Senior Pastor Damein Schitter continues our sermon series on The Beatitudes, preaching on the peacemakers, or those who are shalom-contending family.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at NewCityOrlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Let's do this together, holy Spirit, open our hearts to hear your word and, through your word, create in our hearts a home for your presence that we might live for the glory of the Father and the kingdom of his beloved Son. Through Jesus Christ, we pray Amen. Our scripture reading is the same as it has been for the last few weeks. It's Matthew 5, verses 3 to 12. Matthew 5, verses 3 to 12.
Speaker 2:Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is God's word. You may be seated.
Speaker 1:Good morning. My name is Damian, I'm the senior pastor and I'm grateful to get to continue on in our sermon series. As Ryan mentioned, we've been in this passage for several weeks now and we're preaching through the Beatitudes, which are these statements of blessedness or, as we've said, flourishing. And so this is an invitation, not a command, it's not an imperative. It's an invitation to what Jesus tells us is the truly flourishing life, and, as we've been discovering as we've read through these, many of these are upside down to the way in which our culture describes a flourishing life or blessedness, and today will be no different. There's an aspect of peace that we really love the idea of, and then there's a reality of peace that Jesus calls us to, which is much more costly, and so, as we explore it together today, I just want you to call to mind what I called to mind this week as I was thinking about this passage, and that is, if you look around, and especially if you make the mistake of going on social media and looking, what you'll find is that the idea of peace seems intractable, it seems impossible. There's just an increasing amount of fragmentation, an increasing amount of divisiveness and tribalism all over the place, and so to imagine peace the way in which Jesus describes it doesn't seem tangible, it seems fleeting, it seems impossible, because we see conflict and discord at every turn. But it's not just out there, it's also in here. It's also in our very hearts. We feel the lack of peace, we feel anxiety and angst and confusion, bitterness and cynicism, doubt and fear. It's not only out there, but also in here. It's also in here, and I don't only mean this room, of course, I don't mean less than this room, but think about your relationships with your spouse or roommates or siblings or friends. The opportunity for the lack of peace or discord seems to be everywhere. And when we engage this realistically, without turning off our hearts or hardening them, what we find is that the pursuit of peace often feels like navigating a never-ending brawl, just looking for a time to sit down and to rest or, as Ryan said, close the door.
Speaker 1:But the heart of this sermon, here, in this particular beatitude, jesus is presenting to us a radical invitation, but one with a promise of flourishing attached, and that is flourishing are those who are peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God or children of God. One of the things that this beatitude reveals is the fundamental struggle for all of us, and that is the brokenness that runs through our own hearts, the reality that in our hearts we find selfishness, confusion, prejudice and fear, and all of them push toward conflict and away from true peace. And this is the state of our hearts and this is the state of the hearts of all around us. And so we assume, of course, that peace will always be the other people moving toward us. Right, they're always the problem, but we so often assume that true peace is hindered by them, not us, don't we?
Speaker 1:Now, I know many of you are in relationships even now, at home or work or in your friendship group, that there isn't truly peace. Some of you may be experiencing it acutely now. Even as I talk about peace, even as I raise it, the person sitting next to you, both of you, are constricting because you know that there isn't true peace in your house. You know it's appeasement, it's let's just get by, it's let's just keep a good face. For some of you. You're thinking of particular conversations that you've had at work, conversations that you know you need to have, conversations you've committed to not having, and therefore you're just appeasing.
Speaker 1:We all know what this is like, and when we call these real things to mind, what we see is both the beauty and the challenge of Jesus's invitation to peacemaking. The beauty, of course, because wouldn't it be amazing if there was true flourishing, true shalom, in all of our relationships? And then, therefore, the world. And yet the challenge of the cost of moving toward those people that we do not experience peace with. And so this beatitude invites us into a journey far beyond mere conflict avoidance or superficial peace. It actually beckons us toward a profound transformation, both within ourselves and in relationship with others. And so today, I want to explore the depth of the call to peacemaking. I want to understand its assumptions, its cost and its beauty. But I'm going to do all of that in three points. So the first one that I want to explore together is the call to peacemaking. It's really an invitation.
