Blessed Are the Peacemakers | Psalm 34 Season 2

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Blessed are the peacemakers. We should always be asking ourselves in the way that we're speaking, are my words creating peace or division? The Book of Revelation, chapter number 15, verse 3, we read there that when we get to heaven, we're going to sing the song of Moses. Now that song from Revelation chapter 15, verse 3, incorporates the song of Moses that we read about in Exodus chapter 15. So today I'm going to sing a little song. I'm no singer but I'm a praiser. From the Book of Exodus chapter 15, we read there in verse number 1, then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord and said this: I will sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea. The Lord my God, my strength, my song, has now become my victory. The Lord my God, my strength, my song, has now become my victory. Baruch Hashem, bless the name of the Lord today. Well, I'm going to continue today in Psalm number 34. And I want to go today to verse number 14. Hear the word of God, "Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it." I've talked a lot about departing evil, so I'm going to not focus on that right now. Instead, I'm going to focus on the second part of verse number 14, "Seek peace and pursue it." Now, I'm sure that you know, like I do, some people and they're like almost the opposite of seeking peace. I mean, if you're with them, they're going to begin to talk about somebody else and they're going to begin to make fun of somebody else and they're just sources of division. We need, beloved, to walk in the anointing. If we're going to walk in the refuge of Hashem, of Father God, we need to be peacemakers. Jesus said on the sermon on the mount, "Blessed are the peacemakers." We should always be asking ourselves in the way that we're speaking, are my words creating peace or division? Let me tell you, unity brings life. Division, it only brings death. We need to be actively, listen, seeking peace and building bridges of peace. Anybody can criticize, anybody can complain, anybody can be a source of division. It takes no effort to be a divider. It takes no effort to be one that sows discord and division because that's the spirit of the age. The world is covered by darkness. Jesus said that the place that we're living in is where Satan's throne is right now. Yeshua reigns over everything. But Jesus said, the earth is where Satan is roaming right now looking for people to devour. And so to be somebody that walks in criticism, that sows division and discord, this takes no effort at all. But to be a peacemaker, to be one that is seeking peace, that takes effort. And everything, listen, that's godly takes effort. Anything that you're doing to build yourself up in the spirit will take effort. Because the river in this world is flowing a different way. In other words, it takes no effort to yield to the lust of the flesh. That takes no effort at all. You just go with the flow. You just go with your own impulses. You eat whatever you want to eat. You don't discipline yourself. That takes no effort. You indulge yourself in physical pleasure, that's just the natural disposition of the body which is enforced by the culture of the age. But to resist evil, to resist evil whether it's in our bodily impulses, departing from evil, whether it's in resisting speaking division and seeking peace instead, this takes effort. And it's God's purpose that we're living in this world where we're going to have to put forth an effort to grow in him. This is why Jesus said, "strive." Listen to that. Jesus said these words. He said, "strive." Now you think about that word striving. Striving, that's like an immense, focused effort. If you say that someone is striving to do something or they're striving to accomplish a goal, that means they are putting forth a tremendous effort. They're striving. Now listen what Jesus said. Yeshua said, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many will seek to enter and not be able. For the way that leads to life is straight and narrow and few there be that find it. But the way that leads to destruction is broad and wide and many there be that take it." Yeshua said to walk down the road that leads to life, we're going to have to strive. And this gets back to what we're looking at in our scripture for the day, verse 14, "seek peace." Seeking peace involves striving. It takes effort. And the Lord made it that we would have to exert effort because it's in exerting effort in the spirit that we grow strong in the spirit. How did Yeshua begin his ministry? He began his ministry by first being led into the wilderness right after his baptism at the Jordan River. Right after John the Baptist, we call him John the Immerser, immersed him in water in the Jordan River. Right after that experience, we know Yeshua comes out of the water. The Lord speaks to him and says, "You are my beloved Son and in you I am well pleased." And then immediately we read, beloved one, that the Spirit of the Lord led Jesus, Yeshua, into the wilderness where Yeshua was tempted by the devil for 40 days. Why would God lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for 40 days before Yeshua began his public ministry? Because it was in resisting the devil's temptation, it was in resisting the darkness, that