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  PEACE MAKING
  by Don McClure
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Summary: Don McClure's sermon on 'Peace Making' emphasizes the
transformative power of the Beatitudes in cultivating true peace and joy
in the believer's life.

Duration: 48:20 Topics: "Beatitudes", "Spiritual Growth"
Scripture References: Matthew 5:3-9

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DESCRIPTION
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In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of the Beatitudes
as the foundation of the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on
the Mount. He explains that the Beatitudes reveal the defining identity
of who we are and what makes us tick. Jesus came not to lead us
geographically, but spiritually, to a new world by devouring and
digesting all that He is. The preacher also mentions that understanding
the Beatitudes is a continuous learning process that deepens as we apply
them to our own lives.

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CONTENT
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The Beatitudes Why don't you turn with me if you would to Matthew
chapter 5 if you would please and then tonight I'd like us to stand
together and we'll read them Together, so if you'll turn to Matthew 5
and then stand and then we'll read We'll just read them together and
beginning at verse 3 and On down to verse 12 together, but let's here
again, many people believe this to be the central message perhaps of the
Bible the greatest sermon ever preached and that is arguably I believe
the case and but it all begins the foundation of it all is here in these
Beatitudes and To me the importance of knowing them the rest of the
sermon it picks up and has tremendous things to say but the foundation
upon which it is all built is here in the Beatitudes and So let's read
them together at verse 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be
comforted Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall
be filled Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Blessed
are the pure in heart for they shall see God Blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called the children of God Blessed are they which are
persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all
manner of evil against you falsely for my sake Rejoice and be
exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted
day the prophets which were before you Father we thank you for your word
and Lord how we long that we would understand more and more and more the
profound depth Lord of these Beatitudes They seem to be part of what I
think the Bible could almost call the unsearchable riches of Christ Lord
if we could only search these things out we could only know them not
just theologically But Lord even far greater than that we long that our
life wouldn't just be theologically sound but Lord that we Would find
ourselves so rooted and grounded in you that our experience of our
theology that we live in a theocracy our own personal Theocracy where
God is absolute ruler and Lord that you would teach us these things They
would be so central to our lives and Lord that we would know that the
better.

We know them the greater our joy That the greater the depth of our joy
the fullness of our joy the absolute excitement of our joy the reality
of our joy Lord that we wouldn't spend so much time with the deceptive
joys of this life the deceptive happiness is Chasing after them, but
Lord that there would be something in our heart We would chase deeply
after true eternal joy and know it more and more and more father We ask
it in Jesus name Amen You may be seated And here once again and again
and again and again, I guess now each time As we go through these
Beatitudes, I always kind of need to back up just a little bit I suppose
just in case there's a couple of you that haven't been here and and then
for those of you that were here and didn't pay any attention and then
for those of you that were here did pay attention, but Forgot it and so
that should cover most everybody so but anyway the Here in these
Beatitudes, they are all built one upon another You skip one or you do
or the degree that you know The depth of one is going to be the depth
that you're going to follow all you know along with the rest of them As
again, I believe that they're almost like a continuous cycle This isn't
something you just go through once in life and have got it It's a
continuous learning and it's an unending thing that what a person may be
discover I when I first started loving and studying the Sermon on the
Mount was back actually in the 1960s and When I was first kind of
confronted with it and there at that time when I went through and Study
blessed of the poor in spirit, and I thought I understood it And I think
at the time I did understand it But to the degree that I did it was
tremendously different than you continuously learn it through the
through your own life It life is that way what you think yourself to be
having victory over you might say in one stage of your life Then you
enter into another stage and you find you didn't know as much about it
at all To me. I know before I got married.

I was I think I was very unselfish and Well, I don't have to say any
more on that do I but the venue you get married and you find out a whole
new level of selfishness that you didn't know somebody else has an
opinion about the thermostat and You know all these sorts of other
things around and the next thing You know you're going back and forth
about that and then you maybe Grow and you learn a new depth of
hopefully selflessness and that exposure and then you have children And
then you go through the whole thing again Learning again as you got
these beans running around your house who can care less about anybody
else But themself they don't know what time it is. What's early? What's
late? What anything else is they've got their own little world and and
you start dealing with that and you learn again How selfish you can be
and so also with the beatitudes that to what you may consider self to be
broken in? Contrite or poor in spirit at one stage The life as we
continue to grow you find out the need for it more and more and more But
also as we have looked at these things They are things as well that as
we see them each one is a building block upon the previous Jesus there
says the greatest happiness that a person is going to know is the degree
that they are poor in spirit That is the degree as we've been through it
so many times now that a person knows the utter Poverty stricken spirit
of their own soul There's something that has happened that they have
realized I was creating the image of God and I've lost it Then they
mourn over it and the degree that that I am poor in spirit is the
degree. I will mourn over it is The degree that I look and realize God I
have sinned and I am wrong and I'm wrong with you Or I'm wrong with
others and to that degree is the degree.