Speaker 1:I mentioned Jesus inviting us to peacemaking, and this is actually the only time in the New Testament that this word is found peacemaking as it currently is. But we understand that it's connected to a Hebrew word which, whether you know Hebrew or not, many of you have heard and Ryan used it earlier and this is the word shalom. Right, it's shalom, which means flourishing. It doesn't mean simply the lack of conflict. It means the fullness of peace. In other words, commentators will say that shalom, biblical peace, is not only a negative state. It never means simply the absence of trouble. It always communicates the presence of everything that is a person's highest good. We've been using the word flourishing, that when true peace or shalom is there, there's flourishing. Or if I say shalom, I'm praying, in a sense I'm calling, I'm longing and wishing that you would experience flourishing, that you would experience God's peace. And here's something that when I say it it probably will seem obvious but we can't pass over, and that is at the core of flourishing.
Speaker 1:At the core of biblical peace is always right relationship. You see, any, whether it be relational, interpersonal, family, community, geopolitical lack of peace will always be traced back to broken relationships. It can always be traced back to the lack of flourishing in relationships. In fact, commentators will point out that Jewish rabbis held that the highest task which anyone can perform in life is to establish right relationships with and between others. So what happens here is that Jesus is teaching us something important the word peace and appeasement are not synonyms We'll say this a couple of times in a different way which is that peacekeeping and peacemaking are not the same thing.
Speaker 1:And many of us are good at peacekeeping but not at peacemaking. And Jesus is inviting us to peacemaking Now. We've been giving every week a three-word summary of the beatitude. This week, the three-word summary is Shalom contending family, Shalom contending family. You see true, peace is not merely the lack of conflict but the presence of mutual flourishing. And when Jesus calls his disciples to be peacemakers, he's calling us to the family business. He's calling us actually to join together and to live in the world as a Shalom contending family where we would pursue right relationships and therefore mutual flourishing in all that we do and all that we are in relationship with. So again, jesus is not referring to peacekeepers but to peacemakers. So what that means is that we can't simply turn to blind eye to the brokenness in our relationships around us. We can't simply turn a blind eye to that which is happening around us, and you know that doesn't actually work anyway. I mean, think about this, think about during COVID. There's conflicting evidence in terms of studies, but anecdotally, I experienced this and I'm sure you did too, and you don't have to be a pastor to experience this. You can just be a person in relationship with others, and that is this Many people were wondering did COVID-19 and the pandemic and all that came with it, did it cause an increase in divorces?
Speaker 1:Now, studies conflict but again, as I said anecdotally, I heard more than ever stories of my friends and people in this room of where marriages were really rocky, they were going through seasons they'd never experienced before. And of course, then the question is did COVID-19 cause it? And the answer is no, unequivocally no. All it did was create the pressure to reveal the cracks that were already there. You see, the crucible of having to stay in a house for months and not leave it actually removed the possibility of the standard coping mechanisms of appeasement and peacekeeping. It was too much of a pressure cooker, and so what happened was it didn't cause a lack of peace, it revealed the superficial peace that already existed.
Speaker 1:You see, what happens is that there's a fundamental problem in our lives that the prophets point out regularly, and that is you and I look around inside and outside and say peace, peace. When there is no peace, there's actually not peace. There's a superficial version of a lack of conflict, but there's not flourishing and mutual flourishing in relationships, and the reason is is because peacekeeping starts with truth telling. We lie to ourselves and we lie to those who are closest to us maybe not by commission, but by omission. We always know the most prickly person around us, don't we? We have all types of sayings for this, like I feel like we have to walk on egg shells around him or her.
