So, what do we do in response to these facts in our day?  What is on the heart of God and what role is He asking us to play?  We have been studying this powerful sermon by Jesus, trying to understand what Jesus meant and how Jesus would have us respond to this Word.  As a reminder, let me quickly speak about each of the statements by Jesus– hopefully, those of you who have been here each week will be able to just about recite these with me.  You will be blessed, meaning the favor and goodness of God will be upon you if you respond with certain mind sets, certain attitudes.  In the first Beatitude, you bring your poverty to Jesus, because you are not righteous on your own.  As you acknowledge this truth you are ushered into Jesus’ Kingdom.  As you grieve over your sin and the pain it has caused you and others, Jesus brings you near His side and you are comforted.  As you lay down your strengths, those gifts and abilities God Himself has given to you, and you allow the Lord to use them and multiply them to extend His Kingdom, you also reap the fruit of the Kingdom.  Then you starve to be righteous, to be more like Jesus in your character, and you are completely satisfied by Him- He fills you.  As you extend God’s mercy to others, you receive much more of His mercy in return.  Then, you desire purity in your inmost being, and in response, the Lord enables you to gaze at more and more of His awesome character.  This brings us to our passage this morning.  As you allow His peace to flow through you to others, you become more aware of your position in His family.

I. Being vessels of peace.

The word translated “peacemakers” in the NIV comes from a compound Greek word– “peace” or “connecting into one” and “do”.  So the idea is we are to do something to connect people together in unity.  Where is unity needed?  Everywhere!  Our God is a God of relationship, and His desire is for His creation to be in living and dynamic relationships with one another which will both bless us and build His Kingdom.  Sin has marred this whole picture.  Because of sin, there is reconciliation needed first and foremost between God and man.  People are at enmity with God because He is holy and they are not.  Paul says it this way in Colossians 1:21, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.”  And in Romans 5:10 he says, “For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”  There was hostility, but God has made peace with us through His Son.  How?  Because His Son died to take away the root of our enmity– our sin against God.  And He has restored us to a right relationship with our loving Father!  If you know Christ this morning, you are forgiven from your individual sins, you have been made a new creation, so you no longer must live according to your old sinful nature, and the guilt which was on you due to your sin has been justified; or as someone put it, “Just as if I had never sinned”.  You are not guilty according to our Judge, Jesus.

So, the first place we make peace is between God and people.  What is our role in this?  Our place is to love people with the love God has given to us, and then tell them about the source of this love.  The message without the demonstration of the truth of the message, love, is not helpful!!  But when we show love to people, they are all ears to what God has done in our lives and what He will do in their life!  I believe the Lord is saying to the people of God at Trinity today is “Give My love away to others and I will fill you back up much more, but give My love away!!!”

The other way we act as those through whom God’s peace flows is to act to bring connection between people.  The prevailing tendency in Christians in America is “to avoid sticking our noses in other peoples’ business.”  But, let me ask you this question, “Did Jesus ever speak into situations or conversations in which He had not been invited?”  How about when the disciples were talking among themselves about who was the greatest.  The text tells us that Jesus knew their thoughts, and stood a little child in their midst and taught them that the least among them would really be the greatest in the Kingdom of God.  This was a rebuke.  Jesus said this because He loved them enough to speak the truth to them.  Granted, He had a relationship with them.  Rarely will I speak into conversations or broken relationships when I have no relationship with the people.  But, is it in the Lord’s heart to restore broken relationships?  Absolutely!  This is His will.  What is my role?  I can’t make 2 people forgive each other and be reconciled to one another.  But I can set up a healthy context for communication to happen.  I can ask or at least invite people to forgive one another.  I can sit in the room and pray, and make sure people are hearing the same thing I am hearing when the other person communicates.  Language is a funny thing– a person can think he communicated one thing, when quite a different thing was heard.

Many years ago, Ann and I served as house parents for ½ of the summer to a group of 16 college students who were living in the same house, all working jobs, and we were sharing our faith with other students who were also working at Myrtle Beach over the summer.  After urging students to live with reconciled relationships, one of the students who was living with us, Greg, came up to me and asked to talk with me, which I welcomed.  He said that his roommate Steve was really getting on his nerves.  I asked what was happening and he told me.  Then I asked him what a biblical response would be.  Greg said he should speak with Steve about his actions and help Steve understand why he was having a problem with these actions.  I commended him and asked him if he wanted me to sit in the room as he talked with Steve.  Greg thought about it for a moment, and said, “No, let me try one on one first and then see if Steve responds.”  I agreed because this is the pattern we see in Matthew 18.  Greg and I prayed together and the 2 roommates spoke later that evening.  There was reconciliation and all of heaven rejoiced with us at the peace in the house which this brought.  It certainly made the testimony of our house much stronger, because the tension which had been there was gone.  I played the role of a peacemaker between two brothers who were struggling.  Now, this doesn’t always turn out well.  I cannot make anyone forgive the other or even make them meet together, because the wounds are deep.  I can pray.  I can offer to be there.  I can set up the conversation so that there is real communication is taking place.  So can you!
God has given you peace with Himself, if you know Christ today.  He has given to you the ability to speak to others about His work on the cross for them.  And He has given to you the opportunity to bring peace into relationships of people around you.  Go out as peacemakers, commissioned by Jesus with His calling to act as a vessel through whom He can bring His peace.

