Being a Peacemaker

What a great privilege it is to be here with you folks today. Let me say to all the guests, please come back next week. You'll hear some really good preaching, OK? Milton is, is truly one of my favorite preachers of the word of God.

I, I find myself often, downloading sermons from your website, and he's such a blessing to me in so, so many ways, but it's great to be here with you today. Let me invite you to take, your copy of the scriptures and turn to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5. And I will begin reading in verse one, if you'll follow along.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. And this morning, The focus of this text will be upon verse 9, and I'll read it again. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

Let's pray, Father. We have opened and read your word. And God, would you help us to see it as truth from you this morning. Lord, you tell us in your word that your word itself is as sharp as a two-edged sword.

That it pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our heart, it can reach in the innermost part of us like nothing else can. And God, we just simply ask this morning. That you would speak to us through your word. May you be honored and may you be pleased and may you be praised.

I ask in Jesus' name. Amen. We come to this familiar passage of scripture, and we find 8 promises, 8 statements made by Jesus Christ, known as the Beatitudes. And as we find this word blessed again and again and again, it just simply means to be happy.

And really, these 8 statements describe how one enters into the kingdom. And how one is to act as a child or a citizen of the king or the kingdom. And it shows us that we come to God in a beggarly poor spirit, mourning over our sin. And then there are some ways that God expects us to live as a child of the King.

And we come to our text today of blessed are the peacemakers. there was a book written a number of years ago. It was originally published in 1968, and it was called The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant. They have a chapter on history and war.

It begins with the following words. War is one of the constants of history and has not diminished with civilization and democracy. In the last 3,421 years of recorded history, only 268 have seen no war. Those words were written 48 years ago and it's not gotten any better.

In our lifetime, we see war and conflict all over this planet, and let's be honest, we see sometimes war and conflict in our personal lives. when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, There was a separation between God and man. And shortly after that, when Cain killed his brother Abel, there was a separation between man and man. There has been conflict in this world ever since.

Sin brings conflict. And because of that reality for us as human beings, Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers. So let's jump in this morning and discover what God has for us from His word. First of all, I want us to notice a definition of a peacemaker.

This word peacemaker, it's the only occurrence of this word in the entirety of the New Testament. It is likened and very similar to the Old Testament word Shalom. Now even if you go to Israel today, it's very likely someone will say Shalom, peace. It's a greeting.

It has a twofold meaning, one of it of, of being a wholeness of life or body, health, contentment, fulfillment, wellness we might say. The other aspect is a right relationship or harmony with people. So if you greet someone with the term Shalom, you're saying, hey, I, I, I'm really wanting a wellness or a wholeness to be upon you, and I'm wanting to be right with you. That's the idea of a peacemaker.

A simple definition is this. One who actively pursues and promotes peace in his own life and in the lives of others. One who actively pursues it. I think we'll see that clearly here today, that one who promotes it in his own life and in the lives of other people.

So that's a simple definition of a peacemaker. I want to briefly notice. Who the ultimate peacemaker is, and certainly that is God Himself. And this point will flow right into the next main idea that we have, but I just want to make a brief mention of two or three verses, Romans 15 and verse 33.

Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Philippians 4:9, the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 of the Apostle Paul's letters begin with grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is the ultimate peacemaker? It is God.

Yes, he is a God of wrath at times, but he's a God of peace. And knowing that we can flow right into our 3rd main idea this morning, and that's the realm of peacemaking, the realm of peacemaking. I want us to notice what it means to have peace. With God.

Peace with God. This is something that we need to experience personally, something that we need to promote in the lives of others. Romans 5:1 says this, Therefore, having been justified, declared to be righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Why is it necessary for us to have peace with God?

You are a well taught church. The gospel is the core of this church. this, but I'll repeat this truth this morning. That we need peace with God because apart from God, apart from coming to God in faith through Jesus Christ, we are enemies of God.