Speaker 1:Insofar as you do that, you are peacekeeping. You're not peacemaking. You're not telling the truth, which means that there is no ultimate hope for that relationship. You know that right? No, it doesn't mean that if it's your spouse, you'll be divorced, or if it's your child, you'll be estranged, or if it's your neighbor that you won't say hi and wave to them. It just means that you want to experience the richness and flourishing of actual relationship, of right relationship, and just know, if you're that person that people have to walk on egg shells around, it's actually worse for you, because it's not just one relationship or a couple of relationships, it's every relationship. And so, really, there's an invitation, first of the call to peace.
Speaker 1:Being a peacemaker is to look in your own heart and first, as far as you can tell the truth to yourself, maybe you use your power to overtake relationships, whatever it is. Invite the Holy Spirit to help you see the truth and then invite others in to help you see the truth, because we want to be a shalom contending family, and if we're not experiencing increasing pursuit of shalom in our closest relationships, how is it that we will be able to pursue pursuing shalom and right relationships with those outside of our relationships? Peacemaking starts with truth telling and so, if right relationships are the core of peacemaking, it means intentionally cultivating relationships across lines. Of difference provides us first with a space for individual transformation, because it nurtures empathy, it nurtures humility and it emphasizes a shared humanity. So this is crucial for peacemaking.
Speaker 1:And I use the word crucial because, if anyone here, if you've been working in any type of organization for any time at all, you've heard of the massively popular book called Crucial what Conversations Exactly? Crucial conversations. You can even become certified in leading crucial conversations. It is a very helpful book and one of the reasons I think it's helpful is because it tells the truth about our fears in having conversations that matter. The subtitle is Tools for Talking when the Stakes Are High. Don't you ever feel that way, when you feel that angst or that eggshell walking? The reason that you back off is because the stakes are high for you. There could be brokenness, there could be fallout, and so I want to read a couple of quotes and just briefly explore them. I think that the common grace, wisdom in this book, as it relates to peacemaking as opposed to peacekeeping, are really helpful, and if you've read the book, I think that your mind will be able to make connections already.
Speaker 1:So here's the first quote. The authors are inviting you to embrace tools to engage hard, crucial conversations when there is not right relationship. Okay. And the authors make it clear that, because of a number of reasons, one of which your defensiveness and your fear that even when you're equipped with these tools and you go to do your best in having these conversations, it doesn't always go as planned. And so here's the quote when faced with pressure and strong opinions, news flash. When you actually go to tell the truth, even gently and kindly, to someone, a lot of times they don't like it, and then they begin to tell you all the reasons why you're wrong, all the reasons why you misunderstood them, all the reasons why they're right. So when this happens, they just call it pressure and strong opinions, they say.
Speaker 1:The authors say we often stop worrying about the goal of adding to the pool of meaning which is their phrase and start looking for ways to win, punish or keep the peace. So let's just use that quickly as a diagnostic when you move in with your hearts, as far as you can tell, aligned intent to have a conversation of truth telling, not for the sake of shaming, but for the sake of bringing relationship back together, because, remember, when there's broken relationship, the way reconciliation happens first is truth telling. You got to tell the truth. You can't pretend or it's not real. You can't pretend or it's not true. Peace, right.
Speaker 1:And so what about you? When people come to you or you go to them, what is your inclination? Is it first Okay, I'm going to fight fire with fire. I'm now looking for ways to win. I'm looking for ways to prove my point. I have all the data right. And then you're like well, I'll actually send you that email. You want me to call it up? You want me to send the email you want me to? I'll just forward it to you. It's fine, we can talk about it later. Whatever it is for you, right?
Speaker 1:You go into that disposition of winning because saving face and keeping control is more important to you in that moment than right relationship, than true peace and flourishing. So maybe you don't decide to win or try to win, whether you're on one side or the other. Maybe you look to punish. How dare you try to tell me the truth? Because, after all, that's just your version of the truth. Sometimes I think it's funny.
Speaker 1:This is why 360 degree reviews are really good, because all of a sudden it's everyone's truth except yours. You're like why does everyone think I'm this way, newsflash you are. That's why You're self-deceived. Right, it's a gift for people to tell you the truth. I know it's so hard. We're going to get to that later in the cost of peacemaking.