I'll be sorry if I'm not wrong. Well, then I'm not sorry And I don't
mourn over it But the degree that something happens in my life or in my
relationship with God or my relationship to another where I realize What
I am capable of The abilities I have to sin and to bring that sin out
and to expose it to others not expose it to others But but to have them
have to be almost assaulted by it By my sinfulness and have them have to
deal with my weakness of my nature there to when I see this Capacity
that I have That if I see it and I did ought to produce a mourning a
grief that happens within myself And if that grief is genuine, it'll
produce a genuine meekness. I won't recover from that grief I won't
recover from that morning so easily but it'll result in a sense of a
meekness before God a Meekness before others and Jesus says this is
going to be a truly joyful Happy profoundly happy person then Blessed
are they that are filled their hunger and thirst after righteousness for
they should be filled the happiness now that happens when a person
Discovers after God has emptied them of themselves and emptied them of
their sin and forgiven them for it.

It's produced an open broken contrite heart and a meekness and a
gentleness within them that just hungers for God and There is it hungers
now God says now you'll be filled and there is that person is is
wonderfully Beautifully filled by the Lord then the deepest of God's
nature begins to be carved into their nature and they become merciful Oh
How happy is a person that now that looks out and they could be negative
or they could be hard or they could be hostile And they could do all
sorts of things to other people they could you know, very simply very
easily but now there's something happens where mercy begins to come in a
great godly sorrow begins to get into their heart and in their life then
it is followed up by a purity of heart that begins to Happen as this
mercy is happening in them. There is a wonderful purity of heart that
happens That's where we left off last week tonight. We pick it up.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God
I'll tell you I suppose as wonderful as it is to be a child of God It's
even more wonderful to actually be called one but to be actually
mistaken in public for one and that's quite a novelty sometimes these
days when you look at the people that as we're told by all sorts of
People that go out and evaluate statistics in society the percentage of
people that profess to be a Christian But then when you would look at
how many people actually are confused with being one People have said I
think that I saw one. I actually met one. I swear they must be a
Christian and That's a wonderful thing.

He says, oh, I happy of the peacemakers for they should be called the
children of God And here we have something that as Jesus gets into these
things, by the way, these are quite contrary to natural man In fact,
they're quite contrary to the Jewish world even when Jesus came They
weren't they weren't looking for Jesus at all as a Messiah that would
come like Jesus They were looking for a Messiah that was going to come
like Moses They were looking for one that would be in the likeness of
Moses who was going to come in with a here with the Roman Oppression
that was upon them as a people as a nation somebody that was going to
come in and as Moses led them out of Egypt The Messiah was going to come
and lead them away from Rome and from the oppression of Roman the
control of Rome They wanted a military leader. They wanted somebody that
was going to come in and bring miracles There's somebody who's gonna
open rivers, you know or make the earthquake and destroy the enemies and
here when Jesus came and he Brought in a whole new message of that.
Peace is not going to come so much through the external aspects of it
Moses didn't bring them peace He just merely got them from one side of a
river to another but they were just as frustrated of people when they
got over There as when they're on the other side of the river.

They just added a view for themselves from the other side That's all but
they were still stuck with themselves And they were delivered from Egypt
into the wilderness, but they weren't delivered from the nature of Egypt
from the selfishness from the pride from their own natures and here when
Jesus came and he began to call them to follow him and Jesus began to
share that he was the bread of life that he was the basic sustenance of
all of life And saying whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
hath eternal life. I'll raise him up at the last day This is not that
flesh that your fathers did eat in the wilderness are dead But who so
eateth of me will never die and here he is actually telling people that
what you need to do is so Appropriate me into your life. You've got to
make me the absolute basic sustenance of your existence who you are The
defining, you know identity of who you are.