We stand in opposition to God. We are under his wrath, and we are condemned already. And that's why we need peace with God. Paul writes in Romans 5:9-10, and I do not have this particular verse on the, the screen here this morning.

But much more than having now been justified by His blood. We shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, we were brought back into harmony with God, how through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by God. His life.

And in Colossians 1:19-20, for it was by the Father's good pleasure, for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross. God is a holy, he's a supremely holy and righteous God, and therefore he cannot tolerate our sin. God is a just God, and therefore he can't overlook our sin. But God is also a loving God.

And he lovingly and justly dealt with our sin by unleashing his wrath on his own Son on the cross, and as Peter writes that Christ bore our sin in his own body on the tree. And as a result of justly dealing with our sin, he graciously offers the gift of eternal life to all who will come to him in faith through Jesus Christ. Isn't that a great truth this morning? Amen.

That is, that is the heart of the gospel. And when we come to Christ, We place our faith and our trust in Him. We experience peace with God. We're no longer enemies.

We're no longer on the wrong side, if you will. And this is an amazing truth, we become a child of God. We're a child of the King. That's the truth of the gospel.

And I would say to anyone here this morning, If you are yet this morning in your sin, you've never placed your faith and your trust in Christ alone for forgiveness of sin. That God Himself extends that opportunity to you today to come to Him in faith. But, the great reality is once that we are at peace with God, we can know the peace of God. Colossians 3:15 says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

The word rule. Describes the activity of an umpire. Most of us know what an umpire is, particularly in the realm of baseball. He's the guy who calls the balls and the strikes, and there are other, certainly umpires in different other sports.

But it is the picture of one who is in charge, the one who is calling the shots, if you will, the one who says this is acceptable, this is not acceptable. And Paul's admonition in the book of Colossians is this, let peace be the umpire in your heart. Let it be the one who shoves out fear and stress and anxiety and worry. Let it be the one who rules in your heart and your life.

Philippians 4:7. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. When Paul writes, it surpasses all comprehension. It transcends natural human thinking.

And when he says to let it guard our hearts, the word guard speaks of, of a garrison of soldiers to protect someone. And the picture is this, that God's peace acts like a garrison of soldiers to protect us from fear and worry and anxiety and distress. And then we find in the book of Isaiah 26. The steadfast of mind.

You will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you. Folks, this is reality this morning. There is no person. There is no prescription, there is no possession, there is no position that will bring you lasting.

Definitive peace in your life. It only comes through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who satisfies. Undoubtedly in a crowd like this this morning.

There are some of you who in the last few days. It's as though the path you were walking has just disappeared. And you really don't know where to go. Life just seems incredibly uncertain.

And maybe even this morning you were just begging God for direction, for help, and for guidance. For some here this morning, undoubtedly in the last few days, your joy has turned to tears. You've just been brokenhearted over a situation. You've just cried out to God for help.

And I just want to remind you this morning that as a child of God, who is at peace with God, you can know the peace of God. You can know the peace of God. It surpasses all human natural thinking, and you can trust him. In the midst of horrible, difficult, hard circumstances, you have a God in heaven who loves you and you can trust him this morning.

And let me encourage you, if you find yourself in that spot. Just say, God. I trust you and let his peace rule in your heart. So the realm of peacemaking, certainly it is peace with God, but there's another realm.

And that's peace with other people. Peace in our relationships that we have with people, and I wanna explore for just a moment this, this morning, what the Bible says about peace breaking. What the Bible says about peace breaking, and we'll look at a few texts together, Proverbs 6:16 to 19. There are 6 things which the Lord hates.

Yes, 7, which are an abomination to him. Haughty eyes A lying tongue And hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and notice this last one. And one who spreads strife among brothers. those previous points before that last one, when we would say God hates lying, we would say, amen.

God hates murder, Amen. God hates it when people are devising wicked things in their minds that are in opposition to his truth, and we would say amen. And I wonder sometimes if maybe, just maybe the Amen would be either silent or very quiet when we get to the last one, because God hates. When we spread strife among our brothers, strife is just a general term for contention.

