Matthew 5:1-12 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you
Introduction
Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
There are eight beatitudes. So far we have covered six, and those first six all came right out of the Old Testament. The King has arrived, and when He gives His manifesto of what His kingdom is going to be like He lays a foundation from some of the most fundamental ethics of the Old Testament Scriptures. But now, the last two beatitudes are new. Jesus is about to introduce two new ethical standards that are not drawn directly from the Old Testament, and that are unique to this new Kingdom.
Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness
Jesus’ own authority
It is obvious from the first six that Jesus did not dismiss or overturn or contradict or ignore the Old Testament. However nor did He limit Himself to the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus very often stood on the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. But just as often He stood on His own authority. When I teach, the only time what I say has any authority is when I can point to Scripture and say, “It is written...” But when Jesus taught, what He said had just as much authority whether He said “It is written” or “I say unto you.” Sometimes He quoted the Bible and said, “Thus saith the LORD,” but other times He said something new and said, “Thus saith Me.”
That is a claim to deity. Jesus is Almighty God and so everything that ever came out of His mouth were the words of God. And His commands were every bit as binding on us as anything God ever said. This is His kingdom, and He is the King of this kingdom and He makes all the laws and sets all the standards.
I searched high and low in the Old Testament and I could not find any passage that said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” In fact, the word “peacemaker” does not even appear in the Old Testament. What kind of peacemaking is Jesus talking about here? The next beatitude is a blessing on those who are persecuted, insulted, and falsely accused. This is the kind of peacemaking that gets people so infuriated with you that they come after you with persecution. How can Jesus possibly call that peacemaking? Especially since Jesus said things like this:
Matthew 10:34 Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
How is it that He calls us to be peacemakers when He is not a bringer of peace? Obviously we are going to have to dig in and figure out exactly what kind of peace Jesus is calling us to make, and what kind of peace He said He did not come to make. So it critical that we get the right definition of peace here.
Sonship
But before we define it, let’s take a few minutes thinking about the blessing Jesus pronounces on the peacemakers, because it is this blessing that makes the beatitude so unique to the New Testament. The idea of having peaceful relationships and people getting along and loving one another and all that – there is plenty of that in the Old Testament. What is new is the promise –
Matthew 5:9 …They will be called sons of God.
Old Testament saints were not sons
Now for most people that promise probably does not sound all that spectacular. And part of that is because we live in a culture that is deluded into thinking that all people are God’s children. We are not. In fact many times the very reason why God’s children are called God’s children in the Bible is to distinguish them from the rest of humanity. Most people are not God’s children – they are Satan’s children. In fact, not even the Old Testament saints were God’s children. Sonship is a kind of relationship with God that not even people like David or Daniel or Abraham or Moses enjoyed. Israel, as a nation, was considered God’s son in one sense, but not the individual people.
When Jesus came along and started calling God “My Father” instead of “our Father” the Jews considered it blasphemy. That didn’t deter Jesus – in fact that is the only way Jesus ever addressed God (except when He was quoting Scripture). They understood that Jesus was claiming a relationship with God that went far beyond anything any Old Testament saint ever knew. And then when Jesus preached this sermon He says that the citizens of His kingdom will all be sons of God.
In the Old Testament God commanded the people to refer to Him primarily as Yahweh. That was an awesome, mysterious name calculated to evoke fear and awe. That name appears almost seven thousand times in the Old Testament. Guess how many times it appears in the New Testament? Zero. When Jesus taught us how to pray, He told us to begin not by saying, “Dear Yahweh” or “Dear Jesus” or “Dear King…” He taught us to pray “Our Father…”
The Old Testament language about God was filled with constant warnings for man to keep his distance from a holy God. But in the kingdom of the Messiah we are invited over and over to draw near – like children running to their dad.
Please do not think of that as a reduction in our view of God. The fearful, awesome, staggering reality of the dangerous, fearsome holiness of God remains. In fact, that is the very thing that makes adoption such an amazing thing. We will never appreciate sonship until we have trembled before God as the Holy, dangerous sovereign whose anger causes the earth to open and swallow up His enemies. Sonship means little to us because we forget that we were naturally not sons but enemies. The fear still remains. The New Testament speaks extensively of fearing God. God is just as awesome now as He ever was. But something new has been added.