What makes you tick what you're all about Jesus said this is what I'm
here for. I'm here to take over your heart. I'm here to take over your
life I'm not here to lead you geographically so much from one place to
another as I am to lead you spiritually from one world to another and
they and entry into that world is going to be as you devour me as You
want to you long with your soul to digest all that you can of me And it
take all of my heart all of my life that you possibly can Well when
Jesus shared things like this it goes on even in that text to say that
many of his disciples upon hearing this they Walked no more with him
that there's a lot of thing.

They said this is a hard thing who can hear it He said, you know, we
look we love we love what Jesus does. We love his miracles. We love his
power We were they they wanted to make him king at times.

They came to him if forcibly wanted to just force him to become king
Judas some feel that that was his whole one of his aspects of his nature
that it when he he was gonna push Jesus into becoming a forceful King
and By just bringing the crisis as some analysis that some have I don't
know that that's so but but many people we'd love to Forcibly make Jesus
come and use his power deliver us this way says no I'm not here to
deliver you this way. I'm here to deliver you eternally I'm here to
deliver you from an enemy. That's far worse than Egypt and far worse
than Rome I'm here to deliver you from the oppression of your own self
the rule of your own arrogance your own pride your own self-willed
nature And if you don't want that then you really don't want me so much
and this is what the Beatitudes is all about It's a wonderful message of
deliverance from the reign of our own fallen nature From our own
character left alone and here the Even the disciples they had such a
hard time with this Jesus of course never let up on it was always the
same, but they wanted a powerful Jesus.

I Love the story one time when Jesus, you know They're about to head
into a town and Jesus's reputation of you know In different towns of
people getting up in arms about him It's kind of gotten around so much
that they sent the leaders out of town They said please don't come in
here where there's so much controversy Over you that we just as soon you
don't come in Jesus being so gentle. That's okay Don't force my way
anyplace. We'll move on But John so wonderfully, I mean here the Apostle
of love he ends up to be but at the time, you know, John He turns to
Jesus the Lord Shall we call fire from heaven to consume them? I mean
here John.

He just looked there and he says what do you think? Nobody talks to us
that way Nobody comes and tell who do they think they are telling you of
all people that you can come and you can go we know Who you are and
knowing who you are. You shouldn't put up with this in there You just
wanted Elijah's kind of power. He says shall we as if Jesus, you know,
John, that's a good idea Let's just let's just smoke the whole town, you
know sort of a thing.

I mean John would have been quite delighted Jesus turns over to him and
he says John I've got a nickname for you and Oh, really, what's that?
son of thunder So he called him the son of thunder There's no light with
you just noise, you know the type of thing and not a big noise You're
the son of one, you know sort of a thing, but he looked at him and it is
John what? what makes you tick and Wonderfully though when John was
really converted and he did become that Apostle of love He did become
the one that would look back and realize what was this within me that I
was literally willing to see an entire town destroy fire from heaven
There's simply to have you know My Jesus be King but when we sit there
and realize that the King that Jesus is is he comes there to want to
take our heart and take Our life and to change it more than even he's
interested in doing a lot of other things But the wonderful thing is is
here He says blessed are the peacemakers and one of the things about a
peacemaker I suppose that rather easily so blessed is in one sense. He's
so entirely different than anybody else There's something within his
heart and within his life. He's a child of God and he wants to tick that
way He wants to think that way.

He wants to function that way. He looks around in a world in such war
and turmoil discord and he realizes there just because now what he has
been through the processes in his own life a Peacemaker is somebody
there He realizes the the things that destroy men the lust and the greed
and the self-will the self-centeredness the ego the pride All of these
demanding hearts and demanding lives and and you put a bunch of people
together like that. You've got wars You've got fights.

You've got battles. You've got struggles But here when somebody is they
begin to God has taken their poor in spirit and they mourn over it and
they become meek and now They're emptied so much that that stuff is
broken out of them. It's being washed and cleansed out of them They
don't like that pride any longer that I want I will I'll have I'm right
I want it my way that that is something about themselves.