It's a person who is being a problem rather than solving the problem, and God says, I hate that. And when God specifically says he hates something, it merits our attention. And our obedience to His truth. Another text that is very instructive is James chapter 3, 14 to 17.

And the idea of what the Bible says about peace breaking. And James writes, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly and natural and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there is disorder and every evil thing.

But the wisdom From above is first pure and then peaceable and gentle and reasonable and full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering without hypocrisy. Let's break just a portion of this down for just a moment here this morning. When James writes about bitter jealousy. He uses the same word bitter in verse 11, and it's literally referring to undrinkable salty water.

He uses it here in this text in a figurative sense. And it's the idea of harsh, sharp, pungent, distasteful, resentful attitudes and words against someone else. And he says you couple that with selfish ambition. It's the idea of a spirit of rivalry, hostility or division or faction.

It's somebody who has the spirit that says, I want it my way. And when that happens, James says there is disorder and every evil thing. And James says, look, don't be arrogant, don't be prideful, don't, really, lie against the truth, he says, don't lie against the facts of God's word, the facts as they are in your life, and he says, that type of spirit that is bitter, that's characterized by selfish ambition. He says, that's not wisdom from above.

But it's earthly. It's earthbound. It's an attitude of those who have no consideration of God or his word, and really one who opposes God. He says it's natural.

It's representative of an unregenerate life or unspiritual. He says it's demonic, that which is characteristic of or proceeding from a demon or an evil spirit. Now we couple all that together, and it becomes really, really clear that that spirit is not wisdom from God. Amen.

That, that it truly wreaks havoc in relationships. But he says this, Hey, there is a wisdom from above. And it's gentle and it's peaceable, and there's a sweet, reasonableness to it. But boy, when we are bitter.

And we have attitudes of bitterness and we speak words of bitterness. It wreaks all kinds of havoc in our relationships. Another passage in the book of James, James chapter 4, 11 and 12, James writes, do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law.

When James writes, do not speak against, he's, he's really saying, don't speak about other brothers and sisters in Christ in an evil way, in a way that is unbiblical, in any critical, demeaning, malicious, slanderous, unkind, disparaging way. We are not to speak about our brothers and sisters in that fashion. Really the idea of of this word against is to speak down to or we might say it this way, running other people down. And James says, hey, don't do that.

And he says, don't judge your brother or don't condemn your brother. And he, the, the tense there is it's an ongoing continual behavior, and he says, one who does this has no regard for God's law and views himself as being above the law. In other words, I know better than you do, God. When we speak.

In an evil way about brothers and sisters, and we have attitudes that characterize that towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. Proverbs 13:10. Through insolence comes nothing but strife. Through rudeness, through disrespect.

The King James uses the word pride. Only by pride comes contention. Psalm 30, excuse me, 133 and verse 1. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.

Can we say amen to that? That as a body here at Cornerstone Fellowship, that you are unified. There's, there's unity in direction, there's unity in philosophy, there's unity in the gospel, and what's truly, truly important. And as we looked at these texts about peace breaking, I think it merits a question.

Are you an agent of peace? Or are you an agent for agitation? Are you an agent for peace or are you an agent for agitation? Now, I think it's easy to misunderstand the role of a peacemaker and I wanna try to, to walk us through a few things and ideas to help us think here this morning of what peacemaking is and what it's not, OK?

A peacemaker is not one who ignores conflict. undoubtedly, there's some of you here in the audience this morning that if you had to be really honest, that you would say, I hate conflict. I would say if you like conflict, there's probably a problem, OK? But there's some of you that really, really hate conflict and you avoid it like the plague.

You act as though it does not exist. Similar to one who runs from conflict. Some avoid it, some see it and they run the other direction. Peacemaking is not one who goes along to get along.

