(Sunday) The King's Speech: Be Peacemakers

In a world fueled by outrage, division, and constant “wars”—online, global, and even inside our own homes—what does it actually mean to be a peacemaker?

In this episode, Pastor Tony unpacks Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” He shows how peacemaking isn’t just a nice personality trait or being “chill” in conflict—it’s a core part of our family identity as followers of Jesus.

You’ll hear:

• Why Jesus’ call to be a peacemaker was shocking in a world controlled by Rome
• How different groups (Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots) each tried to define “peace”
• The difference between peacekeeping (avoiding conflict) and peacemaking (moving toward it)
• How Jesus became our ultimate Peacemaker and what that means for your identity
• Five practical ways to live as a peacemaker in your real life—at home, at school, at work, online, and in your friend group

If you’re tired of drama, conflict, and cancel culture—but also know that just “keeping quiet” isn’t the answer—this conversation will help you see how Jesus calls and equips you to step into chaos with grace, truth, and courage.

Perfect for those who want to follow Jesus in a conflicted world and actually look like their Father in heaven.

Transcript

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On this Sermon of the Mount, Jesus was inaugurating a new kingdom in which he would be king, and in this kingdom, he is setting forth the ethos, the culture of what it means to live with him and how we will live one with another. We've all heard this said, or we all said it, chances are. A few weeks ago, I was at a service I was conducting, and two young men uh came up to me. One of them I hadn't seen in about 20 years, the other one I had never met. But as soon as I saw them, I thought, this is so-and-so's boys. The look, the image of them is almost identical. I mean, it was a little freaky to be quite honest with you. And then they opened their mouth, and if there was any doubt, it was immediately eradicated. They sounded like their father. I'm talking about tone, inflection, pitch, uh, even the nuances of how they would deliver a sentence and their idiosyncrasies in their tics is like good gracious alive. You're like many me of your dad, and it was remarkable. Well, today, Jesus wants to talk to us about family identity. And it might be surprising to you how he says it. In the seventh of the Beatitudes, these ethics that Jesus is teaching us about what it means to live in this kingdom that he is inaugurating, he says these words, verse number nine. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. Blessed are those who live their life in a way that they make peace with those who are in chaos or in conflict, because in doing so they will be identified as the children of God. We will discover today that peacemaking is not so much a practice as much as a family identity. There is nothing you and I will ever do that identifies us more closely with the Father than when we seek to bring peace to places of chaos and brokenness, and we trust God for reconciliation. And if there's anything our world needs today, it needs some peacemakers. Can I get an amen? This morning we woke up to a world at war. Obviously, America and Israel and a battle with Iran and God bless them and our troops and all that's leading that and his mercy. But there's also the Russian-Ukraine conflict war that continues to drive on. Beyond that, we hear about cyber war and the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. And it just seems like almost everything is a war in and around us. And if it's not just overseas or maybe in our place of nation, maybe even within our own hearts, there's this war, this anger or frustration or fear. So much so it feels like we're a long, long way away from when those angels said to those shepherds, peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Jesus, gathering with a multitude of people there on the Galilean shore, says to them a statement that no doubt shocks them a little bit. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be seen as the children of God. I think for us to appreciate how strong of a statement this was, that we need to put ourselves in the sandals of those listeners. Those people that, for the most part, had lived in villages and now they had come out to hear this transient rabbi, this Jesus, talk about a kingdom that he is inaugurating and bringing in. This was a people that, though they lived 2,000 years ago, their world was much oppressed and at war as ours. Maybe even more so. When we stop and think about it, Jesus and these people, they lived in a militarized zone that had been occupied by Rome. That the land in which they were sitting, listening to Jesus teach, it was their ancestral land. Land that had been given to them, they believed with all their heart by God through his promise with Abraham and Moses and all through the Old Testament, that this is their land that belonged to them, that God had given to them. This