TEXT: Matthew 5:3-10

SUBJECT: Watson on the Beatitudes #7

Tonight, with the Lord’s blessing, we’ll continue our study of Thomas Watson on the Beatitudes. Watson was an English Puritan pastor who wrote the book in 1660.

The Beatitudes—remember—are not a set of rules. They don’t tell you what to do, but something far more radical: They tell you what to be. They tell you what kind of person you must be if you’re going to be happy in this life or the next.

Changing what you do is not easy. Think of the bad habits you’ve tried to break, only to fall back into them. If changing what you do is hard, changing what you are is impossible. Jeremiah said,

Ethiopians cannot become Norwegians, leopards cannot become tigers, and unhappy sinners cannot become happy saints. Unless God does something for us! We need more than good wishes or detailed plans or firm discipline or a loving community. We need the supernatural work of God in the soul. It’s not good enough to become better men, we’ve got to become new men.

The happy life begins with the new birth. And having received it from God, and working under the influence of His Spirit, we find the happiness He made us to enjoy.

Thus far, we’ve seen the happy person is one who is

Now we come to Beatitude Number Seven,

The peacemaker, obviously, is one who makes peace between other people. He doesn’t start fights or add fuel to them, but he helps others to make up. Watson says

I find the comparisons very helpful. A peacemaker is something like a doctor or a seamstress. A doctor fixes a torn body, a seamstress fixes a torn shirt and a peacemaker fixes a torn relationship.

Watson goes on to give three examples, two from the Bible and one from church history. The first is Abraham who kept a little fight from becoming a big one, Genesis 13:8,

The second example is Moses who tried to break up a fight that was already going strong, Exodus 2:13,

The third example is from Church History, 325 A.D. It has the Emperor Constantine making long-time doctrinal enemies into Christian friends. Watson says

That would have been something to see! I’ve been to many pastors’ conferences—and not all of them have been marked by love and unity. But here’s the king, collecting the written sermons, tearing them up in front of the preachers and saying, "Enough of your fussing! Now, kiss and make up!"

Peacemaking, then, is helping others make up.

The opportunities to make peace are almost unlimited. You don’t have to look very far to see people at odds with each other. Some are loud and obnoxious; others are clever and cutting; others are quiet and sulky. But however the animosity is shown, there’s plenty of it all around you. Some try to escape it, but they can’t. Others gripe about it all the time, adding to the problem. Others just accept it as an evil under the sun. But Christians ought to see it as an opening to do others good and a chance to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

Watson says there are four good places to make peace. I won’t elaborate on them, but when you hear the places, ask yourself—or the Lord—"What can I do to make peace there?"

Here they are with short quotes from the Puritan,

Is there discord in your family? Is there a feud in your neighborhood? Do you hear the angry voices arguing politics or the war? Are there people in church you know don’t get along?

If so, what are you doing about it? I know it’s risky to meddle with these things; it takes time and effort and it seems to be futile more often than not. Maybe you can’t fix up the broken relationships all around you. But how about one of them? And maybe you can’t fix it up completely either, but can’t you do a little bit toward making things better?

At the very least, I know you can pray for your relatives and neighbors and fellow Christians. Why don’t you do it?

If making peace is hard, thankless, and often ends badly, we’d better have some pretty strong motives to do it. And we do.

Watson tells us what some of them are.

First, we have the command of Jesus Christ,

Why do we call Jesus "Lord" if we don’t do what He says? Do you know it’s the Lord’s will for you to live at peace? If you don’t, read the Bible! But if you know it, why don’t you stop explaining yourself and start doing it?

If you need a memory verse that you can remember, here it is, Hebrews 12:14a,

It doesn’t say, pursue peace with people who easy to get along with, agree with you on every point, and so on. It says "all men". The word, "pursue" means "to hunt down" or to chase something as hard as you can. Some people are looking for a fight; we’re to be looking for peace.

Next we have the nature of man. By "nature", I don’t mean fallen nature, but the way God made us suggests that we should be peaceful.

This is worth thinking about, isn’t it? God gave us fingers—not claws. He made our teeth dull—not sharp. We don’t have stingers coming out of our…well, you know.

If God made us for peace, we’ll never be happy at war.

Thirdly, we have the work of Christ,

If Jesus Christ prayed for peace, why don’t I pray for it? If He died to make enemies into friends, why don’t I do something once in a while to reconcile people who have fallen out with each other?

The work of Christ powerfully urges us to make peace.

Finally (on this point), we have the character of God,

This is the main idea of the Beatitude. To be "children of God"—here—doesn’t stand for the New Birth or Adoption—but God-like character. We’re the children of God—our Lord says—when we resemble our Father in Heaven.

If He makes peace, we should too.

How do we become peacemakers? Watson says we must do two things: avoid the things that break peace and pursue the things that make peace.

Under the former, we have bad company.

Also under "things to avoid", we have

The man’s who is full of himself cannot live in peace, no less make peace.

To make peace we also have to pursue some things, especially,

This is a good point. We cannot do others much good until we get to know them.

I’ve made this point already. If peace is a good thing, it ought to be prayed for. And not just when things have become unbearable. We ought to always pray for peace in the family of God.

Finally, we have the reward,

On this point, Watson has a lot to say—two whole chapters, in fact. Although I agree with nearly everything he says, I don’t think it fits here. So let me speak for myself for a minute or two.

To be children of God means to resemble Him. Our Father in heaven is the Original Peacemaker. By the sacrifice of His Son, He has made peace—between Himself and man and also between man and man.

We see this in the life of Paul, for example. No one was more contentious than he—breathing out slaughter. Until he met the Lord. Then, the man who once darkened and widened the lines between Jew and Gentile, erased them. In becoming a Peacemaker, he resembled God.

And not only he. But you and I can as well. But only if we’re filled with love for others and courage. It’s not easy to love others and courage is always hard—especially for naturally timid people (like myself).

But what a reward we’ll have for it!

In this life, we’ll look something like the Lord. In the life to come, we’ll look just like Him. Keep the reward in mind and you’ll become a Peacemaker,

May the Lord make us peace-keepers and peace makers, for Christ’s sake. Amen.