That's not a peacemaker. That's not what what Christ was referring to here in the Beatitudes. Not just one who goes along to get along, and really that's the idea of peace at any price. And a peacemaker is not one who is always tolerant of the thinking and actions and attitudes of other people.

there are hills to die on. There are truths to stand on. And there are times when we have to lovingly and graciously and kindly say to a brother or sister in Christ, hey, what you're doing is wrong. What you're thinking is wrong.

What you did is wrong. And so it's not just always being tolerant of anything and everything that comes down the pike. And peacemaking is not one who stubbornly, aggressively, and angrily deals with conflict. That's not peacemaking.

We need to be willing To lovingly shine the truth of God's word on conflict and by His grace do all that we can to reconcile things when there is a lack of peace with someone else. Romans 12:18 is very instructive. It says, if possible, So as far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. I honestly struggle with this first just a little bit.

My own spirit, and this is why I tend to come at issues of conflict and say it can always be fixed. It can always be fixed. But what my experience has been? An experience of some of you undoubtedly.

Is that it all can't always be fixed. And Paul says, if possible, If possible That means that that we work at it, we pursue it, we promote it, we go after it. But sometimes there's not true genuine reconciliation, and that's hard for me to grapple with. That's hard for you to grapple with, that when we really go after it and we want reconciliation, but maybe the other individual is not willing to, to reconcile and they're still bitter and angry.

That it just doesn't work. And I want us to notice this morning that peace is not just the absence of conflict. It's just because there's not some major upheaval that doesn't equate with peace. It's something that we have to fight for and work for and pursue.

R Kent Hughes said this, the peacemaker is a fighter. He makes trouble to make peace, he wages peace. It's an effort that we go after passionately. And peace is costly.

It cost God an awful lot to make peace with us, did it not? Peace is costly. John Stott said it this way, when we ourselves are involved in a quarrel, there will be either the pain of apologizing to the person we have injured or the pain of rebuking the person who has injured us. Been there It's difficult.

It's hard. It's painful sometimes to go to someone and say, what, I was wrong. Will you forgive me? Or to go to someone and sit down with them and graciously and kindly say what you said, what you did really hurt me.

It bothered me. And either way, there is pain and peace is costly. Paul writes in the book of Ephesians chapter 4, therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love.

Isn't that a great phrase? Are we not often tolerant with ourselves? And we show so little tolerance and if I can use the word grace with other people, And how, how we need to be dispensers of grace, grace in our marriages, grace in our homes, grace in all of our relationships, that God's grace would flow through us and that we would be people who are tolerant of others. We're gracious with others.

And he says, be diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Paul again writes in Romans 14, so then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another and in Hebrews 12, pursue peace with all men. Do you notice those keywords in those last three verses? There's the word diligent.

And twice the word pursue. We've got to go after it. We've got to give maximum effort to be a peacemaker, to go after it passionately and diligently with all of our might. That we might be reconciled with someone who we are at odds with right now.

Let me see if I can bring this right home to where we live this morning. If we're honest. In the last few days. Maybe already today.

There's been some conflict between you and somebody else. Maybe it was in your home before you came this morning. Maybe, the, yeah, you see the pictures up there. All right, very good.

and sometimes conflict comes. In a way that, you're just really at somebody. And you're kinda going at it and there's contention, and sometimes the conflict is more of the cold shoulder. I'm just not gonna speak to you, I'm not going to talk to you.

Conflict can grow from misunderstandings. It can grow from a lack of communication, it can grow from sinful attitudes and actions. And I promise you this, Pastor Milton has not been telling me stories about any of you, OK? All right, I promise you, it hasn't happened.

But because I know people. I know my own heart. I know the struggles of my own life. That undoubtedly There are times where conflict escalates.

There's harsh words that are spoken. There's cursing There's name calling. There's the I won't speak to you for days on end. There's throwing things.

There's physical violence. And if I can simply put it this way, God says, look, That's not being a peacemaker. That's not the way I designed it. That's not how it should be in our relationships with other people, and we should be pursuing peace.

