Discipleship Part 7: Character Traits
Scriptures: Matthew 5:3-11; Romans 12:18-21; 2 Timothy 3:12-14
Introduction
This morning we will conclude this portion of the series dealing with the character traits of a disciple based on the beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. To date we have discussed the following traits: being obedience; being poor in spirit; being mournful; being gentle and/or meek; hungering and thirsting for righteousness; being merciful and pure in heart. This morning we will begin with verse nine of Matthew chapter five with the peacemakers.
I. The Peacemakers
Jesus states in Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” As many of you know, I am a fan of movies. I watch a lot of them and I especially enjoy a good action movie. When I was a child, my father liked westerns and I learned to enjoy those. In almost every western there was a man they called the sheriff, the keeper of the peace. This was the person who had to be good with a gun (at least in the movies) or he would not finish the movie. This peace maker was not what Jesus was referring to. One of my favorite movie series is “Back to the Future.” In the third movie, Doc Brown was sent to the past by accident. He ended up in the old west and Marty had to go back and save him. Well the villain (Mad Dog Tannen) in the movie challenged Marty to a gun fight. One of the gun makers offered Marty a pistol called the Colt Peacemaker to use in the gun fight. He told Marty that he wanted everyone to know that it was a Colt Peacemaker that got the job done with Mad Dog Tannen. This Colt Peacemaker pistol while effective in helping to keep the peace was not what Jesus was referring to. Jesus was referring to you and me once we develop this character trait. The individual Jesus is talking about is someone who is not just “peaceable” themselves, but are active bringers and keepers of the peace.
This character traits conflicts with the world’s standard because we are taught to seek our own peace without too much concern for the chaos happening in the world. We are taught to be inner focused while Jesus states that those who are actively outward focused on bringing peace to others will be known as the sons (and daughters) of God because they are imitating their Father. They are doing just as He does. Those who actively promote peace reflect the character of their heavenly Father and are so called “sons of God.”
Paul states the following in Romans 12:18-21: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Being at peace with everyone, especially our enemies, is a difficult thing to do, but a must for the sons/daughters of God. The world teaches us that we should withdraw from our enemies and do to them as they do unto us or before they have an opportunity to do anything to us. We are taught to ensure that we are always protected especially from our enemies and to do that we must stay away from them. It is very easy to be at peace with someone you never talk to or go around. But we are asked to be at peace with all men and to walk before all with a spirit of being a peacemaker. This does not mean that we continue to have ourselves opened to be abused; but it does mean that we are not the ones seeking revenge. We walk uprightly before God and if there is any revenge to be gotten, He is the one who will do it.
When I was a young man this was a hard lesson for me to learn. I walked under the direction of justice – as I shared with you last week when I discussed being merciful. I would get even with those who hurt me and I always went through great lengths to ensure that my side was heard. It did not matter who I ticked off in the process, I could not let an issue be settled unless I had my say. It took me years to learn that the best way to overcome evil is not with more extensive evil (you hit me, I hit you back twice!) The way to truly overcome evil is with good and that is a very difficult thing to do. Paul reminds us that when we are nice to our enemies our niceness is like pouring heaps of burning coals on top of their heads. They will not understand it and that in and of it self will eat at them because of what they did to us. Conversely when we respond to them in the same manner in which they treated us, then it justifies their action and they feel good about what they have done and what they are planning to do. Jesus said that the peacemakers are blessed and they will be called the sons (or daughters) of God. When God looks at you and me does He see sons and daughters of His based on our willingness to be peacemakers? Let’s move on to the persecuted.
II. The Persecuted
In Matthew 5:10 Jesus says “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Have you ever been persecuted? Have you ever been persecuted for righteousness? I have shared with you previously what the term “righteousness” means. As a refresher, it means the revealed will of God and man’s willingness to obey it. When we are persecuted for righteousness (trying to obey and activate the will of God in our lives) we have been promised the kingdom of heaven. But we must understand that not all persecution we experience is because of our being righteous. No a lot of our persecutions are because of something we have done.
To persecute someone means to torment, wrong, afflict, annoy, physically hurt, etc someone. There are so many additional words that can define it that I could not include them because some of the references are to what I do sometimes when I am getting on the nerves of those I truly love. I am going to have to re-think how I tease my loved ones. In its truest definition, persecution is not something that is done for fun or in love. Persecution is done so that it can cause harm to the person who is subjected to it. If we are being persecuted for something that we started or for something we did wrong, that is one thing. But when we stand up for righteousness and we suffer persecution because of it that is what this verse is talking about.