They begin to hate They begin to look at this and they see why am I so,
you know self-centered? Why am I it what drives me this way and when I
realize it's it's the fallen ego the sin nature The flesh but they
realize that and so they mourn over it and that produces a meekness and
then there's They're hungry for God and they're filled in the
consequence of that fullness is a merciful spirit begins to get in them
and a singleness Of heart a purity of heart and now we're having
somebody that because of the course they've been through The processes
of their heart in their life. There is such a sense of peace within them
It's not somebody by the way another thing about a peacemaker though I
want to mention that before I go on a peacemaker is not somebody that's
just peace at any price In something that is just there such a
milquetoast sort of a person that they just avoid Anything it could be
any different anything tense or any trouble Not just avoiding problems
or whatever. It is whatever you got to do to make peace do it Sometimes
a peacemaker will turn over, you know tables in the temple Sometimes a
peacemaker will look right at those that are in opposing the kingdom of
heaven and call them what do you know a generation of vipers as Jesus
did or they'll look at the the the priests and the Pharisees and he says
you're white at sepulchers You act like there's life on the outside, but
there's nothing but death on the inside it's not that a peacemaker they
can't confront or can't deal with things and It all kind of like the
story of the fellow that all of a sudden he just appears there in heaven
and paint Peter looks over at him and and He appears they're standing
and he looks at he says well Tell me did you ever do anything good in
your life? Looked like he had a pretty rough ride He said you're doing
good in your life, and he said Well, yeah One time there was a gang of
bikers They were terrible and they're threatening a young girl Innocent
precious young girl and I came up to the obvious leader He was big and
burly and muscle-bound and he had tattoos on him And he was obviously
the leader of them all and I looked him straight in the eye And I pulled
his beard and I pulled a nose ring right out of his nose I did I told
him if you're gonna bother her you got to get there through me And Peter
says well, that's amazing He says when did that happen? He says oh about
two minutes ago but the But sometimes the person they need to do what
may be right it may not be easy There may be some degree of
confrontation that may result in in it in wanting to bring peace to
another It doesn't mean that they have no courage about them But a
peacemaker is somebody who first of all as the Beatitudes have shown
he's at peace with God He has found the greatest key to peace in the
whole world the keys with the peace within his own soul peace within his
own nature Peace there that is most wonderfully there.

The war with God is over He has found the way to settle it. He has found
the way to end it and he has found the peace of God Reigns within his
own heart and with his own life because what has happened in the
Beatitudes is Essentially there's been a wonderful exchange of the of
the self and of the of our own Ego and of our own pride and it's been
broken It's no longer desired and it's been replaced by the nature that
God always wanted to have within us his own nature his own spirit And
that's going to produce peace within our heart. We'll never have peace
Until that's happened.

We'll look for peace. We'll try for peace There'll be maybe a peace for
a season but an abiding peace The only person that really knows it is
the person that agreed that they understand the Beatitudes They realized
there that by nature. I was opposed to God I avoided God and I I fought
against him and his and I did my own character in my own nature It was
my biggest enemy and then when God began to break me as David said a
broken and a contrite spirit God will not despise David there realized
how God loves gentleness and meekness and when he can break a man of his
own ego and of his own pride His own self-willed and a pair of person
knows that and then he's been filled with God.

There's a man who knows peace And a peacemaker is somebody that he's got
a new nature he has a new heart that has come in and he's Constantly a
peacemaker is somebody that ought to always be desiring to be delivered
constantly through his life of self Constantly there of our own self-
interest our own self concern you know one of the things you know that
That it takes us a while sometimes to realize is you know, we Jesus
gives us the power of the Holy Spirit But it seems in the resurrection
power, but it also seems like the flesh Has the power of the
resurrection? You know if you notice that about us, but you go and and
you die and something happens You're extremely sorrowful and you cry out
to God There's a meekness and he fills you with himself But then
amazingly the next day You can turn right back and all of a sudden this
self that you held a wonderful funeral for you buried him, you know God
I'm through with self. I hate myself. I never want to see myself again
and the whole family says we vote Yes to you know, and everybody else is
in full agreement.

I can't believe what I've done. I hate myself and God I'm sorry, and he
says everybody. I'm sorry.

You're sorry. Okay. Well, here's me and he fills us with himself In
somehow or another the flesh the next thing, you know, I mean the God
calls us one of the things that he calls us in the Bible that we're to
present our bodies as a living sacrifice And I guess one of the great
tragedies about a living sacrifice is it has the capacity to crawl off
off the altar You know, we can go put ourself there and present ourself,
but we can get right back in control So easily and so it's something
there like Paul said I died daily His venture in life was he never just
took it for granted that any previous experience he had Was sufficient
there he constantly there, you know, you know wretched man that I am who
should deliver me from the body of this death and The wonderful thing is
when somebody realizes God, I know who I am I don't need and want to see
myself again again, but as I do instead of being amazed or surprised,
let me just be broken and The wonderful thing is is that what happens to
a person like this is because the war is over with God They found a way
to resolve it.

