BEATITUDES (10) Blessed Are the Peacemakers (2)

​“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Mt 5:9)
 
Review
We’ve been talking about the 8 beatitudes Jesus taught on the Mount. Last Sunday, we started to talk about the 7th blessing.
 
Jesus said,
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Mt 5:9)
 
Peace is one of the distinctive features of being a Christian. But the peace we have in Christ is different from the kind of peace we normally have in the world because it exists in our relationship with God, which affects all our other relationships.
 
The story of the garden of Eden best describes what this peace looks like. In the garden of Eden, God had a more direct relationship with the first humans He created. God talked to them, walked with them, and had a deep relationship with them. And, in a proper vertical relationship with God, humans were able to enjoy peaceful horizontal relationships with each other and with God’s creation.
 
However, all their good relationships became severed and distorted when they sinned against God. They disobeyed Him by eating from the forbidden tree, which was the only command God had required them to keep.
 
They sinned through the simple act of eating a fruit, but their intention wasn’t that simple—they tried to be like God themselves. So, it was truly rebellion against God.
 
Their sin inevitably resulted in the severance of their relationship with God. That’s when human beings lost true peace. And this severance also brought forth separation in our relationships with one another. Once our relationship with God was severed because of sin, all our other relationships became distorted and broken. Because we lost the source of true peace, God, we became unable to have peaceful relationships with others. Rather than loving and taking care of each other, human beings started to oppress and exploit one another through war and violence.
 
But God didn’t let us remain in our sin. To rescue all people from their sins and to reconcile them with Him again, God sent His one and only Son to the world.
 
And Jesus came to the world in human form and was crucified as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. As our High Priest, Jesus entered the Most Holy place with His own blood to obtain our eternal redemption. When Jesus breathed His last breath on the cross, the curtain that had separated the Most Holy Place from the Holy Place was torn in two.
 
The curtain symbolized our deep separation from God. It symbolized the wall of sin that no one could cross. But Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us so that He could tear down the wall of sin by being crucified on the cross.
 
By doing so, Jesus delivered us from our sins and reconciled us with God. Sin brought forth separation and severance, but the cross resulted in unification and peace. The apostle Paul beautifully described this reconciliation God achieved through Jesus.
 
Paul said in Colossians 1:19-22, let’s read it together.
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Col 1:19-22)
 
How amazing is God’s plan of salvation that He has set up for us! To reconcile all things with the heavenly Father, the Son shed His blood on the cross, which enabled us to enter the Most Holy Place with confidence, stand righteous before God, and have a peaceful relationship with Him again.
 
As Isaiah had prophesied, Jesus was pierced for our sins and His punishment brought us peace. By His wounds and sacrifice, we were healed. That’s why He is called the ‘prince of peace’. Only in Jesus can we find true peace because only through Him can we have access to God. That’s what the gospel of Jesus Christ is about.
 
The Ministry of Reconciliation
At this point, however, we must remember that we’re not only called to enjoy peace with God through Jesus, but also to deliver this peace to those around us who don’t know what true peace is.
 
That’s how we should respond to the gospel. Beyond merely accepting the good news, we’re called to join in Jesus' ministry of reconciliation. If we call Him the Prince of Peace and confess that we are His people, it becomes clear what we should do—we should live as peacemakers on earth. It means that we should make an effort to reconcile others with God as Jesus did for us.
 
1 Jn 2:2 says,
“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1Jn 2:2).
 
We talked about how Jesus brought us peace with God as the atoning sacrifice. But this sacrifice is not only for us, but for all people on earth. That’s why we should continue to declare the good news of peace until the whole world has heard it.
 
In fact, that’s everything we can do. What Jesus did on the cross is unrepeatable. In order to explain the perfection of Jesus’ sacrifice, the author of Hebrews repeatedly used the phrase “once for all.”
 
“Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day.... He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.” (Heb 7:27)
 
“He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Heb 9:12)
 
“We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb 10:10)
 
What the author of Hebrews emphasizes through these verses is that Jesus’ sacrifice can’t be repeated. Because His sacrifice was so perfect, its effect can be applied to all people through all generations.
 