Our being willing to be persecuted for righteousness conflicts with the world because by its standard you only have to be committed until the going gets tough. There is a saying that really applies to most Christians and it goes like this: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Depending on how you read this statement, it could mean that the tough person flees when the going gets tough or you could read it as the tough person starts taking action when the going gets tough. Based on your personal reaction you can read this any way you choose, but if you land on the negative, then you will land on the world’s view. In our world today you do not get much credit for staying in the fight. When you look around, you will find that when things get tough in a relationship, people leave. When things get tough on the job, people leave. When things get tough in the Church, people leave. When things get tough at any point in time and it looks like the ship is sinking, we will jump ship as we are not the captain who is supposed to go down with the ship. This is what the world teaches us. I used to say all the time that “Life’s too short to have to put up with some things” and I truly meant it. There were some things that I believed I did not have to put up with because life was too short. When I look back on it, those things were generally things I did not want to deal with anyway – so I now had an excuse. In this life there are some things that we will experience that we will need to deal with, especially when it comes to being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Although this may sound crazy, it truly is okay and somewhat expected that we will suffer sometimes for our standing for righteousness. Listen to what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy the third chapter. Let’s start at verse twelve.
“Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them.” 2 Timothy 3:12-14
There are a couple of things I want us to see as it pertains to being persecuted. Paul told Timothy that those who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted. This persecution will come in many forms, from people talking about you because of your faith to people turning their backs on you for the same reason. The day will come when it will be very unpopular to be called a Christian in America if we keep going down the path we are currently on. However, the world has not changed much since Paul made this statement to Timothy. One of the key points from these verses pertains to evil men. Paul states that evil men will continue to get worse. They will continue to deceive others as they are being deceived. It is important for us to recognize that these evil men are truly being deceived by the great deceiver – Satan. In some cases they do not know that they are deceived.
In the 19th and 20th chapters of the book of Revelations, John talks about the beast and Satan and how they are deceiving their followers. Of course we know Satan’s end, but many of his followers will have the same end because they were deceived. I read a story years ago about a minister who had a dream or vision one night of going to hell. For some reason his dream has stayed with me for many years. I am not sure if it was a dream or a vision, but it changed his life. In the dream he went to hell and he saw vividly what was there. There were different levels based on how sinful the person was. In his dream he talks about being tormented day and night. He said he was in what looked like a jail cell and demons were outside of the cell just laughing and making fun of him. He said the demons called him names, but that was not the worse of it. He stated that the demons said they had been deceived and/or tricked into following Satan but everyone else in hell had had plenty of opportunities to be saved. Everyone else had a chance before they died and did not take it and therefore where they (the demons) had been deceived, those going to hell without accepting Christ was just stupid. Again, I do not recall if this was a vision that God allowed him to see or if it was just a dream, but what if? What if it was not a dream and was a vision and therefore real? How would you like to endure that type of torment until the Day of Judgment?
Our lives are not going to be easy as Christians and we need to recognize that and come to grips with it if we are to truly be disciples of Christ. Jesus closes out this part of His sermon with the following: “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12.
In these two verses lies the reason we can walk with our heads held high even though we might be walking through a literal hell because of our desire to follow Christ. We live in a very cruel world where we will be talked about daily because we are different from the world’s standard. We cannot, as a disciple of Jesus, try to conform to this world because to do so means we must turn away from the righteousness we have been called to.
Someone said the definition of Christianity that fits most Christians is this: “Christianity is like a guy telling a girl that he loves her. He wants to get as many benefits as he can (and you know what I mean) without marrying her. As Christians we want everything the Bible promises to us but we don't want to do what the Bible says we have to do to get the promises. We'd prefer a casual relationship rather than an intimate one." Does this sound like what we are seeing today as it relates to Christians making a commitment?
Conclusion – Character Traits
When I started this segment on discipleship, I gave you the definition of a character trait. As a reminder, a character trait is defined as that behavior that is typical of an individual or group. These behaviors for the most part are learned behaviors and that is why although we are all different, we can learn the traits necessary to be a good disciple. We can learn those behavior patterns to situations that will enable us to always walk in a Christ-like manner.
I want to close this segment out with a question: How do you change a behavior? In school we change a bad behavior with some form of punishment. We also re-enforce good behavior with some type of praise and/or reward. As adults, when we do something that rewards us, we continue with those behaviors that brought us rewards. But there are also times when we have behaviors that are not necessarily good for us or are bring us rewards yet we continue in them. These are the behaviors that work against what God is trying to develop within us. In order for us to take on the character traits of a disciple of Christ, we have to start at the point of looking at our own behaviors. This look is an in depth evaluation of what drives us as it relates to the things we do – our behaviors. I am taking another look at my behaviors to determine if they are measuring up to Christ’s standards and I have not gotten too far along and already see areas for improvement. I hope you will join me in taking a serious look at your behaviors in any given situation and compare that behavior to the character traits listen in the beatitudes. If you find gaps, I encourage you to take the steps to close them so that we will all continue to move forward in becoming disciples that God will proudly call His own.
Next Sunday we will celebrate Easter. I hope that you come with a spirit of praise because we will remember what Christ did for us and why we call ourselves Christians.
May God bless and keep you is my prayer.