is the land of promise, the land flowing with milk and honey. And yet they were a people who were not living as free men on the land in which was given to them. No, they they were living as oppressed people. An empire, the Roman Empire, a hundred years before, had invaded and now set up their military encampments and possessed the land that belonged to them. And it changed everything. For a hundred years already, Rome was controlling their life. You listen, we go through election cycles, and every four years half of us are happy and half of us are sad, and a half of us don't even care anymore. Amen. But we kind of know this. You know what? In four years we'll get another chance, or in eight years we'll get another chance. It's going to cycle. This is a hundred years in which they had no voice, they had no way to push back, they had no way to overcome. Well, that brings up a certain psychological worldview. That the land that's supposed to be yours is being occupied by people who you've come to hate, and they hate you, and now their military is there to keep you in order, and you're being ruled by an empire that's far, far away that you will never even see that nation, by leaders that you will never meet. Yet everything in your life, every day, is impacted by their decisions and their choices and their taxation that impacts you, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your generations. And Jesus looks at them and says, Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who will in this space figure out how to make peace. Now, in that, over a hundred years, there were some different factions that rose up. And because of their lived experiences, they had no doubt different definitions as to what being a peacemaker would look like. One of those factions, one of the fourths, are the uh Sadducees. This is the elite. This is the aristocrats of the nation of Israel. These were the wealthy, these were the landowners, this was the people by which the high priests, uh, the most influential of the land, live. And their understanding of being peaceful was this is that we're going to work with the Romans and we're going to go along so that we can get along. Their mantra was this don't rock the boat. We'll compromise what we need to compromise in order to keep the peace. And this is what the Sadducees did. And then there was another group, the Pharisees, and they said, Well, we know what it means to keep peace, and the way we're going to keep peace is we're going to go back to the law, and we're going to hold to the law and the prophets, and we're going to hold to our oral traditions that we hold so near and dear to, and we're going to get the people of this nation in line, and they're going to follow the law. And if they don't follow the law, we're going to slap their hands, and we're going to make all these other laws, and we're going to always govern and be a police over their lives, because this will bring peace. More rules, more legalism. The problem is that many of them were not even living inwardly what they were professing outwardly, and Jesus addressed that. Then there was this group called the Essenes that rose up during this time. The Essenes were a large community of Jewish people who said, We're done. We're done with the Sadducees and their compromise. We're done with the Pharisees and their own corruption and what's going on in the temple and all the taxation. So we are moving out and they moved down to the Qumran Valley. And there they lived as separatists. And they said, We will be our own community. We're getting out of this place and we're going to live here. And in living here, we'll have our own rules. And if you want to join, this is how it's going to be. You're going to know all the rules. You're going to have to go through, for lack of better words, catechism, so that when you move into our community, you're just like us. And that's how we're going to keep the peace. They're going to live over there. We're going to live here. We'll live separate lives. In other words, they were the first original homeowners association, and you better keep the rules, or they're going to kick you out. That was their worldview of peace, being a peacemaker. We're going to just leave and keep you out. And then there was another group, the Zealots. It really wasn't so much a political group as much as it was a movement of Jewish people who were so angry they thought the only way to get to peace was to go to war. And they would often, in early guerrilla warfare form, try to find soldiers and Romans unaware, and they would go and assassinate them. And they said, This is the way we're going to have peace. We're going to have peace through war. Do you see how all of this lived experience now begins to define for them what does it mean to be a peacemaker? The Sadducee, it means just be quiet, don't rock the boat. The zealot says it means cut their throats. The Essene says it means we are going to be out of here. And here is Jesus saying to them, No, if you want to look like the family of God, if you want