Speaker 1:But just listen, can you receive it? Or do you have to punish people to try and to tell you the truth? Or when people don't want to hear the truth, do you try to punish them for not seeing the wisdom and good-natured heart you have in trying to tell them the truth? And then finally, they even say some people look for ways to win, punish or keep the peace. Basically, you abort mission, you call an audible, you eject. Right, it's like in the movie Top Gun. Whenever the you think that, well, let's just say this way. You hear that tone right, you're trying to help. But then you realize, oh, they think I'm trying to shoot them down. And then they do that cobra move right. And then they come behind you and then they lock onto you and it's like boo, you're like eject, eject.
Speaker 2:I got to get out of here right?
Speaker 1:All of a sudden, you're like I'm not going to take the missile, I'm going to keep the peace, I'm not going to pursue peace anymore. This is too dangerous for me. Here's one more, not as long quote what do I really? They say this when you're in those moments when you're trying to pursue the peace, like truly peace making you need to ask yourself first, before you do this, what do I really want for myself in this conversation and what do I really want for others? Because that answer might reveal I'm not ready to have this conversation, because I actually want to win. I actually want to punish. It isn't about peace yet. It's about winning. Okay, what do I really want for the relationship? What do you really want for the relationship? Maybe it's. What I really want is for them to see how smart I am, for them to finally see how hard I work. Fill in the blank, or is it? I really want right relationship here.
Speaker 1:Once you've asked yourself what you want, add one more equally telling question. I love this. How would I behave if I really wanted these results? Just think about that. How would I behave if I really wanted these results? If I really wanted a flourishing marriage. How would I behave If I really wanted a flourishing workplace? How would I behave If I really wanted a flourishing neighborhood where there's relationship and mutual flourishing, here on this street? How would you behave? Would it change? Would you add something? Would you take something away, start doing something? Would you stop doing something? These are all very helpful questions, and I wanna sum up this with one more illustration, and the reason is because I think that this is one of the most opportunity. I don't even know how to say this. There's so much opportunity here. I mean, I was saying, before even preparing the sermon, what do I say? I mean, there's just so much to say, and so what I've decided to do is stay as practical and concrete as possible, to give examples of ways in which you and I are really being invited not later, not in the future, but now to pursuing peacemaking, to join in the work of the family business. Here's the other example A book by Kim Scott called Radical Candor.
Speaker 1:Radical Candor. I thought of this this morning. I cut it twice, I put it back in, and the reason I'm saying that is because if I would have thought of it earlier in the week, I would have had the 2x2 matrix on the screen, but I wasn't going to do that to anybody this morning because I was trying to keep the peace. So, basically, imagine a 2x2, right? So you have four squares. Okay, anybody in business you know 2x2s are the way to go. They're really helpful.
Speaker 1:So, on, one axis is to care personally, to really care for people. The other one is to challenge directly. Okay, now let me tell you what happens. If you care personally but you don't challenge directly enough, you don't tell the truth. She says she came up with this when she worked for Google. Go watch her TED Talk. I don't have time to tell the story. It's a fascinating story how she developed this as a manager at Google.
Speaker 1:But essentially, if you care personally but you don't challenge directly, you don't tell the truth. What you actually do is you engage in what she calls ruinous empathy. You don't tell the truth. And so I've done this so many times as a pastor I've had this is one of the things over the years that I didn't always have this language, but I've had to confess to some of you is that I thought I was loving you, but I wish I would have told you the truth more directly.
Speaker 1:Will you please forgive me, even though it came almost always, as far as I can tell, from a good heart. Now, sometimes it came from fear of man, sometimes it came from people pleasing, a desire to save face. That is just true. But oftentimes even my motivation in the moment was good, but it was still ruinous empathy. I didn't tell you the truth and I'm sorry. Forgive me.
