Blessed Are The Peacemakers Series

That is why it is so dangerous to hear of preachers whose messages never make their listeners uncomfortable about themselves. Which makes me think about preacher like Joel Osteen who, by his own admission, doesn’t ever talk about sin from the Lakewood Church pulpit. On Larry King Live, Larry King asked him if “sinner” was ever a word he used.

Osteen replied: “I don't use it. I never thought about it. But I probably don't. But most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change. There can be a difference in your life. So I don't go down the road of condemning.”

While I agree that people do not need to be verbally beat to a pulp, the Word of God should convict us. When we are convicted we should be uncomfortable. That discomfort should move us to repent over the sin that causes the conviction. Confession results in real Biblical peace.

• What being a peacemaker is!

Although we talk a lot about valuing peace, we don’t really. To be a peacemaker is to risk misunder-standing. In 1993 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace treaty with Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization. When someone asked how he could sign a treaty with the people who had been the mortal enemies of Israel, he replied, “You don’t make peace with your friends, only with your enemies.” Many of his own countrymen sharply disagreed with his actions, so much so that he was assassinated. Not by an Arab or a Palestinian. But an Israeli, an Orthodox Jew who thought by shooting Mr. Rabin in the back he was doing God’s work.

The world does not honor peace as much by its standards and actions as by its words. In almost every age the greatest heroes have been the greatest warriors.

Three things that characterize a peacemaker

 Peace with God (Romans 5:1, 2 Cor. 5:18-20)

 Personal Peace with God.

"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1)

The one who does not belong to God through Jesus Christ can neither have peace nor be a peace-maker. God can only work peace through us after he has worked peace in us.

 Leading others to Peace With God

Having established peace with God one assumes the responsibility of actively working to reconcile others to God and one another. Peacemakers are to make every effort to get out the “good news” that God is not angry, that peace has been made and that the peace treaty has been signed. At the end of War World II, the United States signed a peace treaty with Japan, yet there were hold outs in the South Pacific Islands, who either did not get the word or did not believe the word that war was over and so they continued to fight a world that had official ended. The last officially confirmed Japanese holdout came out the jungle in the Philippines to surrender in 1974, 29 years after the war had ended. In the same way many people today isolated in their own worlds, still fight against God. “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, (19) that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (20) Now then, we are ambas-sadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.” (2 Cor. 5:18-20) Christians then are given the position of “ministers of reconciliation” (v.18) bearing “the message of reconciliation” (v. 19).