And, sometimes conflict comes in the, in the simplest of ways and all of a sudden there's a misunderstanding, there's a miscommunication. This happened not too long ago with my wife and I. Just had a very, very long day, one particular day. It was on a Wednesday and I came home fairly late that night, and we were talking through some of the issues of the day, and I just kinda got to a point where I said, can we just talk about something else?

And I just, in my mind, I just kinda wanted to chill for a little bit. Ever been there? just relax a little bit, just kinda unwind a little bit. And my wife interpreted that as, oh, he wants to go to bed, he just wants to, to, to call it good for the day, and she said, well, we'll, we'll just go to bed.

And, and in my mind, I'm thinking, time out here. All I said is, hey, can we talk about something else? Why are you shutting down on me? And, and there was a misunderstanding and there was a conflict and, and finally, I, I had to go to Kim and I said, look, I am so sorry.

My attitude was wrong, my spirit was wrong. Will you please forgive me? And we were able to get that worked out. You ever been in in there anywhere close to that this morning?

Would you raise your hand so I'm not, if I don't feel alone. OK, good, good, good. I feel in good company here this morning. All right.

Well, we get there, don't we? Simple misunderstandings sometimes create conflict and we have to make that right. in our church relationships, it's so important to have that spirit of unity and the bond of peace. Philippians 4:2 says this.

I urge Yodia, and I urge Sentiki to live in harmony in the Lord. How would you like to have been present on that Lord's Day? If you were Yodia and Sentiki. And you just got called out in front of the whole congregation, because you've got some unresolved conflict that it was apparently well known in the congregation, causing problems in the congregation, and Paul in his letter just calls him out and says, look, get it right.

And I would say this morning that if there is a conflict that you have with another church, member, someone who attends this fellowship on a regular basis, that you get that right. That's what would please and honor God. God's been teaching me some lessons here in the recent weeks and months. And just in the last week or so, there was a couple in our church that asked if they could sit down and talk to me.

And I said, sure. And I sensed there was some problem, some difficulty, and they said, we, we've been at this church, 10 number of years, it's been a number of years, and we just find it very, very difficult to serve in this church. We just feel like we constantly get roadblocks and we constantly get told no, and we just find it hard to serve in this church. And I'll be honest with you, I'm sitting at my desk thinking, are you kidding me?

we love volunteers. We love to use people. We put people to work all the time, and I'm not in the business of saying, no, you can't do that. And in my spirit, in my flesh, I wanted to defend that position.

I wanted to say, now look, you guys are out to lunch. You guys aren't thinking right. Because let me tell you, in the 15 years that I've been at this church, we love volunteers, but as God has been working in my heart, and it's only by the grace of God. That God has been teaching me.

That it's more important to be right. Than to be right. Can I say that again? It's more important to be right, and by that right with others than to be right.

I think I could have easily justified a position with those folks that that defended, hey, it's not hard to serve at Birch Terrace Baptist Church. It's easy to serve in our church, and I could have pointed to example after example after example after example, but by God's grace, I was able to look at them and say, what, I am so sorry that you feel that way. And let's take some steps to get that rectified. Because it's more important to be right with other people than to be right.

And that's something God is teaching me in my own heart, in my own life, in our ministry. And by this, I don't mean that, as I stated earlier, that, that we capitulate or back down on very important issues, but there's many times where we can see it from someone else's perspective and say, Hey, I wanna be right with you. And it's more important to me that I have a right relationship with you than proving my point. in ministry, sometimes even there comes conflict.

In the book of Acts, we find after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. And Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark along with them also, but Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along, who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.

I'm so glad that there's an end to that story, where we find in 2 Timothy 4:11, where Paul was writing, Only Luke is with me.

Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for my service. there was a point in time where, where Paul and Barnabas, there was just sharp contention between them, and they parted. And truly God used that to further the gospel. And eventually they worked it out and they came back together, and Paul came to a point where he said, hey, pick up Mark, bring him along with us because he is valuable to me.