And that something new is the foundation of our entire understanding of God. J.I. Packer wrote:
If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ”Father” is the Christian name for God. (Knowing God 182)
Pretty strong statement from an eminent theologian.
The meaning of sonship
As I have studied the concept of sonship over the years it seems to me there are three main points of significance: resemblance, legal standing, and closeness of relationship.
Resemblance
Being a son of God means bearing His very characteristics. When a son is just like his dad we use the phrase “chip off the ol’ block.” That is the idea.
Matthew 5:44-45 Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good
He loves His enemies, so you love your enemies in order that you might be a son – in order that you might reflect in your character what God is like in His character.
Ephesians 5:1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children
Six times in Scripture God is called the God of peace, also called the Lord of peace and Prince of peace. It is God’s nature that he is a peacemaker and you can spot His children because they are also peacemakers.
Legal standing
Secondly, sonship points to legal standing.
Galatians 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
Romans 8:17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ
So being a child of God means you will resemble God, and it means you possess all the privileges connected to being God’s heir.
That is the highest honor and the most privileged and rewarding position that exists. And if you have trouble getting excited about it, think of a smaller picture of the same thing that you are able to get excited about. Can you think of some position at your job, or some other company, that you would be delighted to be promoted to? If they came to you and said, “We want you in that position” – and you get all the respect and honor and salary and prestige that come with it – how would you feel? What honor would be most delightful to your soul if you received it? Imagine that happening. Imagine how you would feel.
Do you realize that when Jesus returns and you receive your full status of sonship, you will be promoted to a position so high, so honorable, and with such benefits that it will cause that same feeling – times a million?
Closeness of Relationship
And one more. And this one is probably the most heavily emphasized in Scripture. This is the primary idea of the significance of sonship. Being a son (child) of God means having the special closeness of the parent-child relationship with God.
Matthew 7:9 Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
In the Old Testament, when the Israelites struggled with worry, God told them to think of Him as being like a fortress. But to us He says, “Look, you know the compassion in your heart you have toward your kids? That’s My heart toward you.”
That is not God’s heart toward everyone. When He looks down on an unbeliever, He does not think of that person as a son or daughter. But those He calls “sons of God” have the special closeness and unique intimacy and access that only a child has with his father.
I remember standing in line after John MacArthur preached one time waiting to talk to him. There were probably a good twenty people in front of me in line. And he was talking to each person, answering questions, talking to folks, etc., and then all of a sudden he stopped. This little girl found her way through the crowd and walked right up to him and he immediately turned his attention toward her and picked her up into his arms with a big smile. It was his granddaughter. There might have been some important people – some real big shots standing in that line; but no one else had that kind of access to him. God gave us children to help us understand our relationship to Him.
Understanding our sonship is a key component of living the Christian life. If you want to know how to overcome sin, that will come in greater measure the more you understand sonship. In Romans 8 we read that we have been given the Holy Spirit (who is called there the Spirit of sonship), for the purpose of enabling us to defeat the flesh.
Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
You see how it works? The Holy Spirit reminds you of your father-son, parent-child relationship with God. He causes you to cry out “Abba, Father” (“Daddy”). He enables you to appreciate that filial, family relationship with God, and thinking of God that way enables you to overcome the impulses of the flesh. You think of His love and His discipline and His wisdom and how much you desire to be close to Him and pleasing to Him, and how repulsive is the thought of displeasing and angering Him – and it empowers you to overcome the flesh.
Understanding our family relationship to God should revolutionize the way we think about suffering.
Hebrews 12:7-11 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
We are fools when we fall into thinking that our suffering is caused mainly by people or circumstances. We struggle and worry and fret and complain about the hardships in our lives because we forget what is going on. And the writer of Hebrews says, “Did you forget you are a son now?” Every single thing that ever happens to you as a believer is the action of a father toward His beloved child.
Called Sons
One last observation about this blessing. Please notice the word called.
Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Later in the chapter Jesus will tell us to love our enemies in order that we might be sons of God – act like God. But here the emphasis is on being called sons.