Speaker 1:Now, if you don't care personally or challenge directly, that's called manipulative insincerity. You're just engaging with people transactionally. You're just treating them as cogs in a machine. You have positional power over them or they don't matter to you. So insincerity, no relationship. What about if you challenge directly but you don't actually care personally, no matter how much you try to say you do, that's called obnoxious aggression. If you challenge directly but it's clear you haven't done the work to care personally, it's obnoxious aggression and everyone knows it. What about this If we all can thread the needle, which we almost never can, but when we do, if we're pursuing both caring personally and challenging directly, what we call that radical candor?
Speaker 1:That's what she says. And she says when we engage in radical candor, we can actually see growth in relationship, growth in a department or a line of business, or a company or a street or a community or a family if we care deeply and challenge directly. And so there is a sense in which Jesus is inviting us as a church, as a family, as an individual, as a shalom contending family, to care deeply and to challenge directly, which Kim Scott calls radical candor. What would this look like in your life, in your house, in your neighborhood, in your business, if we could engage this? And so that was by far my longest point the call to peacemaking, because we need to understand what is peacemaking.
Speaker 1:Next, let's talk about the cost of peacemaking. Listen, as it is so often in Jesus' teaching the clear call, in this case of peacemaking and the invitation to a flourishing life it always comes at a type of cost to us, and one of the reasons is because what Jesus invites us to is so different than what the world around us calls us to. And this is one of those points where I could have said a bunch of things. I'm actually just going to say three things. At one point this list was seven things, and then it was four things, and then it was ten things, and now it's three things and everyone rejoices. The first thing is including me. The first thing is, when we actually pursue peacemaking, it will cost us our neat and tidy world view, because now we can no longer enter into the world assuming we're the good guys and they're the bad guys. The battle lines are never drawn the way that we think they are. They're always like this and they actually go right through our hearts, so we can't just say us them anymore.
Speaker 1:When we engage in true peacemaking, if you're a spouse in marriage counseling, they'll talk about attack, defend, withdraw. It's this pattern where one spouse is frustrated or feels slighted and they attack the other spouse. Now, I don't know about you, but it never feels good to be attacked. And so when someone attacks, what does the other person do Defend and when they defend, what does the other person do Withdrawals and it's super productive, as you can imagine Attack, defend, withdraw, attack, defend, withdraw, attack, defend, withdraw. Right, we don't just do this in marriage, though. We do this in many relationships, in systems. The difference is is that in marriage we actually have to talk about it. In other relationships, we can just talk to other people only about it and never talk to them because we don't live with them. So it will cost us our neat and tidy worldview. In other words, our world gets more complicated.
Speaker 1:Listen to this quote from John Stott. He says when pursuing peacemaking, even when we may not be personally involved in a dispute, we may find ourselves struggling to reconcile to each other, to people or groups who are estranged and at variance with each other. In this case, there will be the pain of listening. This is a cost of listening, of ridding ourself of prejudice, of striving sympathetically to understand both the opposing points of view and of risking misunderstanding in gratitude or failure. You see, I'm not asking you in this moment, although Jesus may be, I really don't know, and I'm not saying that flippantly. I don't know what the Holy Spirit might lead you to. But, in other words, I'm not saying that you have to and must care, then, about peace out there. But I guarantee you there are relationships that you're in, there are things that you see, there are areas of stewardship and dominion that you've been given where you will find yourselves, although not in dispute, pursuing peacemaking to see other people reconciled.
