are all nine different characteristics of the same type of people because they are the people of God and we are following someone who exemplifies these. The one who is pure in heart, the one who is the peacemaker, the one who is poor, the one who is meek, the humble one, and the persecuted one, Jesus Christ himself. He's describing what it's like in the kingdom and what it's like to be part of his people and how God's kingdom actually works in this world and actually spreads in this world. It is now the largest organization on planet Earth with 2.3 billion people involved in it, growing every day. In some places where there is more persecution, by the way, in some places where things are more difficult, it's growing even faster than in places like the United States and it's great to see that. Kind of like teacher, like student, like rabbi, like disciple, these words exemplify you and me and we are living the blessed life when we're living these words. Today we're going to look and speak to the conclusion of the Beatitudes. You can look it up in Matthew 5 verses 9 to 12 where Jesus says, Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called 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 they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So today we're going to look at three points. Usually we do, don't we? It's almost always three points. And even when I do a two-point sermon, it tends to last as long as a three-point sermon. I can do five points and still they seem to last about the same. But anyways, the three points are going to be, what is peace? What is peacemaking? And then finally, why does peacemaking bring persecution? So you're going to see these one at a time. What is peace? You know, when somebody says, I need a little more peace in my life. What do they mean? What do people typically mean? I call this. In other words, they're looking at an inner state of being. I need more tranquility in my inner being. Well, that is in the Bible somewhat as an outcome of the real peace. But peace in the Bible is not. Peace is not the opposite of anxiety or worry. Peace in the Bible is the opposite of hostility. Peace is always about a relationship and the fact that we are actually at war. And I don't know if you realize that we have been at war since Genesis chapter three and we are at war with God and each other. We are alienated. We are hostile. We're kind of ready to defend ourselves almost at any cost. And that is what is overcome when peace is the end of all wars. The end of all hostilities, the end of all alienation, and that is what it means to have peace. So the Bible is very blunt, and this is fairly offensive to human beings, by the way. I wouldn't be surprised if people go like, wait a minute, when these Bible verses come up. But this is pretty clear from Genesis three all the way through. And I'm just going to pick out a couple from New Testament letters. But we are actually at war with God. That's what the Bible says. Did you realize that? You're hostile to God. I'm hostile and my natural inclinations are kind of to give God the finger. Get out of my life. Romans 8 verse 7. And Vicki, I know you've memorized all of Romans 8 last year when we went through it at about this time, didn't you? And you remember this. Yeah, well, it's a great chapter, Romans 8. We'll get to that again in this next series. But Romans 8 7, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. That's our natural state. And again, in Colossians chapter one, Paul says this. And you once who were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. So all human beings are in a state of war against God. That's what the Bible says. And that might just be like, what? Wait a minute. I'll prove it to you. When God did come vulnerable, touchable, we killed him. We killed him. And he goes, wait, wait, John, what's the we in this? I mean, I wasn't there. And by the way, I don't think I would have been like those people back. You really. OK. You think you are in tune with God and just are seeking God and everything's good with you. Maybe you think you're good with God because your life is going pretty comfortably right now. And we can all feel like we're in tune with God when things are going w...