Called by whom? Who is going to call us sons of God? The world? I have been called a lot of things by people in the world, but never son of God. That is not the typical way they refer to Christians. It is what they call a divine passive – they will be called sons of God by God. On Judgment Day, when God sets everything right, to those people who imagined they had God’s approval while rejecting Christ God will say, “Depart from Me; I never knew you.” And to everyone who mocked Christians, mistreated Christians, laughed at Christians, persecuted Christians, God will put His great arm around you and say to those people – “Guess what – this is my daughter/son!” He will not be ashamed to call us His own children.
The Peacemakers
He will call us His children, that is, if…we are peacemakers.
Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
That is amazing. It means only peacemakers are children of God. And it also means that every single child of God – every last citizen of this kingdom, is a peacemaker. The Messiah arrived and instead of raising an army and destroying Rome, Jesus raised an army of peacemakers.
Definition
But what kind of peace is this? One thing is for sure, God’s definition of peace is a lot different from the world’s definition. There are people who have been awarded peace prizes for their work in the Mideast. Think about that. The fact that people have been given peace prizes for working their magic in the Mideast should tell us one thing – this world’s standards for peace are very, very low. For the world, any reduction in a conflict or any kind of cease-fire is regarded as peace. And yet even with that definition – still they are utterly incapable of achieving peace. If a Miss America contestant says her goal is world peace, everyone chuckles. It is a goal that’s so ridiculous and unattainable that only the most naïve people talk seriously about bringing about world peace.
In December of 1891, the International Peace Bureau was formed in Europe to establish world peace. In 1910 they won the Nobel Peace prize. Four years later came World War I, in which roughly half of the sixty million soldiers became casualties (dead or injured).
They called that war “the war to end all wars.” But just in case it didn’t, they created another peace-keeping organization. Obviously the Peace Bureau wasn’t cutting it, so they organized the League of Nations to insure world peace. After that Japan attacked China, Italy attacked Ethiopia, Spain had a civil war, the USSR attacked Finland, and the world erupted in the most devastating war in human history – World War II. Just two decades after the war to end all wars came a war that dwarfed World War I. In World War II there were an estimated sixty million dead.
And to add insult to injury, the League of Nations that had failed to insure world peace started to fall apart because the sixty-three members couldn’t even get along with one another. And so after World War II they formed yet another organization - the United Nations. This is the motto of the United Nations: “To have succeeding generations free from the scourge of war.”
That was in 1945, and from then until today not only have we not enjoyed “succeeding generations of peace,” they haven’t managed to give us one single day of peace on the earth – not one day free from war from 1945 until now.
Nixon promised America something we have never had - a generation of peace. To this day we still have never had a generation without war in the United States. Washington has a lot of peace monuments. The reason they have so many is because they build one after each war. And even if you did get rid of war that wouldn’t be peace. More people have been murdered in the U.S. than died in all the wars we have ever fought combined. If there is one thing we as humans cannot do is get along with one another.
And so you get the Kissengers and Carters and Chamberlains running around doing peace talks and winning peace prizes for getting countries to briefly agree to cease-fires, but Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers” not “Blessed are the truce-makers.” Listen to the words of the Prince of Peace.
Matthew 10:34-36 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
He is talking there about the world’s kind of peace. Jesus did not come to bring truce. The road to true peace is a bumpy one.
Cold war is not peace – not with nations, and not with individuals. The U.S.S.R. was destroyed because it lost a cold war – cold wars are deadly. Some of you might be in a cold war right now. You have agreed to a cease-fire, but the conflict is still there.
Biblical definition
So even if you define peace as the absence of conflict, the world cannot come close to achieving it. But from a biblical perspective the problem in this world is even worse, because the biblical standard for peace is a lot more than just the absence of conflict. In Scripture peace is not the absence of or lack of something – it is the presence of something. There is absence of conflict in a cemetery, but we don’t look to graveyards as the standard for peace.
A History of Conflict
If we want to understand the meaning of peace we need to understand the nature of non-peace. So let’s go back and take a look at the beginning of murder. In Genesis 4 we read about Cain and Abel, sons of Adam and Eve. The two brothers both came to offer a sacrifice to God, and God accepted Abel’s (because it was offered in faith and was the firstfruits); and God rejected Cain’s (evidently it was not offered in faith and wasn’t the firstfruits). Well, having his offering rejected really bothered Cain, and Cain and God had a bit of a heated conversation about it. One verse later Abel was dead.
