The Beatitudes: How to Be a Peacemaker in a World of Conflict

This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, The Priority of Peacemaking.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9).

One thing you will never be able to buy is peace. Yet this is a thing the the world needs more than anything else.

We are intelligent people. We know a lot. We can build stadiums, rockets, and communications that span the globe. We have made the world a neighborhood, but we have not made it a brotherhood—and there is a desperate cry, a desperate need for peace.

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures (James 4:1-3).

Resolving Conflict Starts with Understanding It

As James pointed out, all Mankind is tangled up in three ongoing wars.

We are at War with One Another

Every now and then we have a truce, but a truce is that period of time when you stop to reload. There is no real peace—religious, economic, social, political, family, or personal peace.

We are at War Within Ourselves

Why do we war among ourselves? Because we are at war within ourselves. People are not at peace with themselves, and that is why they cannot be at peace with anyone else. Most people are an argument going somewhere to happen, because they are at turmoil with themselves.

We are at War with God

Well, why the war on the outside, and why the war on the inside? Because of the third war: with God.

Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).

Until you are right with God, you are going to be a troublemaker, and not a peacemaker.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9).

But what do we mean by peace?

What Does It Mean to Be a True Peacemaker?

Peace Is Not Appeasement

Appeasement never brings true peace. You are not honor bound to get along with everybody; in fact, there is something desperately wrong with the person who can get along with everybody.

Here is what you can do: “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18). This means that it's not always possible. As a matter of fact, you will be known by the enemies you make. All of us who stand for God will have enemies.

Peace Is Not Truce-Making

A truce is better than hot war, perhaps. But that only means the cessation of hostilities. There can still be a cold war. It goes underground to fester and to grow—and perhaps to break out again.

Peace Is Not the Absence of Conflict.

There is no strife in a cemetery, but that is not peace. It takes more than a grave marker to bring peace to a troubled soul.

When the Bible uses the word “peace,” it is a positive word. Old Testament Jews greeted one another with the word shalom, which means “peace.” When you meet somebody and say shalom, that infers there is something good and wonderful that is happening.

Peace Is a Right Relationship

Peace is a right relationship with God. This peace leads to right relationship with yourself, and guides you into a right relationship with other people. That is peace. It is a sense of well-being, and it is the result and fruit of righteousness.

Only the Righteous Are Peacekeepers

If you get nothing else from this article, you need to see that righteousness and peace are linked.

If you are an unrighteous person, you can never have peace. The only way you can have peace is to have righteousness.

The Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount build on each other. And what was the one right before this seventh beatitude? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). There is no peace without purity. Those who are not children of God cannot be peacemakers.

“Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10).

Peace is the righteousness of God ruling and reigning in your heart.

The Enemy of the Peacemakers

If peace is linked with righteousness, then lack of peace is always rooted in sin. “‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked’” (Isaiah 57:21).

Sin separates men from God. It separates men from men. It brings inner turmoil. But this world of conflict has no idea how to solve it. “For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 8:11). People try to give a false peace, instead of acknowledging the peace of Christ. These people are yelling, “Peace!” yet they cannot even blush over their own sins.

Christ, the True Peacemaker

One of the strangest declarations that ever fell from the lips of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is this:

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword (Matthew 10:34).

When Christ was born, the angels said, "On earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:14b) And this seventh Beatitude says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Yet Jesus says above that He cam to bring a sword. What is He talking about?

Christ did not come to bring a false peace, some amalgamation of good and evil. He came with a sword to put a line of demarcation between truth and error, between light and dark, between sin and righteousness.

When God's standard of righteousness is set, there will always be a division.

Without righteousness, there can be no godly peace.

And there can never be righteousness or peace without first a surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

The Peace of Christ Was Planned by the Father

When God’s children were sitting in captivity in Babylon as the consequence of their sins, the Father said to them:

For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you (Jeremiah 29:10-12).

The peace of Christ is what God desires for you. God is not some vengeful deity sitting up there on His throne, making a lot of rules and laws that make you squirm like a worm in hot ashes.

Six times in the New Testament He is called the God of peace. The book of Judges in the Old Testament calls Him Jehovah Shalom, The-LORD-is-peace. (Judges 6:24.)

Christ’s Ministry of Reconciliation

This peace that the Father planned for the children of God has been purchased by the Son.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation…(Ephesians 2:13-14).

And again:

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:19-20).

How does the cross bring peace? At the cross, wickedness was not appeased, but confronted. Sin was not overlooked—it was atoned for, paid for. God's greatest righteousness confronted man's greatest wickedness. Righteousness won, and peace was attained.

True Peace Comes by the Holy Spirit

This peace is provided by the Holy Spirit residing in the lives of those who believe in Jesus Christ.

The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:26-27).

It is the Holy Spirit who brings this peace to our hearts and minds. He is the one who tells our hearts that we are at peace with God.

Being Peacemakers, Agents of God’s Blessing

We have looked at the attributes of the peace of Christ. We have looked at the enemy of peace, and also at how to attain real peace. But now we find that God’s children are His agents of peace to this world of conflict.

Remember, true peace is reconciliation between Man and God.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation… (2 Corinthians 5:18, Emphasis added).

Christ accomplished reconciliation between us and God, and now He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. What is this ministry? Simply proclaiming Jesus to the world.

Let the peace of God reign in your heart, and then be not simply a peace-lover, but a peacemaker in the world—not an appeaser, not making peace with sin and unrighteousness, but lifting up the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ with this message:

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).

It takes courage and boldness to preach this message. But you are an ambassador to the King of kings, and He has given you a mission. And there is a reward for those who are true peacemakers for Him:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9).

List of Scriptures Referenced in This Article

Matthew 5:8-9, 10:34; James 4:1-4; Romans 12:18; Psalm 85:10; Isaiah 57:21; Jeremiah 8:11, 29:10-12; Luke 2:14; Judges 6:24; Ephesians 2:13-14; Colossians 1:19-20; John 14:26-27; 2 Corinthians 5:18,20

More Bible Verses About Being Peacemakers

Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus (Acts 4:29-30).

When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him (Proverbs 16:7).

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth….But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace (James 3:13-14,17-18).