Their life is surrendered essentially to God Then the wonderful thing is
they now whether they know it or not and then they're merciful and
they're pure in heart They are not only have peace with God, but they
are now have the capacity to become a peacemaker They now understand the
message of where peace is really found It's one thing just simply to go
in and try to keep the peace But it's another thing to go in where there
is no peace with the capacity to produce it And this is what Jesus says
this person who has been through the Beatitudes has He now has a message
of understanding. He can go into where there's war He can go into where
there's battles and where they don't work together. They don't get along
And when there's people that are agitated and fighting and saw their
struggles and going back and forth He has the message to go in and make
peace He can sit down and say I can tell you what your problem is And
while they're sitting there there most people like that are convinced I
can tell you what it is do when they point the finger at the other one
It's them You know when they and it's in my husband, it's my wife, you
know the ginger I mean that we never never a sinful man never has any
problem finding problem who it is Soon as Adam sinned Next thing, you
know, I mean, it's the funniest thing to me It wasn't so tragic, but God
comes looking for him and Adam's hiding as if he can truly hide from God
Adam God God comes along.

What are you doing? I'm hiding, you know, or the and why are you hiding?
well There's naked. Oh How'd you find that out? Oh The woman sinned, you
know, I mean it's a thing to where you God says you ate at the tree,
didn't you? Well, I know it looks that way You know sort of a thing but
immediately he says it's the woman that thou gave us me I mean what a
crafty little thing to come up with. There's a problem in his life.

He's naked. He's in trouble He knows he's in trouble. But then we say
why are you in trouble? He says well, it's the woman thou gave us me and
that's quite a cunning little thing.

The woman thou gave us me here He brings up two things. It's the woman
and you gave her to me. So it's between you two.

You figure it out I don't know what went wrong here. But but She was
here. You gave it to me, but you started it So one of you two is a
sinner, you know or something in the sort of a thing and and and I'm
clean I'm just fine.

Of course, he goes to her and he says what do you think about it?
Because there was a serpent and you made him so I mean so ultimately
God's the sinner to you know, there's a lot of people But a person who's
broken doesn't need to look for anybody else. They realize no, it's
inside. That's where the problem is and Coming to a place where we were
people begin to become aware of that where they begin to have a true
sorrow And but a peacemaker the wonderful thing is he goes in with a
message of the Unbelievable capacity of what God can do for that for
anybody else because of what God has done for him When then on one hand,
you know, he was devastated by sin destroyed by sin killed by sin
Mourned over his sin became meek before God, but in his death he
hungered for God and God raised him from the dead Gave him new life
forgave him of it all Poured his love made him a merciful man and gave
him a pure heart for the things that are right and eternal That's a
person there that has the capacity, you know, because of what God has
done for them Now they know how to produce peace To be there when a
person that was created in the image of God was absolutely destroyed by
sin and yet God came and entirely rebuilt him restored him Regenerated
him resurrected him brought him back in the newness of life and hope in
eternal capacities That's the person that has the capacity to bring
peace Last September 11th, obviously 2001 a day that'll live in infamy,
but there is the world's eyes, you know Watch there is these jets flew
into the Twin Towers and other places as well But but watching so
graphically a person doesn't even have to close their eyes to remember
that sight and to watch there is those buildings just absolutely came
crumbling down as The dust rose up to so high and so awesome.

It could be seen from this from space we're told But as here is these
these huge towers Came down and there and you know The the whole
infrastructure all of the steel the metal the windows the doors They you
know every elevator every stairwell every office everything in the thing
was absolutely destroyed and Thousands of people inside the building
with it and there is a dust settled and there was a pile of rubble And
then of course we came in after that to try to clean it up and try to
figure out what went wrong and All sorts of engineers came and they
hauled off all sorts of pieces of it The twisted metal this do studies
in engineering and what could we do and how do we avoid these things and
look at all of The other things you can learn from them and then of
course is in the process they're getting little bits of memorabilia to
give to the families of those that lost loved ones and then another
teams are actually finding the body parts and the tragedy of what
happened there and And but never for a moment in all of man's genius did
anybody ever dream of taking all that stuff They gathered and saying
let's see if we can take this metal and maybe we can find enough doors
in here We can get a few elevator parts and and we can get some stuff
and let's see if we can just go put all this back together Nobody ever
dreamed for a moment of doing that But could you imagine if somebody
there had the capacity there to literally take that entire?

