{"id":738,"date":"2018-12-06T13:56:27","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T21:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/migrate.bettersermons.org\/?p=738"},"modified":"2020-06-01T11:38:09","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T18:38:09","slug":"fighting-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/fighting-part-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting – Part 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Visit From the Anti-Thief<\/strong>
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Photo: Marcin Balcerzak<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever been involved in a friendly basketball game\u2014ten sweaty guys, two teams formed by the time-honored method of \u201cthe first five to make free throws\u201d\u2014and, bit by bit, there began to be some tension? This is a self-reffing project, so someone gets fouled on a play; the next time down, he gets back with a little push. A minute later, there\u2019s another elbow, and someone with the ball gives it a sharp one-dribble protest bounce and then a hard look. And then on the next play, suddenly two guys are in a full-fledged fight. Hitting, punching, trying to topple their enemy. And the other eight of you just stand in a little ring, feeling helpless, not knowing what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you\u2019re in a church board meeting, and there\u2019s an undercurrent of emotion when someone talks about how someone else\u2014three years ago\u2014didn\u2019t do their job right. Or overstepped their authority and made some purchase they shouldn\u2019t have. And you can just sense, even though it isn\u2019t said out loud, that there is some unexploded ordnance still embedded in somebody\u2019s soul.

I heard of a church, likely apocryphal, where one old coot was simply against everything the others wanted. He voted no on all agenda items, including the closing prayer. If Christmas was up for a vote, he would veto it. And one day, someone came to the meeting with good news. So-and-so was willing to donate a thousand-dollar chandelier to the church. Everyone began rejoicing and praising God, until this guy hollered out: \u201cI\u2019m against it. I vote no.\u201d 

They all looked at him. Finally the pastor said: \u201cLook, it\u2019s a free chandelier. It\u2019s being donated. We don\u2019t have to pay a red cent for it. Why in the world would you be against that?\u201d

The guy scowled and replied: \u201cFirst of all, nobody around here knows how to play it. Secondly, nobody around here knows how to even spell it. Thirdly, what this church really needs is more light!\u201d

Our topic in this series has been anger and fighting in the church, and so this brings us to one of Jesus\u2019 most well-known and beloved sayings. It\u2019s right in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7, and also in His classic Beatitudes. What should we say and do when two people in front of us begin karate-chopping each other, physically, verbally, or\u2014like enemy submarines\u2014emotionally, underwater where we can\u2019t see the torpedoes?

Here is verse nine of chapter five, which runs exactly twelve words long: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
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It\u2019s fun to read other versions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Word<\/em>: Happiness comes from being a peacemaker, for such are God\u2019s children.  <\/em>

Phillips<\/em>: Happy are those who MAKE peace.<\/em> We\u2019ll come back to that idea. 

Living Bible<\/em>: Happy are those who strive for peace. 
<\/em>
Good News: Happy are those who work for peace.
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And what we find in this landmark verse is that God invites us to do more than to simply stand at the free throw line with seven other guys, holding the basketball and waiting while two other people exhaust themselves in a fight. To be a peacemaker means more than to simply not be in the fight yourself.

Have you ever had someone break into your home and rob the place? Perhaps you\u2019ve come out to your car after a late-evening baseball game . . . and you see that your window is broken. And it\u2019s not a case of vandalism: someone has climbed into your car and wrenched out your stereo and your GPS system to sell on the street corner. And it\u2019s a devastating feeling. That was your car, your personal space, your property, your sanctuary where you and your loved ones always enjoyed fellowship and happy times . . . and this alien force has invaded it.

