Peace Making — Don McClure

The Beatitudes as the Foundation of the Sermon on the Mount

The Beatitudes why don't you turn with me if you would to Matthew chapter 5 if you would please. And then tonight I'd like us to stand together and we'll read them together. So if you'll turn to Matthew 5 and then stand and then we'll read we'll just read them together and beginning at verse 3 and on down to verse 12 together.

But let's hear it again. Many people believe this to be the central message perhaps of the Bible greatest sermon ever preached. And that is arguably I believe the case and but it all begins. The foundation of it all is here in these Beatitudes and to me the importance of knowing them the rest of the sermon it picks up and has tremendous things to say.

But the foundation upon which it is all built is here in the Beatitudes. And so let's read them together at verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven.

For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Father we thank you for your word. And Lord how we long that we would understand more and more and more the profound depth Lord of these Beatitudes they seem to be part of what I think the could almost call the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Lord if we could only search these things out we could only know them not just theologically but Lord even far greater than that we long that our life wouldn't just be theologically sound but Lord that we would find ourselves so rooted and grounded in you that our experience of our theology that we live in a our own personal theocracy where God is absolute ruler.

And Lord that you would teach us these things they would be so central to our lives. And Lord that we would know that the better we know them the greater our joy that the greater the depth of our joy the fullness of our joy the absolute excitement of our joy the reality of our joy.

Lord that we wouldn't spend so much time with the deceptive joys of this life the deceptive happiness is chasing after them. But Lord that there would be something in our heart we would chase deeply after true eternal joy and know it more and more and more.

Father we ask it in Jesus name amen. You may be seated and here once again and again and again and again. I guess now each time as we go through these Beatitudes I always kind of need to back up just a little bit.

I suppose just in case there's a couple of you that haven't been here and and then for those of you that were here and didn't pay any attention and then for those of you that were here did pay attention but forgot it and so that should cover most everybody.

So but anyway the here in these Beatitudes they are all built one upon another you skip one or you do. Or the degree that you know the depth of one is going to be the depth that you're going to follow all along with the rest of them as again I believe that they're almost like a continuous cycle.

This isn't something you just go through once in life and have got it. It's a continuous learning and it's an unending thing that what a person may be discover. I when I first started loving and studying the Sermon on the Mount was back actually in the 1960s and when I was first kind of confronted with it and there at that time when I went through and just study blessed of the poor in spirit and I thought I understood it and I think at the time I did understand it but to the degree that I did it was tremendously different than you continuously learn it through the through your own life it life is that way what you think yourself to be having victory over you might say in one stage of your life then you enter into another stage and you find you didn't know as much about it at all to me I know before I got married I was I think I was very unselfish and well I don't have to say any more on that do I.

But the then you get married and you find out a whole new level of selfishness that you didn't know somebody else has an opinion about the thermostat and you know all these sorts of other things around.

And the next thing you know you're going back and forth about that. And then you maybe grow and you learn a new depth of hopefully selflessness in that exposure. And then you have children and then you go through the whole thing again learning again as you got these beans running around your house who could care less about anybody else but themselves they don't know what time it is what's early what's late what anything else is.

They've got their own little world and and you start dealing with that and you learn again how selfish you can be. And so also with the Beatitudes that what you may consider self to be broken and contrite or poor in spirit at one stage the life as we continue to grow you find out the need for it more and more and more.

But also as we have looked at these things they are things as well that as we see them each one is a building block upon the previous. Jesus there says the greatest happiness that a person is going to know is the degree that they are poor in spirit.

That is the degree as we've been through it so many times now that a person knows the utter poverty-stricken spirit of their own soul. There's something that has happened that they have realized I was creating the image of God and I've lost it.

Then they mourn over it. And the degree that that I am poor in spirit is the degree I will mourn over it. Is the degree that I look and realize God I have sinned and I am wrong and I'm wrong with you I'm wrong with others.