Speaker 1:I heard a story a bit ago about a consultant. He was telling me this was years ago now, it was probably 10 years ago. What he did in the last part of his career as a consultant is. He would travel around and be hired by family businesses that wanted to stay private, to go from the second generation to the third generation, and what he told me was, essentially, the data shows that the hardest transition is not from first generation to second generation, but from second generation to third generation, and among many reasons, it's because there's such a gap between the first generation and the third generation there's a whole generation, if you're following me right, there's a big gap right in the middle. And so his job was to walk in, help them tell the truth and help them listen to one another, even if they were going to be misunderstood and that wasn't his job. But guess what they often would do. It wasn't his problem, rather, it was his job. I guess what they would do.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like when you try to help two people are mad at each other as soon as you insert yourself. They now agree on one thing You're the problem, you're the enemy, and so he had to live this and it was a cost to him, but he felt called to it and he engaged that. So sometimes you'll be misunderstood, you'll experience ingratitude or failure. The second thing it will cost us is our ability to control our image, because when you go to do peacemaking it's never clean and tidy because it's two sinners who are at odds with one another, at least. So there are always issues, there are always ways in which, when you try to engage, that people will say well, don't you know that that group of people did blank? Don't you know that they believe this? Don't you know that they said that? Right? Think about our cultural just fill in the blank.
Speaker 1:If you try to bring justice and mercy through peacemaking into a community from another community, let's say you're in community A, you go in community B, all the people in community A think that you've changed sides and all the people in community B question your motives. Right, and guess what? All of a sudden, to follow Jesus in the peacemaking, you no longer can control your image. In a sense it's like who cares what they think? And in another sense I really care what they think. John Perkins, an African-American brother who's lived his whole life in trying to bring together parties opposed to one another, to bring them together in true shalom, contending family, right, and this is what he says if you want to be a bridge builder which is what he viewed himself to be be ready to get walked on from both sides. This is the reality of peacemaking. So if one cost for us is it costs you your neat and tidy worldview, because it's no longer they're good and they're bad, it also costs you your ability to control your image, because now you're following Jesus, not following whatever your image curation algorithm says.
Speaker 1:Then the third thing is the cost. Is this rather, I actually took the third one out and added this one because I think it's important, hopefully and that is there is a cost to not being a peacemaker. In other words, there are many costs to doing it, but there is a cost to not pursuing a peacemaking life, and that is you will then live a life of dominating or being dominated. You will live a life of being manipulated or manipulating. You will live a life of others trying to appease you, or you trying to appease others, and guess what? It's not either, or it's all and all and yes above right. And what does this lead to? I think I know it does, because I've experienced this. It leads to a life of fear, anger and anxiety. So you see, when Jesus invites us to the flourishing life and we choose not to follow him in it. What we are choosing, then, is the opposite, and that is a lack of flourishing.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you a story about how a lot of this comes together in ways that blow all of our categories. Some of you will remember this story. I was reminded of it in a book by a guy named Pete Gregg. The title is called Punk Monk. You should check it out.
Speaker 1:So 2006, some people in this room were not born in, but in 2006, a small, introverted Amish community called Nickel Mines found itself in the midst of tragedy. If you remember, it was headline news all over the world. A 32-year-old milk truck driver named Charles Carl Roberts broke into a one-room school house in Pennsylvania and killed five girls aged seven to 13, before then turning that same weapon on himself, and the reaction of that Christian community almost immediately speaks powerfully to the upside-down nature of forgiveness and peacemaking, or, to say it another way, the shalom transforming power of peacemaking. So at first, if you remember, some of the Amish elders visited Marie Roberts, who was the wife of the man who murdered them. Why did they go to offer forgiveness? Do you remember seeing this on television and gasping as the authors did and you're thinking did they really mean that? Wasn't that too soon? Is this true forgiveness? Is this cheap forgiveness? Did they really wrestle through this? Who in their right mind could actually do this?