Destruction and there not only begin to take out of that rubble to Speak
and to work and to rebuild and to restore and the next thing you know it
all begins to come back together a brick Upon a brick and the metal kid
takes its strength and its shape back again And then out of the rubble
comes all of these, you know shattered windows of you know Tons of glass
beginning to come back into pieces and the next thing You know the thing
begins to rise and then every body that was within it life comes back in
and it's restored Well, that's exactly what Jesus did for a Christian
Only far greater He did it eternally He takes somebody there that that
was Devastated sin came in like that jet and he had him right in the
midsection and destroyed With it it deposited self and arrogance and
pride and and and Accusation to everybody else and whose fault it was
when instead of saying I sin We blame it all on everybody else and there
we lay in the rubble Nothing, but out of it Then the the God the power
of the gospel gets in and restores a man's soul regenerates his life
resurrects his being Reno takes everything he is you look at these
wonderful words of the gospel and he takes a man He says I can take you
back into my image.

I can fill you with myself I can give you a heart like mine. I can take
away your stony heart I give you a heart of flesh and I give you a heart
of purity if you want it And here is he builds that up and he pours his
love back into it now that building all tell you It's got a message for
every crumbled building in the rest of the planet doesn't it? That life
is a peacemaker that life of every other life that's been hit and
destroyed and Annihilated and here the wonderful thing is is this is
what Jesus says he's done when he's restored us and The way he pours his
heart in his life and his love back in But unfortunately, I think we
live in a day and age where lives are oftentimes the peace that has
brought him to a lot of homes The way we look for peace Even in
Christian circles.

I look at a lot of Christian books quote-unquote Christian books I
personally debate some of those things, but it's probably not supposed
to If I'm really merciful and pure at heart, so obviously I'm not yet
because I think a lot of it's well trash, but anyway the But the thing
is is that to me I mean, I look at a lot of people here where their
their life is destroyed and they're and they're by they're trying to
gain peace by some sort of human process Human treaties human agreements
here. You got a marriage. It's in trouble You got two piles of rubble
throwing bricks at each other You know on a thing and in blaming each
other on why they're both pile of rubble And as they're throwing it back
and forth and accusing one another they they get a counselor of which
there's no shortage of these days It seems like they're pretty expensive
probably that's the reason but anyway, it's these people that come along
say wait a minute We can help you You know and and we can negotiate a
treaty here We we need to negotiate a ceasefire here and we've got to go
in and put you through a battery of tests and If we get a little battery
of tests and we get a psychological makeup We'll find out why you throw
bricks You know at each other and we'll find out why you're unhappy and
we'll find out why you say and do these things to each And why all of
this lack of P Why you don't have peace in your home and peace in your
marriage and peace in your life and peace with your children It's
obviously there's some psychological difficulty here that's going on
that hasn't been understood yet and dealt with but we're professionals
And so they go in and they do this and they help produce peace by
negotiation in discussion You got a fee.

You got to realize each other you you got how you got flashpoints You
got you you got there's things you avoid and in issues in your life that
you realize you don't push this Button and you don't do that and and
they help us find out all these things about each other But it's a
superficial piece. It's a negotiated piece. It's a human piece not a
supernatural piece it's not something to happen because Jesus has come
and poured his power into them and transformed them and because he has
taken their nature and their character that that caused the rebellion
and reckoned it dead and let it die and buried it and given a new life
and Given a new spirit so much with it within it and we to me sometimes
I get a little cynical because I don't go into many Christian bookstores
and As oftentimes you go into it's filled with to me what I call how-to
books Just telling everybody, you know how to do everything how to be
happy in your marriage, you know something how to be You know happy
though married.

I mean do you look at that? So that's a title I saw how to be happy
though married in other words. Oh you poor dear you're married Well, you
know, you here's the stuff you got to work through to be happy how to
love your husband I love your wife how to love that teenager how to love
that adolescent how to love that one going through puberty how to You
know all these different things on how to do these things and and it's
interesting to me because that's obviously they're selling like hot
cakes Anybody that can tell you how to raise a child or how to work
through your marriage or how to do that We don't seem to be able to make
enough of those books But to me the reason we need so many of those
books is that we is that we're not doing things spiritually They're not
we're not living in in in the power and the transformed life of the Holy
Spirit in the home We're just negotiating peace You got two selfies
people How to be absolutely we should write we should change the titles
of the books how to be absolutely selfish and happy You know, that's you
know how to remain, you know Alive to yourself and walk in the flesh and
be happy, you know how to have, you know Selfish arrogance nasty
children and be happy, you know or something how to negotiate happiness
within a layer with a bunch of lives That are all far from God and those
are probably so good. I suppose and that's to me That's almost what
they're what they ought to be titled sometimes because when you get
inside of them They don't deal with they with with with our pride in our
arrogance I think I'll want I have I am alive and because I am alive you
gotta tolerate me And we're the whole issue As the great issue in the
Christian life is somebody is is died Died to self and when a person
learns that When that's begun to really happen and you know the this
sermon it's not a how-to Sermon, it's a the books of a hundred years
ago.