And to that degree is the degree I'll be sorry if I'm not wrong. Well then I'm not sorry and I don't mourn over it. But the degree that something happens in my life or in my relationship with God or my relationship to another where I realize what I am capable of the abilities I have to sin and to bring that sin out and to expose it to others not expose it to others but but to have them have to be almost assaulted by it by my sinfulness and have them have to deal with my weakness of my nature there when I see this capacity that I have that if I see it and that it ought to produce a mourning a grief that happens within myself.

And if that grief is genuine it'll produce a genuine meekness. I won't recover from that grief. I won't recover from that mourning so easily. But it'll result in a sense of a meekness before God a meekness before others.

And Jesus says this is going to be a truly joyful happy profoundly happy person. Then blessed are they that are filled their hunger and thirst after righteousness. For they should be filled the happiness now that happens when a person discovers after God has emptied them of himself and emptied them of their sin and forgiven them for it.

It's produced an open broken contrite heart and a meekness and a gentleness within them that just hungers for God. And there is it hungers now. God says now you'll be filled. And there is that person is wonderfully beautifully filled by the Lord.

Then the deepest of God's nature begins to be carved into their nature and they become merciful. Oh how happy is a person that now that looks out and they could be negative and they could be hard or they could be hostile and they could do all sorts of things to other people.

They could you know very simply very easily. But now there's something happens where mercy begins to come in a great godly sorrow begins to get into their heart and in their life. Then it is followed up by a purity of heart that begins to happen as this mercy is happening in them.

There is a wonderful purity of heart that happens. That's where we left off last week. Tonight we pick it up. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. I'll tell you I suppose as wonderful as it is to be a child of God it's even more wonderful to be actually mistaken in public for one.

And that's quite a novelty sometimes these days when you look at the people that as we're told by all sorts of people that go out and evaluate statistics in society the percentage of people that profess to be a Christian.

But then when you would look at how many people actually are confused with being one people look sad. I think that I saw actually met one. I swear they must be a Christian and that's a wonderful thing.

Jesus' Spiritual Deliverance from Self and Sin

He says oh happy of the peacemakers for they should be called the children of God. And here we have something that is Jesus gets into these things by the way these are quite contrary to natural man. In fact they're quite contrary to the Jewish world.

Even when Jesus came they weren't. They weren't looking for Jesus at all as a Messiah that would come like Jesus. They were looking for a Messiah that was going to come like Moses. They were looking for one that would be in the likeness of Moses who was going to come in with a here with the Roman oppression that was upon them as a people as a nation somebody that was going to come in and as Moses led them out of Egypt the Messiah was going to come and lead them away from Rome and from the oppression of Rome and the control of Rome.

They wanted a military leader. They wanted somebody that was going to come in and bring miracles. There's somebody who's going to open rivers you know or make the earthquake and destroy the enemies. And here when Jesus came and he brought in a whole new message of that peace is not going to come so much through the external aspects of it.

Moses didn't bring them peace. He just merely got them from one side of a river to another. But they were just as frustrated of people when they got over there as when they're on the other side of the river.

They just added a view for themselves from the other side. That's all. But they were still stuck with themselves. And they were delivered from Egypt into the wilderness. But they weren't delivered from the nature of Egypt from the selfishness from the pride from their own natures.

And here when Jesus came and he began to call them to follow him and Jesus began to share that he was the bread of life that he was the basic sustenance of all of life. And saying whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life.

I'll raise him up at the last day. This is not that flesh that your fathers did eat in the wilderness are dead. But who so eateth of me will never die. And here he's actually telling people that what you need to do is so appropriate me into your life.

You've got to make me the absolute basic sustenance of your existence. Who you are. The defining you know identity of who you are what makes you tick what you're all about. Jesus said this is what I'm here for.

I'm here to take over your heart. I'm here to take over your life. I'm not here to lead you geographically so much from one place to another as I am to lead you spiritually from one world to another. And they and entry into that world is going to be as you devour me as you want to you long with your soul to digest all that you can of me and to take all of my heart all of my life that you possibly can.