to really see what it looks like, you must be a peacemaker. And then he begins to define for us what is a peacemaker. And some of you today are have different views of that. Some of you hate conflict. And so you're thinking, my peacemaking is being a peacekeeper. And being a peacekeeper is not what Christ has called us to be. He has called us to be makers of peace. So let me give you a definition that you may want to dry jot down. A peacemaker is not simply someone who avoids conflict. No, a peacemaker, listen, is someone who moves intentionally, actively towards conflict and chaos with the goal of reconciliation in mind with God and with one another. A peacemaker is someone who actively moves towards conflict and even chaos and division with the goal of reconciliation in their heart for that reconciliation to be with both God and with man. Let me tell you, we need some peacemakers in the world in which you and I live in today. How do we become this? And what does that look like? Well, we look to Jesus, the great peacemaker, the great example of what it means to be a peacemaker is found in the person of Christ. But before, so before we jump into how we might become peacemakers, reflecting the nature and the character, the likeness of our family, we begin with looking at what Christ did to be our peacemaker so that we might in turn imitate that. Number one, it begins with this. We have to begin, as Pastor Coleman said a few moments ago, by recognizing how dark our plight was. To recognize how deep we were in our sin, how far we were from God. In the moment of our first parents, Adam and Eve, their sin, it created, listen to me, friends, it created not just a gap between us and God, it created hostility between us and the living God, between all of humanity and the one. There is now a hostile, divisive, painful separation. Listen to what the scripture says. I want you to hear these words, these descriptors. Romans chapter 5, verse number 10. It says, We were enemies with God. It's not saying that we were just outside of God's will or we were made. It says, no. Because of our sinful condition, we were enemies to God. Colossians chapter 1, verse 21 and 22. It says we were alienated from God, and we were enemies with God because of our evil behavior. We were enemies and we were aliens. We were alienated from the presence of God, the love of God, the plans of God, the purposes of God. Ephesians chapter 2. Paul writes, and he says, You were dead in your trespasses and sins. You followed the ruler of the kingdoms of this world, and were by nature children of wrath. Children who deserved judgment. That out of wrath and unrighteousness you were born. Enemies, alienated, dead. Romans chapter 2, verse 5. And it says, And because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you and I were storing up wrath against ourselves for the day of God's wrath when he will righteously judge all sinners. Allow this to set in, okay? Because if we don't get this, then we won't understand the wonder of what he has done for us. We were not just lost sheep along the journey. We were enemies of God. We were aliens. We had no right to the commonwealth of Israel. We could not have been in a worse position because we had now leveraged ourselves as the enemies of the living true God, in which we are now storing up for ourselves the wrath of God, his holy judgment against our sin. And there was nothing that you and I would ever be able to do to resolve this conflict, to bring peace to this situation, to bridge the gap. The only way that happens is that Jesus Christ comes as the great peacemaker for humanity. Now watch this. I want you to notice this again. I want to summarize this because you'll see how Christ flipped the script. Number one, we were enemies, we were alienated, we were spiritually dead, and we were facing God's wrath. But Jesus came to reconcile and to bring peace between us and God. Romans chapter 5, verse 1 says, because of what Christ has done for us on the cross, bridging the gap between us and God, paying the debt that we owed for our sin and unrighteousness, it says, we have now been justified through faith in that work, and because of that, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Did you see that? It says, We now have peace with God because of what God, we who were enemies now are no longer at war with God. There is peace available. Colossians chapter 1, verse 19 and 20. It says, For with God, God was pleased that through Christ he reconciled all things to himself, making peace for us through his blood that was shed upon the cross. He says, It pleased God that there was a reconciliation. It delighted God that we, his image bearers, were no longer enemies, no longer separated, no longer at war, but now we had been brought near to God, and now we have peace with God because of what Christ did. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 13 and continuing. Says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once afar away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He has reconciled both God and man through the cross. We were far, he brought us near. Why? Because he reconciled, he became the peacemaker of our life. One more verse. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 18 and 19. All of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ. Listen, no longer counting people's sins against them. Hallelujah be to God. Jesus came to be the mediator of a treaty between us and God. That Christ on the cross of Calvary gave us the ultimate peace treaty. We've all seen in our history classes after World War I, after World War II, and all these different wars and skirmishes, there comes a peace treaty in which they sign that we are now at peace, we're no longer enemies, and we'll work together. What happened at the cross of Calvary is Jesus Christ signed an eternal peace treaty with his own blood that says, no longer are you and God enemies, and no longer are you aliens, and no longer are you far away. But this God, and by whom you were an enemy, he has now made you his friend. You were once aliens, but now you have come near to God. You were once spiritually dead, but because of his grace, you have been made alive in Christ. And yes, you were under wrath, but today, because of the peacemaking work of Christ Jesus, you live under grace and mercy. Hallelujah be to God. This is our great peacemaker. And this is what Jesus is saying. This is what peace looks like, and this is what a peacemaker does. A peacemaker. Not one who avoids the conflict, not one who denies the conflict, not one who compromises in the midst of the conflict, not one who's just trying to keep everybody happy, but one who desires for there to be holy reconciliation with God and with one another and void. Does our world need this? Does our homes need this? Does our communities need this? The world produces conflict. But thanks be to God, the cross of Calvary produces peace for those who will trust him. And this is what the church is called to do. This is what the kingdom culture does is that we do not isolate ourselves from the world that is in conflict. We do not sit around and recount all of our laws and all of our must-do's and not-do's. We don't go and attack and kill our enemy. Nay, do we sit and compromise just so that we might have peace. But we actively move to those places of conflict and division, bringing in the ethic of the kingdom of God in Christ Jesus. Through by the grace of God, we offer resources that can bring reconciliation to God and to others. A peacemaker is one who is active. A peacemaker is one who initiates. And in all the different lenses of our lived experiences that frame our worldview, Christ brings us back to this. This is what my people did. And in doing so, People are going to look and say, they remind me of Christ. I see the Father's heart in them. If there's one thing we know about our Father in heaven, as he is all about reconciliation. From the first moments of humanity's sins, we see it was God who came walking towards the sinner, Adam and Eve, calling them by name for the sake of restoration. And through all the sacred pages of the text, we see that God is the one who is initiating. And ultimately that initiation would be fully seen in Christ Jesus, who now says to us as his kingdom people, go and be peacemakers. We've all heard it said, right? Hurting people do what? Hurt people. We know that one well, but maybe we need to learn something else. There's another side to that coin which reads, healthy people help heal people. Healthy people help heal other people because they go back in to where there is conflict. So, what are some practical ways that you and I can become a peacemaker in the world in which you and I live in? Let me give you five quick things you can jot them down, and I believe they'll help us. Number one is this like Jesus, we will not avoid conflict, but rather we will redeem conflict. We will not avoid conflict, we redeem conflict. Jesus lived in a difficult culture, so do we. We live in an outrage culture, don't we? And throughout the gospel, we see where Jesus would step into very tense situations and he would de-escalate them because he's the great peacemaker. Let me give you a couple examples. You may want to jot them down and think about them this week. John chapter 8, when the woman was caught in the act of adultery, it was a trick to bring Jesus and to catch him in some technicality of the law, they thought. He asks the Holy Spirit, no doubt, Lord, I need your help in this situation. And the great peacemaker walks into that and he flips the script to where one, the woman finds grace and mercy, and those who are looking to destroy her are themselves convicted deep within and need to go rethink their own choices in life. What about the story of the disciples in Luke chapter 22? When Jesus walks into the room and the room is amplified with nothing but tension and anger and shouts and demands as they are fighting. Who's number one in this kingdom? Who's going to sit at his right hand? Who's going to sit at his right hand? Who's going