In one of Bill Hybels\u2019 early books, entitled Who You Are (When No One\u2019s Looking), <\/em>he takes us to a wonderful verse found in John 10:10: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. He taketh thy car stereo and, forsooth, leaveth naught, yea, nothing but a bare hole in thy dash. <\/em>(That\u2019s my version!)  I have come<\/em>, Jesus says, that they may have life, and have it to the full. <\/em>\u201cHave it more abundantly,\u201d says the King James.<\/em>

And Hybels makes this point: \u201cJesus is not a thief but an anti<\/em>-thief. He knocks patiently until you open the door, and then He fills up your house with a truckload of life\u2019s most precious commodities.\u201d

Now think about that. I don\u2019t think anyone here is driving a 1971 Datsun B-210, but maybe there was a time in college when you did. And this would be like someone knocking on your car door and saying, \u201cExcuse me, may I come in?\u201d Well, that\u2019s kind of weird, but you scratch your head and look around and say, \u201cUh, well, okay, I guess so. Just don\u2019t scratch this beautiful vinyl upholstery.\u201d But this Visitor climbs into the passenger seat and miraculously installs a brand new eight-speaker Bose system with a ten-disc changer, Dolby all the way around, bass amp in the trunk, and a leather-bound CD holder that has all of our church\u2019s archived sermons in it plus five CDs of our favorite praise songs. While this Hitchhiker is in there, He somehow also gives you all new leather upholstery, brand new V6 engine, paint job, mag wheels, DVD player, navigation system\u2014the 1971 Datsuns didn\u2019t come with those\u2014spins your odometer back to zero, and even sprays your interior with that new-car-right-out-of-the-showroom fragrance. By the time He\u2019s done, your Datsun is a Lexus. And you see, this visit was from the Anti-Thief who comes in and fills your life with abundance. Instead of that bare, I\u2019ve-been-robbed look that Lenny Briscoe sometimes finds on Law & Order<\/em>, you come home and find that this friendly Visitor has filled the place you live in with warm and comfortable gifts beyond anything you could imagine.

Well, what does this have to do with \u201cBlessed are the peacemakers\u201d? In the original Greek, this word \u201cpeacemakers\u201d comes from eir\u00e7n\u00e7<\/em>, which means \u201cpeace,\u201d and poie\u00f4<\/em>, for \u201cmake.\u201d And the Hebrew word paralleling eir\u00e7n\u00e7<\/em>, \u201cpeace,\u201d is shalom, which we\u2019ve all heard before as a Jewish greeting. But it carries with it the idea of completeness, of soundness, prosperity, a full life, \u201ccondition of well-being.\u201d The Bible tells us to make other people\u2019s lives full, to bless them with hands-on intervention, with an attitude of abundance. So we\u2019re supposed to be at peace (I Thessalonians 5:13), and \u201cfollow peace with all men\u201d (Hebrews 12:14). We should pray for peace, work for peace, and do whatever we can in our society to help make it happen.

We\u2019ve spent a whole month here facing up to the reality that even in the Church, sinful humans love to fight. Fighting is in our blood. We keep score. We hold on to grudges. We enjoy drawing blood.

Some of us have had the unfortunate experience of working for various Christian ministries that were at war all the time. Where conflict ruled the place. And I\u2019m ashamed to admit it: it can be a very human temptation to come to board meetings, knowing that an edgy, blood-drawing agenda item was down there at #6 on the list. You have opening prayer, the minutes, the financial report. And all through the mundane items, there is a sinful itch, a little bit of pounding pulse saying, Come on, let\u2019s get to the war zone. This is gonna be good. That person I don\u2019t like is going to get his comeuppance. <\/em>But this is human nature. The book of James, in the King James<\/em>, has this great antique line: The lusts that war in your members.<\/em> So hostility is not an unusual reaction; it simply is a sinful one. Bickering and doing battle are ingrained in the software of the soul; it\u2019s our default mode.

So the Christian is called to exit from that battlefield, but not for the purpose of simply walking to the sidelines. If you\u2019re one of the eight non-fighters in that Saturday night basketball game, God doesn\u2019t call you to just stand there in the key while the fight wears itself out. Notice again from this great verse that Jesus doesn\u2019t say, \u201cBlessed are the peace-lovers<\/em>.\u201d That\u2019s not it. God\u2019s command to us is very stark: Blessed are the peace-MAKERS, for they will be called sons of God.<\/em>

The Adventist Bible commentary reminds us that Jesus came to this world\u2014talk about not staying on the safe sidelines\u2014with a message of peace. He invaded our hostile planet as an ambassador of peace; Romans 5:1 says we have peace with God because of Calvary. He told His disciples, My peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you. <\/em>Jesus was the Prince of peace. 