Well when Jesus shared things like this it goes on even in that text to say that many of his disciples upon hearing this they walked no more with him that there's a lot of thing. They said this is a hard thing who can hear it.

He said you know we love we love what Jesus does. We love his miracles we love his power. He we they they wanted to make him king. At times they came to him if forcibly wanted to just force him to become king.

Judas some feel that that was his whole one of his aspects of his nature that when he he was going to push Jesus into becoming a forceful king and by just bringing the crisis is some analysis that some have.

I don't know that that's so but but many people we'd love to forcibly make Jesus come and use his power deliver us this way says no. I'm not here to deliver you this way. I'm here to deliver you eternally.

I'm here to deliver you from an enemy that's far worse than Egypt and far worse than Rome. I'm here to deliver you from the oppression of your own self the rule of your own arrogance your own pride your own self-willed nature.

And if you don't want that then you really don't want me so much. And this is what the Beatitudes is all about. It's a wonderful message of deliverance from the reign of our own fallen nature from our own character left alone.

And here the even the disciples they had such a hard time with this Jesus of course never let up on. It was always the same. But they wanted a powerful Jesus. And I love the story one time when Jesus you know they're about to head into a town and Jesus's reputation of you know in different towns of people getting up in arms about him.

It's kind of gotten around so much that they sent the leaders out of town. They said please don't come in here where there's so much controversy over you that we just as soon you don't come in. Jesus being so gentle that's okay.

Don't force my way anyplace we'll move on. But John so wonderfully I mean here the Apostle of love he ends up to be. But at the time you know John he turns to Jesus the Lord shall we call fire from heaven to consume them.

I mean here John he just looked there and he says what do you think. Nobody talks to us that way. Nobody comes and tell who do they think they are telling you of all people that you can come and you can go.

We know who you are and knowing who you are. You shouldn't put up with this in there. You just wanted Elijah's kind of power he says shall we as if Jesus. You know John that's a good idea. Let's just let's just smoke the whole town.

You know sort of a thing. I mean John would have been quite delighted. Jesus turns over to him and he says John I've got a nickname for you. And oh really what's that son of thunder. So he called him the son of thunder.

There's no light with you just noise you know the type of thing and not a big noise you're the son of one you know sort of a thing. But he looked at him and it is John what what makes you tick. And wonderfully though when John was really converted and he did become that Apostle of love he did become the one that would look back and realize what was this within me that I was literally willing to see an entire town destroy fire from heaven there simply to have you know my Jesus be King.

But when we sit there and realize that the King that Jesus is is he comes there to want to take our heart and take our life and to change it more than even he's interested in doing a lot of other things.

But the wonderful thing is is here he says blessed are the peacemakers. And one of the things about a peacemaker I suppose that rather easily so blessed is in one sense he's so entirely different than anybody else.

There's something within his heart and within his life. He's a child of God and he wants to tick that way he wants to think that way he wants to function that way he looks around in a world in such war and turmoil discord and he realizes there just because now what he has been through the process in his own life a peacemaker is somebody there he realizes the the things that destroy men the lust and the greed and the self-will the self-centeredness the ego the pride all of these demanding hearts and demanding lives.

And and you put a bunch of people together like that you've got wars you've got fights you've got battles you've got struggles. But here when somebody is they begin to God has taken their poor in spirit and they mourn over it and they become meek.

And now they're emptied so much that that stuff is broken out of them it's being washed and cleansed out of them. They don't like that pride any longer that I want I will I'll have I'm right I want it my way that that is something about themselves.

They begin to hate. They begin to look at this and they see why am I so you know self-centered why am I it what drives me this way. And when realize it's it's the fallen ego the sin nature the flesh.

But they realize that and so they mourn over it and that produces a meekness. And then there's a they're hungry for God and they're filled in the consequence of that fullness is a merciful spirit begins to get in them and a singleness of heart a purity of heart.

And now we're having somebody that because of the course they've been through the processes of their heart in their life there is such a sense of peace within them. It's not somebody by the way. Another thing about a peacemaker though I want to mention before I go on a peacemaker is not somebody that's just peace at any price in somebody that is just there such a milquetoast sort of a person that they just avoid anything.