Jesus made a way for us to have a peaceful relationship with God by sacrificing Himself once for all. Now, all those who believe in Him can enjoy this amazing blessing.
 
However, this good news hasn’t yet been delivered to all people. There are still people out there dying of their sins without knowing that there’s a remedy. There are still many people who haven’t experienced the true peace with God that we enjoy in Christ Jesus.
 
They are whom we need to approach with the gospel of Jesus Christ and peace with God. We need to tell them that there’s a remedy for their sins and death. We need to show them the way they also can experience peace with God.
 
Imagine you know someone who’s dying of a severe, incurable illness. If you heard that a new, perfect medicine for the illness had just been developed, wouldn’t you go to the patient and tell them about the medicine? That’s our role as Christians.
 
Christ did everything perfectly for our salvation. We find true forgiveness, redemption, and salvation on the cross. But the good news hasn’t yet been delivered to all people on earth. Then, who will go to them with the news of the great victory of the cross?
 
We need to hear God’s voice calling us, saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” (Is 6:8)
 
I’m not saying all of us must be pastors or missionaries. What I want to emphasize here is that we, as Christians who have received the gospel of Jesus Christ, should somehow join in His ministry of reconciliation to the world. That’s what we should do as those who became children of God through Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation.
 
Last Sunday, we read a passage from 2 Corinthians. Paul said,
“God… reconciled us to himself through Christ…”  (2 Co 5:18a)
 
“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them…” (2 Co 5:19a)
 
Through these verses we know that God reconciled us with Himself through Christ. But they don’t only talk about the blessing of reconciliation. We also find the responsibility we should take as Christians. 
 
“… and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Co 5:18b)
“And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Co 5:19 b)
 
These verses are very important in understanding the kind of mission or ministry God has entrusted to us. Paul points out that we received not only the blessing of reconciliation with God, but also the ministry of reconciliation along with its message.
 
The ministry of reconciliation was Jesus’ main ministry for the world, and now, it’s given to all those who are reconciled with God through Him. That means all Christians are called to join in this ministry.
 
Just as Jesus came to the world to lay a bridge between God and us and reconcile us with Him through His cross, we’re called to join in this great ministry of reconciliation to guide those around us who don’t know Him yet to Him so that they can also enjoy peace with God through Christ.
 
And the core of the ministry of reconciliation is the message of reconciliation. That’s the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel tells us how Jesus made it possible for us who were far away from God’s presence in our sins to come near to Him.
 
It explains how Jesus’ sacrifice solved the problem of our sin, which is the biggest obstacle that severed our relationship with God. Our sin was forgiven because its price was completely paid, and our enemies, Satan and death, were completely defeated and conquered when God resurrected His Son from the dead.
 
Because Jesus bore all our sins and was completely separated from God, we can be forgiven and enjoy peace with God again. That’s what the message of reconciliation is about. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that is to be proclaimed to all people on earth.
 
I believe that’s one of the reasons God saved us first through Christ; He wants us to carry out the ministry of reconciliation by delivering this great message to those around us.
 
This is what the Bible continuously says all through the Old and New Testaments. We already talked about what it means to be God’s blessing in this world. As Abraham became a blessing to the nations when God blessed him, we should be God’s blessing in this world as His children who were given the spiritual blessing in Christ.
 
We should be merciful to others because God has first shown us mercy. Likewise, we should join in the ministry of reconciliation as Christians who were reconciled with God through Christ first.
 
The Bible always talks about the responsibility of those who receive God’s grace, mercy, and blessing. We received God’s grace for free, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to do anything. Rather, God’s grace that was freely given requests us to join in His ministry as His people. That’s how we serve as peacemakers on earth.
 
Peacemakers
Let’s read today’s Bible verse together again.
 
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Mt 5:9)
 
Here, peacemakers are not merely those who make peaceful relationships with others. It refers to Christians who join in God’s ministry of reconciliation by proclaiming its message to others so that they can also be reconciled with God. The reason they are called children of God is because that’s the core ministry Jesus achieved as the Son of God.
 
