Matthew 5:9-12
Big Idea: After God Makes Peace For Me, He Wants To Make Peace Through Me
Peacemaker = one who is actively working to reconcile people to God & each other
An Agent Of Peace:
1) Embraces Conflict Instead Od Running From It (v. 9)
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
-John 1:12
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and do not obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
-James 4:1-4
How A Peacemaker Embraces Conflict With A Pure Heart:
1) Prayerfully & Willingly
2) Humbly
3) Truthfully & Gracefully
4) Respectfully
5) Lovingly
2) Prioritizes Restoring People Not Pleasing Or Appeasing People (v. 9)
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself. not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
-2 Corinthians 5:18-21
2 Barriers To Peacemaking:
1) People pleasing: approval motivated behavior that seeks satisfaction & affirmation from another person
2) People appeasing: making concessions to someone often at the sake of my principles out of fear
Two Keys An Agent Of Peace Looks To Identify:
1) The sin causing the separation
2) The Biblical truth for application
3) Joyfully Embraces The Mess (v. 7)
“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
-2 Timothy 3:12
“I (Jesus) have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
-John 16:33