God's Children Live in Peace
Notes
Transcript
Are you a peaceful person? Most of you would say yes. Now think of your siblings or someone who you don’t like. How many of your guys’s blood boiled? If you can think about someone with a boiled blood, you fail the test of this beatitude. Because boiled blood is the sign of tension, and not of peace. The Cold War was between USA and the Soviet Union. Tensions were high, it was a cold war. There were wars. But no direct war between America and the Soviet Union. It almost led to nuclear war between the two nations. Tensions were high that from what I remember learning about the Cold War is that it seems people were worried that every interaction could set off WW3 between the two nations.
Now some of you are in these cold wars. There might not be any outward fighting right now. But inside you think of someone or you see them, and you’re angry or disgusted. Some of you guys just have these beefs with people, and just thinking about them, makes you tense. And rather than burying the hatchet, you are led to a point where one wrong thing, can feel like it sets off a huge conflict. But that is not what God wants for you. God not only wants for your life, and also CALLS for your life is to be someone who is a peacemaker.
The beatitudes are character and life distinguishers that should be present in a child of God. You should have these in your life. And if you do not, there is something wrong in your life. Meaning you are not right with God if you don’t want to
God calls you to be a peacemaker. In the Greek, there is a word that is used for to be at peace, but this is a different Greek word. It means that God not only wants you to live at peace, but He wants you to make the peace. He wants you to be the one who rather than setting off the conflict, you This means that when you are in a situation with a friend or a coworker or sibling, you make peace rather than escalate conflict.
God is not pleased when you are not peaceful and you try to fight everyone who disagrees with you. You’re ugly to people, and you’re starting fights. That is not something that belongs in the life of a Christian, it does not belong in a Christian family, it does not belong in this youth group or church.
We think of our life as a contract with God. A contract for how we act, and alot of times we want to put an exemption clause. An exemption clause is a part of a contract where the person is not obligated to fulfill their role if certain requirements are not met. Alot of warranties have exemption clauses. Meaning I am exempt from doing this. We have this with living peaceably with others. I’ll live peacably with them, and until they breach what I think they need to do.
Hebrews 12:14 “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:”
Romans 12:18 “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
The Bible says that all men we need to try to live at peace with. The try is that you’ll do whatever you can, and if there is conflict, it is the other persons’s fault. There are no exceptions, where you can
What if someone is deserving of conflicft and is the one at fault. You still be peacable. This is how God is with us.
Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Colossians 1:20 “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”
We were separated from God, and the enemy of God, and He made peace between Him and us through the blood of Jesus. If God did that to us, how should we not do that for others. The issue is we have too high of a view of ourself and too low view of God.
So be someone who wants to make peace. Here is how you can do this.
Do not retaliate
Be a blessing
Are you a peacemaker?zzz