In this world there are thieves, and there are neutral people, and there are anti-thieves. And here in this wartime scenario, there are fighters, bystanders, and anti<\/em>-fighters. People who don\u2019t just go into their houses, shut and bar the doors, draw the shades, and turn up the volume on their Enya CD. No, these people of God invade the community where the conflict is happening. They try to draw people together. They come to the board meeting and try to gently probe beneath the surface and fix that underlying scar. They come to church every Sabbath and try to create calm. When someone attacks the pastor\u2014and I\u2019m talking generically here\u2014they look for the good in him. Or they gently ask: \u201cHave you talked to the pastor? That guy is a servant of God, man. I know he would want to fix that problem. I know he would move heaven and earth to resolve that situation, if you\u2019d just make him aware.\u201d

One of the wonderful realities in the body of Christ is that we have a smorgasbord of gifts and talents. What you cannot do, someone else can. The skill that isn\u2019t in your portfolio, someone sitting nearby has. If a child gets hurt at one of our church picnics, I\u2019m helpless to sew sutures or apply a cast, but we have people who are trained in those very skills. They do it all the time.

In this place, there are people who have been dealt a tough financial hand; they sometimes struggle to make ends meet and keep groceries on the table. That\u2019s why we have food bank programs. We have friends sitting right here who need a bit of help driving Joe Camel out of their backyard; well, there are people in our faith community who know how to help with that. A person who can do a parenting seminar provides help for those who would like some additional insight in that area.

And the plain fact is that many of us need real, tangible help in terms of finding peace in our lives. All sin is dysfunction, and if you are locked into a decades-long pattern of negative thoughts, resentful reactions, a payback mentality, you might very well need help from someone else at this church who doesn\u2019t just sit on the sidelines, but who actually wades into the fray and makes <\/em>peace.

I gave you a series of different renditions of Matthew 5:9; here\u2019s just one more from the Message<\/em> paraphrase written by Eugene Peterson: You\u2019re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That\u2019s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God\u2019s family.<\/em>

So this is not passive cheering from the sidelines. This is wading into the fray. This is those who know the gospel, who have experienced some transforming by the gospel, who have walked down the forgiveness freeway a few miles reaching out to someone else and saying: \u201cLet me help. I\u2019m the ER doc of hurt feelings.\u201d

There\u2019s a spiritual web site called www.thelivingwordbc.com<\/a>, and author Ken Trivette, exploring the book of James, helps us with this observation: \u201cA spiritually mature person does not live after his or her own desires. They do not live by the wisdom of the world. They live by an altogether different standard. They don\u2019t cause <\/em>trouble. They sow peace instead of strife.\u201d

That metaphor takes us back to Matthew 13 where we were a couple weeks ago. An enemy invaded the good guy\u2019s field, with a ski mask over his face. He disabled the alarms, covered up the surveillance cameras, climbed over the fence at midnight, and spent two hours planting weeds everywhere. Here it\u2019s the opposite. These quiet heroes of the kingdom of God go about their lives, sowing seeds of harmony. They quell rebellions instead of fomenting them.

Maybe you read recently about a 54-year-old Quaker named Tom Fox, who didn\u2019t just pray for peace. He was part of a group called CPT: Christian Peacemaker<\/em> Team, and he spent two years in Iraq, actually living peace, making peace, sowing seeds of peace. He was killed for his efforts not too long ago. And his grieving friends, noticing maybe that Blessed are the peacemakers<\/em> is immediately followed by Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness<\/em>, issued this spiritual invitation to all of us who are in the grip of a cycle of anger:

\u201cIn response to Tom\u2019s passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done.\u201d

Now, this challenge runs so contrary to our human nature. I mentioned that Bill Hybels book; one chapter earlier he has a passage entitled \u201cRadical Love: Breaking the Hostility Cycle.\u201d Again, hostility is the default setting for most of us. As newborns, almost, we strap on swords and shields from Johnson & Johnson when we\u2019re still in the delivery room. You teachers in our Cradle Roll department can testify what happens when you try to take something from a toddler. Oh, what a look you get. Even one-year-olds are able to shoot daggers at us already. But Christ wants us to do the opposite thing from our fallen inclination. Don\u2019t be a thief; be an anti<\/em>thief. Don\u2019t be a peace-destroyer; be a peacemaker<\/em>.