Folks, there are times Where we just need in the moment of conflict. To go to a passage like Matthew 18 and put it into practice. Where if someone has offended us that we go and privately talk to them, and may I add that we graciously and lovingly and kindly talk to them, but we work through the conflict. And we be agents for peace.

And not agents for agitation. And that we are willingly. And gladly to say I was wrong. Will you forgive me?

Oh, that's important. And those words, I was wrong. are sometimes words that get stuck right here. They're hard to get out.

It takes a tremendous amount of humility just to say, I blew it. I was so wrong. My attitude towards you stunk. What I said to you was just unacceptable.

It was unkind, it was ungracious, it was unloving. Will you please forgive me and restore the relationship with another brother or sister in Christ. We'll wrap this up this morning. In this way of looking the, at the pathway to peacemaking, pathway to peacemaking.

In just 3 simple words. The first one being selflessness. And Paul reminds us in Philippians 2, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Anybody struggle with that?

Anybody struggle with, with, really putting others before yourself? If you're breathing this morning, we all struggle with that, right? We really do We struggle at times and he says, do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the personal, or excuse me, for the interest of others. It's a selflessness.

If we are going to be peacemakers, we've got to set aside self. By God's grace and say, I will pursue. Reconciliation and being right with someone else. The second word is self control.

Selflessness, but there's also a self control, and all of these are by God's grace. Proverbs 25:28 says, like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit. The idea of without walls, particularly in ancient history, was to be vulnerable. Defeat was imminent if you didn't have walls around your city.

And the writer of Proverbs says, hey, that's like a city that's vulnerable and defeat is imminent, that's who you are as an individual when you don't have control over your own spirit. Proverbs 15:1, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. We've all been there too. In the moment of conflict, it becomes a tit for tat thing.

It's almost like a ping pong match, and somebody says something that we don't like, and we launch a barb back at them, and then it becomes a match and it begins to escalate when if one of you would just simply say, enough is enough. And that there's a soft, gentle answer, it turns away, it dissuades, it calms wrath. Proverbs 15:18, a hot tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute. May God by His grace, help us to be self-controlled people.

But that comes only from the third point. And that is to be spirit controlled, Spirit controlled. Galatians 5:16, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. That is a command, that is a promise from God.

You walk in the Spirit. And it's absolutely unequivocally impossible for you to carry out the desires of the flesh. What's it mean to walk in the Spirit? It simply means to know, understand, and obey God's truth.

To know, to understand and obey God's truth, that's equivalent to walking in the Spirit. And when we do that, when we're spirit controlled, when we're self controlled by God's grace, when we are humble and selfless people, we can be agents for peace. In our marriages, in our homes, and all of our relationships. In our text today.

It says blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. That last little phrase is important. And it's this in the essence of it, is that those who are peacemakers are living in a way that represents who they are in Jesus Christ. They're a son.

They're a child of God. And that when we are peacemakers, we're reflecting the character of God in us and through us. A peacemaker is one who actively pursues and promotes peace in his own life and in the lives of other people. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers.

And my question to you this morning. As a child of God. Are you A peacemaker. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes for just a moment here, Father.

We've done our best this morning to accurately give your truth. And Lord, as I prayed at the outset, God, would you just use your truth in our hearts and our minds today, Lord, please, please speak to us. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

If you keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed for just a moment. I'm just gonna, ask you to take a moment and respond in your own heart to the truth you've heard today. it could be this morning. That some of you need to immediately after this service, grab the hand of your spouse and say, we gotta talk.

There may be some young people in this room who immediately after this service need to go to your parents and say, we need to talk. There may be another church, member here, someone at Cornerstone Fellowship that you need to make a beeline towards and say, what, let's go into a side room and talk. And be one who is pursuing peace, one who is diligently going after peace. And maybe right now Just determined to do what is right before God.

In his truth