It could be any different anything tense or any trouble not just avoiding problems or whatever it is whatever you got to do to make peace do it. Sometimes a peacemaker will turn over you know all tables in the temple.

Sometimes a peacemaker will look right at those that are in in opposing the kingdom of heaven and call them what do you know a generation of vipers as Jesus did. Or they'll look at the the priests and the Pharisees.

And he says you're white it's sepulchers. You act like there's life on the outside but there's nothing but death on the inside it. It's not that a peacemaker they can't confront or can't deal with things.

And it all kind of like the story of the fellow that all of a sudden he just appears there in heaven and paint. Peter looks over at him and and he appears they're standing and he looks at. He says well tell me did you ever do anything good in your life.

Looked like he had a pretty rough ride. He said you ever do anything good in your life. And he said well yeah one time there was a gang of bikers they were terrible and they're threatening a young girl innocent precious young girl.

And I came up to the obvious leader. He was big and burly and muscle-bound and he had tattoos on him and he was obviously the leader of them all. And I looked him straight in the eye and I pulled his beard and I pulled the nose ring right out of his nose.

I did. I told him if you're gonna bother her you got to get there through me. And Peter says well that's amazing. He says when did that happen. He says oh about two minutes ago. But the but sometimes the person they to do what may be right it may not be easy.

There may be some degree of confrontation that may result in in it in wanting to bring peace to another. It doesn't mean that they have no courage about them. But a peacemaker is somebody who first of all as the Beatitudes have shown he's at peace with God.

He has found the greatest key to peace in the whole world. The keys with the peace within his own soul peace within his own nature. Peace there that is most wonderfully there the war with God is over.

He has found the way to settle it he has found the way to end it. And he has found the peace of God reigns within his own heart and with his own life. Because what has happened in the Beatitudes is essentially there's been a wonderful exchange of the of the self and of the of our own ego and of our own pride.

And it's been broken. It's no longer desired and it's been replaced by the nature that God always wanted to have within us his own nature his own spirit. And that's going to produce peace within our heart.

We'll never have peace until that's happened. We'll look for peace. We'll try for peace. There'll be maybe a peace for a season but an abiding peace. The only person that really knows it is the person that agreed that they understand the Beatitudes.

They realized there that by nature I was opposed to God. I avoided God and I I fought against him in his and I didn't my own character in my own nature it was my biggest enemy. And then when God began to break me as David said a broken and a contrite spirit God will not despise.

David there realized how God loves gentleness and meekness. And when he can break a man of his own ego and of his own pride his own self-will and a pair person knows that. And then he's been filled with God.

There's a man who knows peace. And a peacemaker is somebody that he's got a new nature he has a new heart that has come in and he's constantly. A peacemaker is somebody that ought to always be desiring to be delivered constantly through his life itself constantly there of our own self-interest our own self-concern.

You know one of the things you know that it takes us a while sometimes to realize is you know we Jesus gives us the power of the Holy Spirit but it seems in the resurrection power. But it also seems like the flesh has the power of the resurrection.

You know if you notice that about us. But you go and and you die and something happens. You're extremely sorrowful and you cry out to God. There's a meekness and he fills you with himself. But then amazingly the next day you turn right back and all of a sudden this self that you held a wonderful funeral for you buried him.

You know God I'm through with self. I hate myself. I never want to see myself again. And the whole family says we vote yes to you know. And everybody else is in full agreement. I can't believe what I've done.

I hate myself and God. I'm sorry. And he says everybody I'm sorry. You're sorry. Okay. Well here's me. And he fills us with himself and somehow or another the flesh. The next thing you know I mean the God calls us one of the things he calls us the Bible that we're to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

And I guess one of the great tragedies about a living sacrifice is it has the capacity to crawl off off the altar. You know we go put ourselves there and present ourselves. But we can get right back in control so easily.