Yeshua's power was perfected. Yeshua, the Bible says he grew in stature before both God and man. In other words, he had to grow into his fullness and part of the process of Yeshua growing into his fullness, growing into the power that was necessary for him to do the miracles that he did and to go to the cross, part of that involved him having to resist the powers of darkness in the wilderness because the resistance made him strong. The scriptures tell us that after he resisted for 40 days in the wilderness, the powers of darkness, he came out of the wilderness, listen, in the power. In the power, in the might of the Ruach HaKodesh. It doesn't say that he went into the wilderness in the power of the Spirit, but the text tells us he came out of that experience in the power of the Spirit because God's power, like the Apostle Paul taught in the Book of Corinthians, chapter 12, God's power was perfected in Yeshua's weakness. In other words, when Yeshua clung to the Father and clung to the word of God in that temptation experience, God's power was perfected in him. In the same way, when you and I go against the current of the age, when we resist the darkness that all around is wanting to use us to be a source of division, wanting to use us to criticize people, wanting to use us to complain. When we resist that by doing what David told us to do in verse 14, seeking peace, we are made strong. And when you get strong, you'll be happy. So resist the darkness, resist criticism, resist judging and instead, beloved, seek peace. Seek love, because love covers a multitude of sins. Let's be peacemakers, blessed are the peacemakers.
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Rabbi K.A. Schneider: And then we go to verse 15. "The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous." There's another scripture that says that the eyes of the Lord are wandering to and fro across the earth, looking for someone that will be totally devoted to him so that he can show himself strong to that person. In other words, the Lord is wanting to bless us. He's wanting to show himself strong in our life. But in order for him to release that blessing, there has to be a channel that we create in our life by being faithful to him. "The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous." And so, once again, his eyes are looking to and fro across the earth, looking for someone that he can bless. Looking for someone that he can prove himself to. Looking for someone that he can do miracles for. But in order for him to bless people and do the miracles that he wants to do, in order for him to surround us with his manifest glory, we have to be looking exclusively to him. This is what Jesus taught in John 14. "If you love me," he said, "and obey me and keep my word, I will manifest myself to you. And my Father and I will make our home in your life." Notice, God is wanting to bless us. God is wanting to do something for you. God is wanting to show himself strong to you in your life. But in order for him to do that, we have to do our part. You see, many of us are just looking for Hashem, for Father, to act upon us. We're just like waiting down here passively for him to do something in our life. And there is an element of waiting on God and there's an element of God's sovereignty and grace that he can just choose to bless us irrespective of what we do or don't do. That happens. God's blessed me many times. But there's another truth that we need to understand. It's not just that God does his part and we just wait passively down here hoping he'll do something. No. There's something that we can do that will cause him to act. Remember the story of the woman with the hemorrhage, was bleeding all those years, and Yeshua was walking and ministering in the crowd and there was all these people that surrounded Jesus? So many people pressing in on him, so many hundreds of people that it was almost impossible to touch him. But there was a woman that said, "If I can just touch him, I know I'll be well. I know I'll receive a healing." And this woman pushed through that crowd. It took effort. It took resolve. She pressed through that crowd and from behind she touched him. And as soon as she touched him, Jesus turned around and he said, "Who touched me?" And the disciples looked at him, his apostles and he said, "Lord, what do you mean? I mean, everyone's touching you, Lord. Look at all these people around us, they're all pressing in and touching you. What do you mean?" Jesus said, "No." He said, "Somebody touched me. I felt the power go out from me." In other words, beloved ones, that touch, the touch of that woman that said, "If I just touch him, I know I'll be healed." That touch, there was a draw to it. There was an expectancy. Eventually that woman was identified and you know what Jesus said to her? "Woman, your faith has made you well." Now I want you to consider this. Jesus in that situation, he did not sovereignly choose to just, you know, pick that woman out of the crowd and heal her. No. It was her faith that pressed through the crowd, that touched him that caused her to receive that supernatural touch. It was her faith that released his power in her life. The point that I'm making is many of us are just waiting for God to do something in our life from the upper world. But we have to understand that we in the lower world