Kingdom Influence Part 13
At Keys Vineyard Church, we are presenting a series called ‘Kingdom Influence,’ which we post here on Online Bible Institute.
Our series is called Kingdom Influence, and today we come to the seventh Beatitude:
Matthew 5:9 (NIV)
9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
By this point in the Beatitudes, Jesus has already been reshaping our hearts. The first four helped us confront the barriers within us, self reliance, self satisfaction, self will, and self righteousness. As we have seen, the Kingdom life begins when we recognize our need for God and surrender to Him. Then we moved outward, learning mercy as a response to others and purity of heart as integrity before God. Now Jesus brings us to peacemaking. But it is critical that we understand this: we cannot make peace until we first have peace with God.
Palm Sunday gives us a powerful picture of this truth. Jesus enters Jerusalem not on a war horse, but on a donkey, a symbol of peace. He is revealing the nature of His Kingdom. He did not come to conquer people; He came to reconcile them. The cross and the empty tomb are the ultimate expression of this mission. God, through Christ, made a way for sinful humanity to be brought back into right relationship with Him. This is where peacemaking begins, not with us fixing relationships around us, but with us being reconciled to God.
Romans 5:1-2 (NIV)
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
This is foundational. Before we experience the peace of God in our hearts, we must first be at peace with God Himself. The hostility caused by sin has been removed through Jesus. We are no longer enemies; we are children. And this changes everything. A peacemaker is not simply someone who avoids conflict or keeps things calm. A peacemaker is someone who has been transformed by reconciliation with God and now carries that same heart into the world. Because we are at peace with God, we begin to experience the peace of God. And from that place, we move toward others, not in hostility, but in humility and love.
This is why the crowd on Palm Sunday struggled. They wanted a king who would defeat their enemies. Jesus came to reconcile enemies. They wanted power. Jesus came with peace. And many rejected Him because they did not recognize their deepest need, to be made right with God.
To be a peacemaker, then, is to live out of this reality: we have peace with God. And because we have been reconciled, we now carry that message to others, the gospel of peace. True Kingdom influence flows from this place. We cannot give what we do not have. But when we are at peace with God, our lives become living invitations for others to know that same peace.
This weekend at Keys Vineyard Church, we will discuss all this and more, so be sure to join us in person or online.
Steve Lawes is a pastor at Keys Vineyard Church and also the founder of the Online Bible Institute Network.