Jesus Himself gives us an illustration. Turn the other cheek.<\/em> Now, there are karate \/ kung fu schools very near this church,  and I don\u2019t think turn the other cheek is part of their sales brochure. By the way, whacking someone\u2019s cheek was a common insult in Jerusalem; it carried more emotional weight than just the sting of the hit. That was the flipping-off expression of the streets. And what is our karate instinct? To hit back, tit for tat. When someone insults us, we immediately think: \u201cWell, but you did such-and-such\u201d . . . even if their misdeed has no connection whatsoever with ours. But Jesus tells us to love peace, to make peace, to turn the other cheek. Accept a second blow. Give someone your coat and<\/em> your cloak.

Hybels calls these people \u201cradical lovers\u201d and shares this little story: \u201cA friend of mine is a paramedic in Humboldt Park, a Chicago neighborhood notorious for its gangs. \u2018You know how it goes,\u2019 he told me. \u2018It starts with a little misunderstanding. It escalates when someone gets his feelings hurt and uses a little sarcastic language. His sarcasm provokes a smart-aleck response, which elicits a threat and then a challenge. Now the male bravado and honor get going. And then come the fists and the clubs and the knives and the guns. The blood flows and the flesh tears, and when it\u2019s all over and people are lying in piles, they call us and we come in and pick up the pieces.\u201d

The late Mario Puzo has a fictional tale that maybe you\u2019ve heard before. Somebody shoots Don Vito Corleone. So the Corleones get on the scoreboard by killing Bruno Tattaglia. They hit Michael in the jaw. His family retaliates by gunning down Virgil Sollozzo. The Five Families execute Sonny out by the Jersey tollbooth. So Michael ends up killing Moe Greene and just about everybody in New York City. You get the idea.

And even in our white-collar world, where it\u2019s not blood and shotguns and going to the mattresses, the same is true on an emotional level. Hybels describes our dilemma this way: \u201cI know how it goes. It\u2019s been going that way for thousands of years. Granted, in a \u2018sophisticated suburban\u2019 environment most of our hostilities do not end in hand-to-hand combat. They end in cold wars: detachment, distrust, alienation, bitterness, name-calling, mudslinging, separation, isolation and lawsuits. Although we rarely fight with our fists, we can do a great deal of damage without ever soiling our three-piece suits.\u201d

Take a moment and think about your own sphere of relationships. Where is there a broken friendship? Or maybe you have loved ones who have gone through a fracturing, and up until now you\u2019ve been standing on the safety of a distant shore. But could you do what it takes to make a U-turn, to reverse the tide of hatred? Here\u2019s the conclusion Hybels gives: \u201cBut the cycle of hostility must be stopped if there is ever going to be relational harmony in this world, and it will take radical, nonretaliatory, second-mile lovers to stop it. Somebody has to absorb an injustice instead of inflicting another one on somebody else; somebody has to pull the plug on continued cruelty. God says, \u2018You can do it, if you\u2019re willing to become a radical lover.\u2019\u201d

In our own strength, I think this is pretty near impossible. I know I have a long track record of revenge; it\u2019s hard to go in the opposite direction from our impulses. Only two things can help, really: first of all, to accept that God\u2019s power is sufficient, that all events are under his control, and that He has promised to take care of us. When Peter asked Jesus one day, \u201cHow many times do I have to forgive all these idiots around here?\u201d and Jesus said, \u201cNot seven times, but four hundred ninety,\u201d all twelve disciples immediately fell over in a daze and said: \u201cLord, increase our faith!\u201d Because it takes faith to believe that God won\u2019t let our releasing of resentment cause us to be shortchanged in the end.