And so it's something there like Paul said I died daily. His venture in life was he never just took it for granted that any previous experience he had was sufficient there he constantly there you know you know wretched man that I am who should deliver me from the body of this death.

And the wonderful thing is when somebody realizes God I know who I am. I don't need and want to see myself again. And but as I do instead of being amazed or surprised let me just be broken. And the wonderful thing is is that what happens to a person like this is because the war is over with God they found a way to resolve it.

Their life is surrendered essentially to God. Then the wonderful thing is is they now whether they note or not. And then they're merciful and they're pure in heart. They are not only have peace with God but they are now have the capacity to become a peacemaker.

They now understand the message of where peace is really found. It's one thing just simply to go in and try to keep the peace. But it's another thing to go in where there is no peace with the capacity to produce it.

And this is what Jesus says. This person who has been through the Beatitudes has he now has a of understanding. He can go into where there's war. He can go into where there's battles and where they don't work together they don't get along.

And when there's people that are agitated and fighting and it's all their struggles and going back and forth he has the message to go in and make peace. He can sit down and say I can tell you what your problem is.

And while they're sitting there they're most people like that are convinced. I can tell you what it is do when they point the finger at the other one it's them. You know when they and it's in my husband it's my wife.

You know the ginger I mean that we never never. A sinful man never has any problem finding problem. Who it is. Soon as Adam said next thing you know I mean it's the funniest thing to me if it wasn't so tragic.

But God comes looking for him. And Adam's hiding as if he can truly hide from God. And if God comes along what are you doing. I'm hiding you know. Or the. And why are you hiding. Well there's naked. Oh how'd you find that out.

Oh the woman sinned you know I mean it's a thing to where you God says you ate at the tree. Didn't you. Well I know it looks that way. You know sort of a thing. But immediately says it's the woman that thou gavest me.

I mean what a crafty little thing to come up with. There's a problem in his life. He's naked he's in trouble. He knows he's in trouble. But then we say why are you in trouble. He says well it's the woman thou gavest me.

And that's quite a cunning little thing. The woman thou gavest me here he brings up two things. It's the woman and you gave her to me. So it's between you two you figure it out. I don't know what went wrong here but but she was here.

You gave it to me but you started it. So one of you two is a sinner. You know something in the sort of a thing and and and I'm clean. I'm just fine. Of course he goes to her and he says what do you think about it was it was a serpent and you made him so I mean so ultimately God's the sinner to you know did a lot of people.

But a person who's broken doesn't need to look for anybody else. They realize no it's inside. That's where the problem is. And coming to a place where we were people begin to become aware of that where they begin to have a true sorrow.

And but a peacemaker the wonderful thing is he goes in with a message of the unbelievable capacity of what God can do for that for anybody else because of what God has done for him. When then on one hand you know he was devastated by sin destroyed by sin killed by sin mourned over his sin became meek before God.

But in his death he hungered for God and God raised him from the dead gave him new life forgave him of it all poured his love made him a merciful man and gave him a pure heart for the things that are right and eternal.

That's a person there that has the capacity you know because of what God has done for them. Now they know how to produce peace to be when a person that was created in the image of God was absolutely destroyed by sin and yet God came and entirely rebuilt him restored him regenerated him resurrected him brought him back in the newness of life and hope and eternal capacities.

That's the person that has the capacity to bring peace last September 11th obviously 2001 a day that'll live in infamy. But there is the world's eyes you know watch there is these jets flew into the Twin Towers and other places as well but but watching so graphically a person doesn't even have to close their eyes to remember that site.

And to watch there is those buildings just absolutely came crumbling down as the dust rose up to so high and so awesome it could be seen from this from space we're told but as here is these these huge towers came down and there is you know the the whole infrastructure all of the steel the metal the windows the doors they you know every elevator every stairwell every office everything in the thing was absolutely destroyed and thousands of people inside the building with it and there is a dust settled in there was a pile of rubble.

And then of course we came in after that to try to clean it up and try to figure out what went wrong. And all sorts of engineers came and they hauled off all sorts of pieces of it the twisted metal to do studies in engineering.