A lot of the books I have they're written a long time ago And I you if
you went in look you look at books 50 75 hundred years ago. They weren't
how-to books. They were who to Who to live by who to surrender to you
know, and then they're driving us to Christ They were before God of
living before him We've gotten away from that in a way from a
surrendered life away from an obedient life away from a broken life away
from a desire for a transformed life and An exchanged life with God or
whatever else somebody may want to call it but we've gotten away from
these things and yet we're still trying to live as Christians and So you
get two selfish little people in the house and you got a book you can't
write enough books for him I don't think you get it, you know enough,
you know, you get then you start they start reproducing then you then
you really you can Need a library, you know in a sense there to try to
figure out what in fact today I think if I were the average kid, I think
if they walk into their mom's Dad's bedroom.

They probably they see all these books records tapes videos how to raise
children how to raise a strong child Will child how to do this how to do
that how to discipline how to do that sit there figure man You must
really be bad parents and need that many books to raise me, you know or
something or I don't know what your problem Is but you need a whole
bunch of stuff It's because we're not broken Because there isn't
something where we found real and true and lasting peace Or something
has happened to where the you know Whether when you do it when he's
taken those that that twin towers and there they stand in their former
glory They're created recreated in Christ and that's what they're
longing for You get a man you get a woman regardless of what we do in
the rubble and how it all is You know You can spend a lifetime trying to
rebuild it and never you'll never get one piece of glass to stick to
another one Let alone put life back into it again Only God though in his
love and in mercy when somebody comes says God would you would you
forgive me and I'm sorry I've sinned the problem isn't her. It's me. It
isn't him.

It's me Paul says we wrestle not against flesh and blood There are no
problem with you with human beings all human beings do is reveal if
there is one in me I'd be very happy if none of you existed, you know
sort of it because I'd be just in a sense there There's nobody to have a
problem with In a sense as a human being but when you take a human being
who is selfish All we got to do is just two people walk out a single
door together and meet in our shoulders him What excuse me? I was here
first, you know, or whatever else you got a problem Instead of when we
find ourself God If they are not the problem It's my far-off
relationship with you I'm not broken And I don't mourn over it and
there's no meekness But when that begins to happen and then he fills us
now, that's the person that one day they can look virtually at anybody
They can go to work. They can go home and sit down with that teenager
and They can tell that teenager. I think I know what's wrong with you
And the and it isn't what you've been thinking and I've been thinking I
think I know what's wrong with you.

It's you You're a sinner, you know a good one, you know sort of a thing
and you haven't come to grips with that And until it in when when we in
our own lives sometimes when we sit there with our own loved ones and
say, you know Your problem is God. You're not right with God You're not
hungry for him and and while they're in their youth to me to constantly
turn them to that Constantly one of our boys was a bit of a test for us
when growing up And I'm being very nice about that right now, but the
but he put us through a little bit But I know my dad would stand up and
say and you deserved every bit of it, but the Literally one time I'm
talking to my dad. It's a true story I'm going through something with my
kids and my problem with him and this and that and while I'm trying to
talk seriously with him My dad's laughing He's laughing like I didn't
believe there was really justice.

He didn't say that but you could tell you see. Thank you God Thank you
But I'm going through it with mine and then fortunately it does happen
again one of mine did the same thing and I'll never forget that I'm
laughing. He says what are you laughing about same thing? My dad laughed
about you're a sinner, you know or something and and but one time when
he was going one of them was going through a thing and He decided he
thought he could live better on his own and around us and I decided that
was true.