And then secondly, we need to grasp the enormity of this campaign we\u2019re in together. Historial Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a fascinating, 800-page book entitled Team of Rivals<\/em>. In 1860, a young unknown named Abe Lincoln miraculously managed to win the presidential nomination of the brand new Republican Party. There had been four contenders: him, William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates. Lincoln was easily the least experienced and most unknown and untested in the bunch. Going in to the Chicago convention, his goal had been to be everybody\u2019s second choice. Seward, the overwhelming front-runner, had been a senator and Governor of New York. On the first ballot, needing 233 to win, he got 173\u00bd, with Lincoln coming in a surprising second. On the second ballot, as delegates abandoned Bates and Chase; Seward won again, but now just 184\u00bd to 181. On the third and final ballot, the rail-splitting nobody from Illinois got the presidential nomination.

The other three men were absolutely crushed, especially Seward, who had waited his entire life for this moment. Being President had been his destiny, and now a wisecracking, hack lawyer from a hayseed western state had stolen his prize.

Here\u2019s the interesting thing. After winning the Presidency, Lincoln immediately got all three of these men, all of them disappointed, all of them bitter, and persuaded them to be in his White House cabinet. When advisors said to him, \u201cMr. President, are you nuts? \u2018Your team of rivals will devour one another,\u2019\u201d Lincoln told them that the stakes for the nation were simply too high. The country was about to break apart over slavery; the Constitution itself hung in the balance. In his own words, Lincoln admitted that he was going to occupy the most important Presidency since George Washington\u2019s. He had to have the best men there were, the keenest minds, the most talented people, regardless of personal feelings. \u201cThese are the very strongest men,\u201d he said. \u201cI have no right to deprive the country of their services.\u201d What hung in the balance was so crucial that he had no choice but to forge a powerful team through reconciliation, putting self aside for the larger good.

Now, what about us? We are Adventist Christians. Some of you have told me recently that you are really starting to care about the success of this place; you\u2019re part of something larger than yourselves. But in the upper room on that dark Thursday night, when Jesus did the unexpected thing, when the King washed the feet of the servants, when the Teacher got on His knees and made Himself lower than the students, eleven men suddenly saw that they were part of something bigger than their feelings. They didn\u2019t have to stop forgiving at seven times, because heaven became a bit more real when they went on to eight, nine, ten, and out to the mythical four hundred and ninety.

Think about your marriage. Can you suddenly pull the plug on the jockeying for advantage, the instinct to justify yourself and treat yourself? How about in our businesses? Don\u2019t just walk away from the tumult; walk into<\/em> it with a plan for peace and a willingness to give, not just one, but both cheeks to the cause.

I have said to many of you, \u201cYour being here is a truly meaningful thing. You being here makes a difference. Your presence here is a successful gift to God\u2019s cause.\u201d You arrive here with a check made out, and you put it in an envelope and give it to this church. You could buy some very pleasant other things with that money, but you bless all of heaven by giving it instead.

And now comes this question: can we surrender that emotional coat and cloak? Can we turn the other cheek? Can we be nice to that person we frankly don\u2019t like? Oh, man. It\u2019s hard to do, and there\u2019s probably no glory in it, because our treasurer will never know about it and give you a big year-end tax receipt for that<\/em> gift. This is akin to putting your entire self<\/em> on the altar of peace-making. But Matthew 5, where this command is found, is the Magna Carta of the kingdom. When we are meek, hungry for righteousness\u2014and especially when we sacrificially make <\/em>peace\u2014we advance that kingdom. As we say in the Lord\u2019s Prayer, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.<\/em>

We not only pray that prayer, we help Jesus make it come true. Shall we pray?

Jesus, this is a hard invitation. It runs contrary to our instincts and our entrenched life patterns. Thank You for showing us the way. Thank You for giving us Your abundance, and asking us to go out and make peace by spending from Your storehouses. Bless us, please, as we try to advance Your eternal kingdom. In Your name we pray, Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

______________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Submitted by David B. Smith. Better Sermons \u00a9 2005-2008. Click here for usage guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Visit From the Anti-Thief Have you ever been involved in a friendly basketball game\u2014ten sweaty guys, two teams formed by the time-honored method of \u201cthe first five to make …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[21],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}