II. Reflecting the character of our Father.

The reward given to those is that they will be called sons of God.  You understand that “sons” is not speaking about gender, but position, any more than the church being called the ‘bride of Christ’ is speaking about gender, but intimacy in relationship.  The reward for those who act as peacemakers is that they are given a clear name– sons of God their Father.  You see, sonship is a privilege given to those who reflect the character of their Father to a lost and broken world which does not reflect this same character.  It grieves me that there are so many broken relationships within the church.  Marriages, families and churches are all suffering in this country due to sin.  God’s intent is to heal and restore relationships.  He wants to use us as vessels through whom He will pour His love so people can experience the love and grace of God, and be healed from past pain.  When healing occurs, then people are ready to take another step towards restoration.  Participating with God is a blast!  Watching God work is one of the greatest joys on earth.  If you have made yourself available to be used by God, even if it means being rejected or ignored, then you are called a member of God’s family!  This is what our God has done and we are simply imitating our Father.

Who is calling us sons of God?  First and foremost, God Himself is!  Do you remember when Jesus was on the earth, and when Jesus responded in obedience to His Father through His baptism by John and through the transfiguration on the mountain, there was the voice of the Heavenly Father speaking down to say, “This is my Son!!  With Him I am well pleased!!” or “This is My Son!  Listen to Him!”.  How do you think the God-man, Jesus Christ felt when He heard these words?  Affirmed, overjoyed, proud of His Father’s pleasure in Him.  This is part of the reward for us as God’s children.  When I am asking the Lord to lead me each step, for His grace to show me what is next for me, and then I follow by faith, I am looking for that day when I too will hear the voice of my Heavenly Father, “This is my son!  I am pleased with him!” 

The others who call us members of God’s family are those who have been blessed by our openness to be used as vessels of peace.  Think about this with me. If 2 people are fighting with one another, what is going on in their hearts and minds?  Turmoil, stress, struggle, probably anger.  A lot of energy goes into justifying your actions and words and rehearsing what the other person did to you.  Well, when there is an opportunity for peace in that relationship, and both people agree to meet, there is much joy when there is communication, understanding and forgiveness.  Tension is removed from your life and there is often a grateful acknowledgment of our role in the process.  I have experienced this many times here at Trinity and in every other place the Lord has called us. 

I will share one story with you of a couple from a different church.  I knew Glenn fairly well, because he was in a men’s group with me.  When we started to get honest with one another in this men’s group, he shared that his marriage was failing.  I asked him what I could do, and his wife, Lynn agreed to meet with us to talk about the issues.  As I sat and listened for a while to the issues he felt and the struggles she had in the marriage, it became crystal clear to me that God was the only One who could heal this.  I asked them both what they were willing to do to heal the marriage, and they both agreed to do anything they could, which is a huge and necessary first step.  I asked them both to be willing to try whatever I suggested, and they agreed.  I asked Lynn to choose to forgive Glenn for not providing for her as she felt he should– this took some prodding and prayer with and for her.  She had to lay that down and trust in God’s provision for her.  When she finally did, then I asked her to speak respect to Glenn, no matter how she felt.  Affirm Glenn every day in specific ways– don’t lie to him, but look for things he is doing which are worthy of respect and affirm him strongly, as the man God has made him to be.  I told Glenn he needed to forgive his wife, which also took some time.  Then he had to unlearn some unhealthy patterns, which also took some time.  Then I asked Glenn to communicate love to his wife every day in specific ways.  As God brought healing to this marriage and home, it was wonderful to see.  They both had to continue to learn how to communicate with one another. But you see, the Spirit of God started to show up when they laid down their un-forgiveness and grudges and chose to bless instead.  This brought a whole new spirit into their relationship and home and their kids were tremendously blessed through this healing process which God brought about.  In this case, God used me.  He could have used a rock, you understand, but He prefers to use human vessels through whom He can pour His grace.  Our God is a peace-maker, and as His children, so are we!

I had great joy in being a part of something God was doing. He wants to use you, sons and daughters of the King, in this same manner.  You are His chosen means to extend grace to others as you stand for restoration.  Standing by and doing nothing when peace has dissolved is not a biblical option for us.  We are to act to join together what has been broken.  This begins in our relationships, marriages, families and church, anywhere there is a broken relationship, we refuse to let it lie, but seek to act as peacemakers.  Through this, God is glorified.  He delights when we step into broken neighborhoods and extend love to people, which happened Saturday as many walked with us to pray for and clean -up a neighborhood.  God was glorified there!

III. What it means to live as peacemakers.

I want to finish as we have the last several weeks by looking at what this means for our day to day lives.  What would the Lord have me do today? 
Acting as a peacemaker means I agree with the Word of God– I am called on by God to act as a peacemaker, as one who will bring 2 people back into relationship with one another.  I accept that calling- do you?  At times, this can be difficult.  At times, it puts me in the middle of what feels like a mess.  But God is bigger than any mess, and is able to redeem our mess so that it brings Him glory!  I rest in that truth!