I Said you may go You may go do whatever you want to do. You're free to
And when everybody else has to leave the party you want to stay at the
party and stay there and everybody else man My dad's gonna be looking
for me. I won't look for you You're free And when there's something you
want to drink you want to drink you go ahead and drink it You have to
worry about oh, man My dad's gonna found out a drink that or there's
something else you want to do you do it You got I don't agree with it,
but you want to go do it you go do it so you're free and you go do it
And I say, you know, I grew up kind of like you And I said I thought I
had said that there was something out there and I looked I said you've
spent most your life you think there's something out there better than
Jesus and So you go look I don't think there is I didn't find anything
But only one thing I ask of you is your father He said what's that and I
said when you find it you come back and tell me what it is Some months
later the very first words that he had when he stood on the door step
Wanting to come back home as he says I've looked and there's nothing
better than Jesus and the thing is is that until somebody comes to that
they'll not have peace and Still each one of us comes to that where we
looked I okay God I have looked but there's nothing better than Jesus
And his power and his love and his cleansing and his goodness I want to
be filled with him and when somebody there that brokenness and So often
what what may be going on in your home or your marriage tonight and that
you didn't you might ask yourself Do we have peace by negotiation? Do we
have peace by agreement? Do we have peace by treaties or say and do we
sit there and everything that's going on? We're trying to hold it all
together because I'll tell you what it's no stronger than your ability
to do it But if what has happened is peace by transformation Peace
because you know that the one of the things about the gospel as a gospel
isn't in the repair business The gospel is the restoration the
replacement plant.

It's Christianity by replacement, you know, you're not a good one But
here I'm gonna give you the perfect one Son of God invite him into your
life. Let him take over and you can live and you'll have the message to
be a peacemaker and When we find God I want to be a peacemaker Well, you
can be one to the degree that he has brought peace within you through
this process the Beatitudes Then is when you can sit down with virtually
anybody in the world Tell them where peace is you'll never find greater
peace with men than you have with God And when you and I find ourselves,
that's what I need in my home. That's what I need in my life That's what
I need in our family.

That's what we long for God Give us this not peace by agreement or
negotiation and you know And and how to book that we if I'm not putting
all those books down No, I'm not doing but the I mean there is I'm sure
there's they got some good stuff in them the I just haven't found it
yet, but the I'm not no, I don't mean that. I'm sure that they really do
and but if it if it's short of The Beatitudes Then it's short Because it
isn't biblical To think you can have a greater marriage to think you
have a greater family and more peace within a home than a human being
Can have peace with God is absurd That's a negotiated peace. That's an
agreed peace but when there's a spiritual peace because I've been
conformed to the image of Jesus Christ by his power and Then when that's
what we want Now we're on the road to be looking at, you know in our
homes and our marriages and our families And being a peacemaker Bringing
it in You may go home tonight and do a family and in a home or go to
work tomorrow and there's absolute war That's all right.

All you need is one peacemaker To bring peace When there's a true
peacemaker when somebody can sit down and say, you know, I think I know
where I found peace Let me tell you how I found it and you tell me what
you think of it Could this be part of our problem? And see what happens,
but the wonderful thing is he says this person is the happiest person in
the world Wouldn't you love to be a peacemaker? That's the exciting
thing Father we thank you for your love Thank you dear Lord that you
look at us and how you long to bring great peace And Lord maybe some of
us we look at our own lives and then the reason for peace has nothing to
do with the person because we can be around all sorts of different
people and Still don't have peace we can change jobs Not have peace. We
can change partners not have peace We can go from one end of the country
to another not have peace But Jesus when we're broken before you And the
great battle of heaven Has been won at the cross and we find ourself
coming in there saying Jesus. I just want to die And having you be able
to turn and say, you know, that's what I did for you And now if you'll
just accept your death Now if you just step out of the way Receive my
life.

Oh The peace that'll come let me fill you and then as we continuously
would want to be filled with you again and again continuously finding
peace Lord becoming merciful pure in heart Then Lord, we have the
message of being a peacemaker To be able to sit down with other lives
that are struggling and say I can tell you where you can find peace I
can tell you where I found it and it works for absolutely anybody. All
you need to do is be a sinner to qualify All you need to do is have
something that's hit you and devastated your own life called sin And it
may have reduced you to rubble and may beyond anybody's ability to read
store it but Jesus With his word he can actually raise it from the dead
And as grand as the thought of the Twin Towers would be the eternal
image of God But poured into a human being is greater still Lord, may
you give us that kind of peace we ask it in Jesus name Amen

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Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/8/SID8730.mp3
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/don-mcclure/peace-making/
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