That is not coincidence. It is not a fluke that Cain just happened to murder his brother immediately after having a conflict with God. As soon as he was alienated from God he found himself at odds with his godly brother. That is what causes breaches of peace. The farther someone is from God the more he will be at war with people. The reason there is violence in this world because people are at war with God.
And the inverse is true – the closer you are to God the more you love people. That is why whenever you read about unity and peaceful relationships in Scripture you don’t have to look far before you will see something about holiness and righteousness. Righteousness goes hand in hand with peaceful relationships. You cannot have this beatitude without the last beatitude – only the pure in heart can be peacemakers, because peacemaking is the effort to bring about purity of heart. You see that same sequence in James 3 and Hebrews 12.
James 3:17 the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving…18 Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.
Hebrews 12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy, without which no one will see God.
Isaiah 32:17 The fruit of righteousness will be peace
The reason the world’s efforts at peace fail is because they have no ability to overcome sin and bring about righteousness. If you cut off communication between the brain and the body parts, those body parts will become spastic and will not function in harmony with one another.
Peace is broken when a person breaks out of harmonious fellowship with God. And peace-making requires repairing that. There is no peace until relationships are reconciled. And the Greek word for reconciliation means to exchange enmity for friendship and love. Peacemaking is when enemies become friends. And that comes when the two people who are fighting are brought back into fellowship with God, which requires repentance.
And that is why real peacemaking tends to lead to so much conflict and persecution. People do not receive peacemakers well because they love their sin. When Moses tried to be a peacemaker with a couple of his countrymen in Exodus 2, they turned on him and said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” It is amazing – two enemies who are at each other’s throat will suddenly become allies to attack anyone trying to bring them to peace. The sinful heart loves its sin and does not want to let go of it.
The Church keeps the peace
And so peacemaking tends to generate a lot of conflict. Yet it is the only path to real peace. If it weren’t for the Church throughout the world proclaiming the gospel of peace, this whole world would be one giant bloodbath. Sometimes atheists try to justify their belief system by talking about how much violence has been perpetrated in the name of religion. That is such a disingenuous argument. I always wonder if those people would reject the theory of evolution if they discovered that violence has been committed in the name of evolution. The truth is, far more violence has been perpetrated in the name of evolution than in the name of Christianity, because evolution teaches that progress comes only through the strong destroying the weak, whereas Christianity teaches blessed are the meek and blessed are the merciful. Have there been some people who have claimed to be Christian while violating the very doctrines of the meekness of Christ? Yes, but that is the exception. The rule is that the Church is an army of peacemakers.
It is the godly remnant of the people of God who keep the world from descending into the horrors of Genesis 6. If it were not for the influence of the Church, in a single generation it would get so every inclination of everyone’s heart would be only evil all of the time – just like Genesis 6.
Two parts: Remove the problem and bring healing
There are two parts to making peace – remove the cause of disharmony and then repair what has been broken in the relationship. We are like surgeons. To make you healthy a surgeon has to first cut you open and remove the cancer. Then he has to sew you back up and help you recover. And both parts are important. There are some people who are real big on rebuking sin. But they are not so big on restoring health. They are running around everywhere with their knife, cutting people open and ripping out the cancer, but then they just leave them open and bleeding and move on to the next person.
Other people have the opposite problem – they are big on healing but not so big on the surgery part. So they just leave the cancer alone and keep putting pillows under the person’s head while he dies of cancer.
We need the courage and boldness and zeal to deal with the sin that is causing the problem, and we need the warmth and tenderness and compassion and humility to help bring restoration and healing and friendship.
Why the personal emphasis?
Someone who is into political activism might hear this sermon and wonder - Why does a sermon on peace focus on little, tiny, individual issues and ignore the problem of war? What about the wars raging around the world at this very moment? Thousands are suffering and dying – and when you preach a sermon on peace you focus on reconciling individual relationships in the Church and say nothing about preventing war? Why?
You could ask the same question of Jesus. When He gave all His examples of peace it always had to do with individual relationships.
Matthew 5:22 anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. ... anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.