to be the greatest? On the night in which Christ would be betrayed, on the time that the day before he would be crucified, he walks into this knowing this, instead of just blowing up and yelling at them, guys, what are you doing? Are you out of your ever-loving minds? No, he redefines to them what greatness is, he redefines to them what leadership is, and he talks to them about what it means to be a servant. And in that situation, that peacemaker goes around and he begins to wash their feet. Why? Because that's what peacemakers do. They don't enrage the conflict, they redeem it. How about that night when Christ was coming to be a where they were coming to arrest Jesus? It was Peter who took out his sword and he sliced off the soldier's ear, and Jesus turns to him and says, Stop. How tense do you think that moment was? And Jesus says, Stop, put your sword away. If you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. That is not peacekeeping. Matter of fact, I'm on my way to make peace for you. Jesus constantly interrupted cycles of outrage and revenge, and he redeemed them. See, a peacemaker, we have to refuse to fuel the division. Because we refuse to gossip and we refuse to slander and we refuse to stir the conflict. Listen to what Paul said to young Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2. He says, Timothy, run after righteousness, faith, love, and peace, joining with those who are honest and serious in their prayers before God. Refuse. Listen to this. Refuse, Timothy, to get involved in worthless arguments and discussions, for they always end up in fights and division in your life. The Pharisees would hate this because they thought the way you get the peace is you out-argue someone else. That your argument is stronger, your logic is more sound. Jesus says, No, it doesn't bring unity, it doesn't bring peace, it brings more division. An old pastor taught me this years ago. His name is Rich Bowen. I love him dearly. Pastor Bowen said, Tony, when you walk into a room as a pastor, when you walk into a counseling session, when you walk into different things that you'll experience, he says, always imagine there are two buckets in your hand. One is a bucket of water, and one is a bucket of gasoline. And you're walking up to sparks and flames and fire, the one you choose to apply will determine drastically different outcomes in your life. If you choose the gas and you're just gonna fuel it, boom, destruction. Mayhem. If you choose water, you can sculp it. He says, if you don't like the idea of water and gas, think of it like this justice and mercy. That you carry justice in and you're gonna be right no matter the cost, you're gonna win the argument, you're gonna win the fight, you're gonna show how strong you are, how mighty you are, or you can have a bucket of grace. And let me tell you, that works in your family too. That works in your marriage too, that works on your job too. When you and your spouse are at war and you're fighting, you're frustrated. Instead of running from it, slamming doors, refusing to deal with it, we move together for the sake of redemption, and we're gonna pour out buckets of mercy, and we're gonna pour out buckets of grace on this story so that through it Christ might be revealed. Number two is this. Like Jesus, we initiate reconciliation. If we're gonna be peacemakers, then we must initiate it. Jesus came before we asked him to come. Jesus showed up before we waved the white flag. Matter of fact, Romans chapter 5, verse 8 says it like this. God demonstrated his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ came and died for us. Now let me ask you, who was wrong? Christ or the church or the sinner? The sinner. What we want to do is when we've been done wrong to, we want to say, hey, I'm not going there. That's up to them. They need to go and make this right with me. I'm gonna sit here till they get it right. They're wrong. Aren't you thankful Jesus didn't do that for us? Can they get an amen anywhere on that one? Jesus taught that reconciliation has to be the priority of our life. So much so, a little later in this same chapter of Matthew that we've been reading from, Jesus says, if you are offering a gift at the altar and there you remember that a brother or sister has something against you, leave that gift at the altar and go. First to be reconciled with your brother and then come. He says, Reconciliation is more important to me than your religious expression. Notice what he says. He doesn't say sit there and pray that they show up and you happen to bump into them at Publix or at the rec league. He says, Go and initiate it. Go and be a peacemaker. Number three is this like Jesus, a peacemaker speaks truth into the situation. A peacemaker will not compromise the truth in order to obtain temporary peace. Friends, the fruit of truth is peace. And when we walk in truth, we walk in freedom and we walk in peace. And real peace cannot exist without truth. False peace is simply conflict that we have delayed. Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 15, speak the truth in love, so that we will grow to become in every respect like the mature body of Christ. The Sadducees, they just wanted to sweep it under the rug. We'll compromise in order to keep the peace. Friend, that's not peace at all. That's bowing at the altar of peace as though peace is your God. It's saying, I'm gonna speak truth into this moment. I'm gonna speak truth. What you did there was wrong. It is out of bounds. We shouldn't have done that, you shouldn't have done that. This should not have happened. See, truth without love becomes harshness, and love without truth becomes compromise. Peacemakers hold both of them near. See, when you and I speak truth in love, it means that I'm not speaking truth because it helps me win the argument or the position. I speak truth because my desire is to be reconciled and to see you reconciled. Number four is this like Jesus, offer radical love and forgiveness. As a peacemaker, offer radical love and forgiveness. See, as a peacemaker, you will be required to release some offenses that come to your life. People will say things, do things, respond in ways that were wrong and inappropriate. And don't worry, you'll do that too at times. But as a peacemaker, we say, I'm willing to lay that down at the foot of the cross and trust God. I'm willing to forgive you. Paul says in Colossians 3 13, forgive others as the Lord has forgiven you. And when you look at the amazing forgiveness God has given us, it is radical, it is scandalous, and he says, Now you go do the same. Peacemakers say, I'm not gonna hold this over your head. We're gonna resolve it, we're gonna iron it out, we're gonna speak to this in love and care for the sake of reconciliation, and then we're not going to, as Paul said, we're not gonna let whole love hold record of evil. We're gonna let it go. The last one is this, and I think this is important. Like Jesus, recognize sometimes people in your life will refuse to be reconciled. There are some people that just don't want to be reconciled. They don't want to live at peace, they don't want to live in harmony with God and his kingdom and with the people of God. We see that on the cross of Calvary because there are two thieves there. God loves them, Christ loves them both deeply. Christ wants them both reconciled, both to experience eternity with him, to know the love of the Father. One of them is open to that reconciliation. You remember, he cries out, Lord, have mercy on me. Remember me in your kingdom. I'm a sinner, have mercy. I don't deserve any of this. And Jesus said to him, What? Today I'll see you in paradise. You're reconciled. The other thief, same place, same savior, same moment, same story. No man, he's all about himself. This is wrong. I've been done wrong. There's no justification. Get down from that if you are who you say you are, and get me down, and we'll go our. And he walked into an eternity without God. There will be people in your life that you desperately want to reconcile with, and you want them to reconcile with one another. But Paul gives us this truth. He says, as much as possible with you, did you hear that? As much that is possible with you. In other words, you do everything you can. You give it all you got. You love, you care, you support. As much as possible with you, you be at peace, you be reconciled with all men. But there comes a point by which you've done what you can do, and you're just gonna have to say, Okay, God, I'm just gonna turn my dad over to you. I'm gonna turn my ex-wife over to you. I'm gonna turn my parents, my friends. I'm just gonna turn it over to you. I've tried and I will continue to try as you give me open doors. But Lord, I want the blessing of being seen as your child because my heart is for restoration. Blessed are the peacemakers. I close with this. Being a peacemaker begins when we become at peace with God ourselves. None of us can bring peace to others until we have first made peace with God ourselves. See, humanity's fundamental conflict is not political or cultural or relational, it's spiritual separation from God. But God has made a peace tree for us through the cross of Calvary. And the question that we have to ask is this have you personally received that peace from God? Are you aligned? Have you been reconciled? Have you come to Him in faith? If not, then why not today? If not, then why not this moment? The second question I gotta ask in this house is this Who in your life needs peace? What part of your life needs you to become a peacemaker? Is it in your marriage? Is it with your children? Is it with your parents? Is it with a friend? Is it with another brother or sister in Christ? Is it with a neighbor? Is it with someone on the job? Who is it? Who are people that are in conflict in your world that you may not even be a part of the conflict, but God is nudging you and encouraging you to step actively and move towards that, that you may become an agency of peace in that place of brokenness. Thank you for listening to the Tony Bismore podcast. Available on Apple and Spotify.