And that’s what we should continue doing as children of God.
 
John 1:12-13 says, 
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (Jn 1:12-13)
 
The greatest blessing we find in Christ is to be children of God. We know how great it is when we think about who we were before we believed in Him.
 
Paul said in Ephesians 2:1-3,
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Eph 2:1-3)
 
Before we believed in Jesus and became children of God, we were children of disobedience and thus children of wrath. We were spiritually dead in our sins and followed the ways of the world as its slaves without knowing it.
 
That’s who we were before we believed in Jesus. We only deserved God’s fearsome wrath and judgment.
 
But God was so merciful to us that He didn’t let us die in our sins. He was so gracious that He gave us His love and salvation instead. As Paul continued,
 
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:4-5)
 
That’s how God reconciled us with Himself and made us His children who had been children of wrath. As the apostle John said, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1Jn 3:1).
 
This is the greatest blessing we received from God through Christ Jesus. And, this is the blessing that God wants all people to know and have. That’s the ministry of reconciliation we need to carry out as Christians.
 
Be Reconciled to God!
Then, how can we carry out this important task faithfully? The answer is not within us but in God. We need to remember that the source of every good work we do as Christians comes from our relationship with God. That’s why Paul pleaded with us like this. Let’s read 2 Co 5:20 together.
 
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Co 5:20).
 
Here, Paul said that we are Christ’s ambassadors. An ambassador is an official acting as a representative of a country. Paul compares his own calling to that of an ambassador, and he urges all Christians to consider themselves ambassadors of Christ, which means that God calls us to be the representatives of His kingdom in the world.
 
And, as ambassadors of the kingdom of God, our responsibility is to reflect the “official position” of heaven. We need to show what the kingdom of God is like through our lives and preach the gospel of the kingdom as Jesus did on earth.
 
And the most important condition of being God’s ambassadors is having a close relationship with God. Like a branch that’s attached to its vine naturally bears fruit, if we remain in Him and maintain a good relationship with Him, we’ll naturally bear the good fruit of peace in our relationships with others.
 
That’s the only key to successfully carrying out the ministry of reconciliation. Otherwise, we can’t reconcile others to Him. That’s why Paul implored us to be reconciled to God first.
 
Today, we talked about the biblical meaning of being peacemakers. We’re called to be peacemakers in this world. Just as Jesus brought us peace by sacrificing Himself, we should go into the world as peacemakers who connect and reconcile others with God, proclaiming the message of reconciliation.
 
Joining in this ministry is not easy. We might need to sacrifice what we have just as Jesus did for us. We might also face opposition and insult as we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
Nevertheless, we should remember that joining in this ministry is actually a blessing because only children of God have this glorious opportunity to join in His mission for the world.
 
I want every one of us here to find true peace with God through Christ Jesus so that in our close relationship with Him, we can also go into the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ and carry out the great ministry of reconciliation as children of God. Let’s pray.
 
[Closing prayer]
Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us the chance to listen to Your word today. Lord, we thank You for giving us this amazing privilege to participate in Your ministry of reconciliation with the message You have committed to us.
 
Let us develop a deeper relationship with You and grow closer to You day by day. Please give us the courage to be peacemakers in this world. Let us remember that our true citizenship is in Your kingdom and help us to boldly proclaim the spiritual blessing as ambassadors of Christ.
 
Please guide us to the truth through the Holy Spirit so that we can be continuously reminded of the spiritual blessings we’ve received through Jesus Christ and so that we can live as Your children who make peace wherever we are.
 
We ask that You give us unshakable peace so that we can continue to declare the good news of peace in this world.
 
We thank you and love you, Lord. We pray in the precious name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1. What do you think is the ministry of reconciliation that the Bible says God gave His people? What do you think are some ways you can successfully carry out this mission? What do you think you need to prepare in order to join in this ministry?
 
2. Has there been anyone in your life who was reconciled with God through you? Please share some moments in which you led others to Him.