influence the upper world. That it's not just God choosing for no reason at all to just, you know, I'm going to do something for this one but not for that one. A lot of times it's because you and I have done something that has touched him, that has moved him. The Lord says here, "His eyes are toward the righteous." What does that mean? When you and I are choosing to walk before him by his grace, with integrity of heart. We're looking to treat other people right. We're looking to put him first. His eyes are towards us and he's going to do something to bless us. So let's not just think about it's all about being waiting here, you know, passively for God. No, we can influence him to touch us. Let's continue on. "His ears are open to their cry." "His ears are open to the cry of those who love him, who are putting him first, who are choosing him." And then in verse number 17, "The righteous cry and the Lord hears." It's the same truth. The righteous, those that are living their life for him, he hears their cry. He's attentive to them. He delivers them. He's with them. David said, "I've never seen God's children forsaken." "The Lord is near," I love this, "to the brokenhearted." I really want you to hear this. "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and he saves those who are crushed." I know that many of you can testify to this with me. The times in my life that I have felt most connected to God, the times that I have felt most loved in my spirit, have been times, beloved ones, where I've been brokenhearted before the Lord. Times that I've been forsaken by everybody. It's during those times that God has so often come to me and I've just felt his love wrap around my soul like a warm blanket. I remember years and years ago, I was thrown out of my house. This was back, you know, this is going back almost 40 years ago. I was thrown out of my house and it was mostly all because of my faith in Jesus. I mean, I was immature. I was not a perfect person. But at the end of the day, I was thrown out of my house because of my faith in Jesus. And I remember being thrown out of my home and losing all my Jewish friends because they all thought I was nuts. And the first day that I had immediately had to find an apartment, a place to live. And I remember waking up that next day after being thrown out of my house. And I remember going outside and I was looking at like just the world outside of me, you know. I went out of this apartment, was looking at the street and it was so surreal. It was like everything that I saw was like bathed in this bubble of peace. It was surreal. The world looked completely different to me. Everything that I was seeing was bathed in the softness of God's love. Why? Because Hashem, Father God, was carrying me. I had just been thrown out of my house. I'd lost all my friends. I had nothing. And in that place of brokenness, God knew how much I needed his supernatural help. It was like he was holding up the world before me and everything that I was experiencing was clothed in his softness. And he does the same for all of his children. David says, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and he saves those who are crushed in spirit." He will never leave you or forsake you. Even when our hairs are gray, beloved, he will never leave us or forsake us. In fact, we're believing God that even as we age, we're going to go from glory to glory, from grace to grace, and from faith to faith. That even as Jesus, during his first miracle in the Gospel of John, turned the water to wine. It was after the good wine had been drunken at the wedding that Jesus turned the water to wine. And they came to the leader of the wedding and they said, "What's going on? You save the best wine till last. Most people, they serve the best wine first. Then after others have drunken freely, they serve the bad wine." I believe that's a prophetic picture of our lives in the supernatural. When we make Jesus first, the latter years of our life, the latter wine are going to be the best, most fulfilling years of our life because we're going, beloved, from grace to grace and from strength to strength. I love you. Most importantly today, Father loves you. He loves you so much that he sent his only Son to bring you to himself and, beloved, he will never leave you or forsake you. Keep putting him first.
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Rabbi K.A. Schneider: In the Book of Numbers chapter 6, the Lord gave instructions to Moses and Aaron to speak this blessing over his people. And the Lord said, "When you speak these words over my people, I will place my name on them and bless them." Receive the impartations of the Lord's blessings. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance and the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. And now in Hebrew.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: (Singing in Hebrew) Y'varechecha Adonai v'yishmerecha. Ya'er Adonai panav eilecha v'yichuneka. Yisa Adonai panav eilecha v'yasem l'cha Shalom.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: God bless you and shalom.
Guest (Male): This program is produced and sponsored by Discovering The Jewish Jesus and I'm your host, Dustin Roberts. Come back next week when Rabbi Schneider shares a hard-hitting study about joy in suffering. That's Monday on Discovering The Jewish Jesus.