Then starting in the next verse He says that if you remember someone has something against you, drop everything - including worship, and go be reconciled. Then He talks about settling matters with the person who wants to sue you. Then He speaks against divorce. Then He talks about loving your enemies and giving them a kind greeting. Later He talks about forgiveness.
Matthew 6:15 if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Then He tells us not to judge each other. Then He sums up the whole Bible this way:
Matthew 7:12 in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Throughout the sermon He focuses on reconciled relationships between individuals.
Was Jesus unaware that the iron hand of the Roman Empire pressing down on the Jews at that time? Was he aware that Archelaus slaughtered three thousand Jews at a Passover celebration? Was he aware that Pilate massacred Jews on the temple ground and mixed their blood with the sacrifices they were offering? When Jesus spoke of enemies, why did he confine himself to prayer and personal greetings and blessings and individual deeds of generosity and kindness? Was Jesus utterly out of touch with the big issues of his day?
No, He knew all about those things. In Luke 13 when they came and asked Him about the incident with Pilate, Jesus gave an answer that had nothing to do with politics. He turned it into an opportunity to talk about personal repentance. You see, for Jesus the condition of a human soul before God is a weightier matter, a bigger issue, than the temporal destiny of a nation. He did not talk about wars and politics because He didn’t have time to waste talking about small things when there were big things that needed attention. I am preaching about you reconciling with that person you are at odds with rather than talking about Iraq and Afghanistan because my concern is to preach about the most important issues. Iraq and Afghanistan and the United States will all disappear and be forgotten someday, but every soul in this room will be in existence somewhere forever. And the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ can flourish when there are wars going on, but not when there is disunity among the brothers. Individual relationships are more important than international relationships.
The outcome of the various wars will have nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not God will look at you on Judgment Day and say, “That is My son/daughter.” But whether you are a peacemaker or not has everything to do with that.
Old Testament Support
And that is perfectly in line with what God had already revealed in the Old Testament. When I say this beatitude is not a direct allusion to any specific Old Testament text, that is not to say it is something completely new.
Psalm 133:1-3 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! 2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes. 3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.
When I was in high school I once visited a Bible study that was one of the strangest Bible studies I have ever attended. One of the things they did was to sing a song based on Psalm 133 and when the song got to the part about the oil running down into Aaron’s beard, it was the climactic point musically and it repeated that phrase – “even Aaron’s beard. And I didn’t want to say or think anything that would disparage God’s Word in any way, but I just really had a hard time really worshipping with my whole heart sitting in a living room on the floor with a bunch of strange people singing about oil running down into a guy’s beard. All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable, but in some passages it is hard to see the profitability without doing a little study.
And a little study is all it takes to learn what all Israelites already knew about the oil and Aaron’s beard. It is a reference to one of the greatest moments in Israelite history – the ordination of Aaron when God first instituted the ministry of the priesthood in Leviticus 8. The people of Israel have just been freed from Egypt and they are being established as the people of God. And so in Leviticus 8 God gathers the entire nation together for a very important ceremony.
Leviticus 8:10-28 Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and everything in it, and so consecrated them. 11 He sprinkled some of the oil on the altar seven times, anointing the altar and all its utensils and the basin with its stand, to consecrate them. 12 He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him.
There is something you need to know about this oil. Moses did not just grab a gallon of olive oil from his kitchen on the way to the ceremony. There was a prescribed recipe for making the anointing oil in Exodus 30. That recipe had to be followed exactly.
And no doubt it was an especially delightful smelling mix. But it is not something you would want to get for your wife on Mother’s Day – unless you felt like being executed or banished.
Exodus 30:32 Do not pour it on men's bodies and do not make any oil with the same formula. It is sacred, and you are to consider it sacred. 33 Whoever makes perfume like it and whoever puts it on anyone other than a priest must be cut off from his people.
It was a special mixture of cinnamon, myrrh, cane, olive oil, and cassia – with particular prescribed proportions spelled out in verses 23-24. And it was very sacred and holy. And whatever it touched was to be regarded as holy.