And what could we do. And how do we avoid these things. And look at all of the other things you can learn from them. And then of course is in the process they're getting little bits of memorabilia to give to the families of those that lost loved ones.

And then another teams are actually finding the body parts and the tragedy of what happened there. And but never for a moment in all of man's genius did anybody ever dream of taking all that stuff they gathered and saying let's see if we can take this metal and maybe we can find enough doors in here we can get a few elevator parts and and we can get some stuff and let's see if we can just go put all this back together.

Nobody ever dreamed for a moment of doing that. But could you imagine if somebody there had the capacity there to literally take that entire destruction and there not only begin to take out of that rubble to speak and to work and to rebuild and to restore.

And the next thing you know it all begins to come back together a brick upon a brick and the metal can takes its strength and its shape back again. And then out of the rubble comes all of these you know shattered windows of you know tons of glass beginning to come back into pieces.

And the next thing you know the thing begins to rise. And then every body that was within it life comes back in and it's restored. Well that's exactly what Jesus did for a Christian only far greater. He did it eternally.

He takes somebody there that that was devastated sin came in like that jet and hit him right in the midsection and destroyed him with it. It deposited self and arrogance and pride and and and accusation to everybody else.

And whose fault it was when instead of saying I sin we blame it all on everybody else. And there we lay in the rubble nothing but out of it. Then the the God the power of the gospel gets in and restores a man's soul regenerates his life resurrects his being you know takes everything he is.

You look at these wonderful words of the gospel and he takes a man he says I can take you back into my image I can fill you with myself I can give you a heart like mine. I can take away your stony heart.

I give you a heart of flesh and I give you a heart of purity if you want it. And here is he builds that up and he pours his love back into it. Now that building I'll tell you it's got a message for every crumbled building in the rest of the planet.

Doesn't it that life is a peacemaker that life of every other life that's been hit and destroyed and annihilated. And here the wonderful thing is is this is what Jesus says he's done when he's restored us.

And the way he pours his heart in his life in his love back in. But unfortunately I think we live in a day and age where lives are oftentimes the peace that is brought into a lot of homes. The way we look for peace even in Christian circles.

Peace by Transformation Rather Than Human Negotiation

I look at a lot of Christian books quote-unquote Christian books. I personally debate some of those things but it's probably not supposed to if I'm really merciful and pure at heart. So obviously I'm not yet because I think a lot of it's well trash.

But anyway the but the thing is is that to me I mean I look at a lot of people here where their their life is destroyed in there and they're by they're trying to gain peace by some sort of human process human treaties human agreements here you got a marriage it's in trouble.

You get two piles of rubble throwing bricks at each other you know on a thing and in blaming each other on why they're both pile of rubble and as they're throwing it back and forth and accusing one another they get a counselor of which there's no shortage of these days it seems like they're pretty expensive.

Probably that's the reason. But anyway it's these people that come along say wait a minute we can help you you know and we can negotiate a treaty here we need to negotiate a ceasefire here and we've got to go in and put you through a battery of tests and if we get a little battery of tests and we get a psychological makeup we'll find out why you throw bricks you know at each other and we'll find out why you're unhappy.

And we'll find out why you say and do these things to each other and why all of this lack of P why you don't have peace in your home and peace in your marriage and peace in your life and peace with your children.

It's obviously there's some psychological difficulty here that's going on that hasn't been understood yet and dealt with. But we're professionals and so they go in and they do this and they help produce peace by negotiation in discussion you got if he does you got to realize each other you you got how you got flashpoints you've got you got there's things you avoid and in issues in your life that you realize you don't push this button and you don't do that.

And then they help us find out all these things about each other. But it's a superficial peace. It's a negotiated piece. It's a human peace not a supernatural piece. It's not something to happen because Jesus has come and poured his power into them and transform them and because he has taken their nature and their character that that caused the rebellion and and reckoned it dead and let it die and buried it and given a new life and given a new spirit so much with it within it.