So it was not often the people got to get a whiff of this wonderful smelling oil. But on the day of the inauguration of the priesthood, God told Moses to dump it all over Aaron – not just a little dab on his forehead, but literally pouring it all over him so that it ran down his face and all over his priestly garments. And so you have this amazing moment when corporate worship is being established for the first time, and it is symbolized by the aroma of this holy oil descending upon all the people and rising up to heaven where God was supremely pleased.
And the significance of all that was, once the high priest was anointed with the holy oil, that was the moment when God would come and dwell among His people.
Exodus 29:44-45 I will … consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. 45 Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God.
Let’s see if Psalm 133 makes sense to us now.
Psalm 133:1-3 1 Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! 2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes.
When God’s people are not fighting, and there is peace – friendship and unity and love among God’s people – verse 1 says Behold, how good and pleasant that is!
That word translate good is the Hebrew word TOV – the same word used during the creation week when God kept saying, “It is good.” That word describes the standard for beauty. Beauty is like truth – it is not a matter of opinion, it is not a matter of taste, it is not in the eye of the beholder – there is an absolute standard. That which reflects the goodness of the original creation is beautiful and that which perverts it is ugly. And that is a matter of fact, not opinion or taste. (If you want more on that, I did an entire sermon just on that one word TOV – it is the sermon on Genesis 1:4 and it is available on FoodForYourSoul.net ). If you are an artist of any kind I strongly recommend a study of the word TOV- that which is good, or beautiful, is that which is delightful and beneficial because of how it reflects the goodness of God.
The other word is pleasant – that which is enjoyable, pleasing, or pleasurable. Behold! How beautiful, how pleasant, how lovely, how wonderful, how good, how pleasing it is when the brothers dwell together in unity! Peace among God’s people is foundational and crucially important because it is so delightful and beautiful to God.
And that is not all. Psalm 133 has three verses, and in verse 3 he gives another illustration of what unity and peace among the brother is like.
Psalm 133:3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.
Hermon was a very high mountain that supplied the surrounding area with moisture – just like Colorado and the several other states depend on the runoff from our mountains. And living in Colorado we understand the difference between when there is good moisture and when there isn’t. Instead of everything being brown and dead there is profusion of life and health and flourishing, green plants. You never hear people talk about a desert paradise. The effect plenty of moisture has on an arid landscape, and the transformation from dead, dry, wilderness to flourishing, thriving profusion of life is the picture the psalmist wants to put in your mind here. When we are at odds with each other God looks down and sees a desert. When there is peace, God looks down and sees a thriving paradise.
James 3:18 Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.
When you step in to a hostile relationship and bring it around to a genuine, warm friendship in the Church you are irrigating a field that will generate an entire harvest – truckloads of righteousness that will result.
So that is a little bit of Old Testament background for this concept. Peace among the brothers is good, it is beautiful, it is delightful, it is pleasant and pleasing to God. It is holy, it is fragrant, it is sacred – like the holy oil flooding over Aaron in the first national corporate worship. It is like the refreshing, life-giving moisture of Hermon being poured out all over the dwelling of God’s holy people.
But in the Kingdom of the Messiah it is even more important, because of our role as His Church. Sin has a lot of horrible consequences, and one of the worst – one of the ugliest, nastiest, smelliest consequences of sin is broken relationships and animosity between God’s people. It messes up so many things. We are the body of Christ, carrying out the work of Christ in this world (Eph.4:12). But disunity and lack of peace destroys the unity of the Spirit and hinders the work of the body of Christ when the parts of the body can’t function together. We are the Church, designed to display and make known the manifold and multi-faceted wisdom of God to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. Through our unity we display God’s wisdom to all the various ruling-class beings in the heavenly realms (Eph.3:10). But disunity and lack of peace destroys that work and displays nothing of God’s wisdom. We are the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is clearly seen by how we love one another (Jn.13:35). But that is not seen at all when we fail to love one another – or we love one another just like the world loves their friends. We are the people of God, who are bound together by the unity of the Spirit (Eph.4:1-4). But that is destroyed if we break the unity of the Spirit by letting go of the bond of peace.
Romans 12:18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
If you are holding a grudge, drop it. If you are acting like a child and waiting for the other person to apologize first, realize that peace in the body of Christ is infinitely more important than your pride.
Benediction: 2 Corinthians 13:11-14 Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss…14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