Speaker 1:After that, the families of the five dead girls invited the widow to their children's funerals. Now, if you're like me, I struggle to imagine anything more painful than attending the funeral of my child. I can't imagine anything more painful than that. And yet they invited this woman to their children's funerals. Why? Because they wanted to request her presence to show that we are in a posture of forgiveness. And then, before the media could dismiss the invitations as emotionally deluded or religiously fanatical, the villagers publicly requested that all relief monies intended for the bereaved families be shared equally with Marie Roberts and her children. Why, they pointed out they just lost their father and they are grieving too. Finally, in like a breathtaking act of peacemaking, more than 30 members of the Amish community quietly attended the funeral of the killer, not for him, necessarily, but to stand with his family and to join in prayers for them. Their actions concludes the best-selling author Diana Butler Bass quote not only witness that the Christian God is a God of forgiveness, but they actively created the conditions in which forgiveness could happen.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness is, as Christianity teaches, the prerequisite to peace, we forgive because God forgave us. In forgiving we participate in God's dream of reconciliation and shalom, end quote For us, the cost of peacemaking will always cost us, but never cost us what it cost the Father. To bring shalom, to bring peace, to bring reconciliation, to bring forgiveness, caused him to send his son to leave heaven and to make peace. Jesus couldn't just come find it, he couldn't just come broker it, he couldn't just come keep it. There was nothing to keep. He had to make it, he had to make peace. And this is what that community understood so clearly.
Speaker 1:Now, listen, for some of you although nothing, lord willing, the cost of what we just heard, or death on our own, some of us, the cost is going to be time and emotional energy. It's going to be a feeling of discomfort. For some, it's going to require pushing the resistance of speaking up, pressing in and opening up. You're going to have to fight that urge because of your disposition. For some of you, you have a different disposition. It's going to require you to slow down and ask better questions and then listen, and then listen and then ask some more questions and then be curious and then listen and then ask a few more questions, and then empathize, and then ask a few more questions For others to embrace. This invitation to the flourishing of peacemaking is going to require you to step out of your accepted identity as a victim and embrace your responsibility and ability to embrace new healing stories, first of which will be the healing story of the good news of Jesus that you've been saved, that you've been reconciled and that you've been given power and agency in the Holy Spirit. But no matter what, wherever you are to truly pursue peace and mutual flourishing, it will cost us, because change always does. Change always costs, but it doesn't mean that it leaves us bankrupt. It actually can transform us into something greater.
Speaker 1:And so I want to end here. We said the call to peacemaking is the opposite of peacekeeping, it's not a peacement. We said the cost of peacemaking is great, but it is worth it. And finally, let's just briefly look at the Christ of peacemaking, because you know that true peacemakers can only exist if they experience true peace. And our deepest problem, our deepest lack of peace, is not horizontal, it's vertical, it's between us and God. It's the reason that Jesus left his throne, he left heaven, he emptied himself to become man to make peace.
Speaker 1:We'll read a couple of verses in a minute, but I want to point one thing out. I want to point out the second part of this beatitude that I haven't mentioned yet. Okay, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God or heirs, children. Why is that? First? Why it's not okay. There's not an if then structure, and we've pointed this out a few times.
Speaker 1:But basically, what I want to say is Jesus is not saying that if you become a peacemaker, then you will have peace with God. No, he's saying, actually, because you are poor in spirit and you've emptied yourself and you trust in God and his forgiveness, now you can be a peacemaker. And in fact, there's very few things that reflect the family culture more than peacemakers. And why is that? Because Jesus is the ultimate peacemaker. Jesus models for us peacemaking, but he also accomplishes for us peacemaking. And so, listen, modeling peacemaking is good, but it's only transformative for you and others If first you've experienced the transformation of peace with God. And this only happens by faith, it only happens by trust.
Speaker 1:Paul says this in Colossians 1, for in him, that is, jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven. Here it is making peace by the blood of his cross. Making peace by the blood of his cross, those who make peace are fulfilling what membership in the family really means, and this is something to which all of us must aspire. I just want to say this really clearly If you trust in Jesus, you have peace with God. He loves you.
Speaker 1:Jesus didn't appease the father. Jesus reconciled you to the Father. Think prodigal son. You're thinking to yourself. I know all the wickedness and I'm glad Jesus appeased the Father, so he's not gonna strike me down. But no, the image is actually the prodigal son Is. You and I are practicing all the ways that we wanna try to appease the Father. I'll do better next time If you just help me. Next time I won't be this way. And all the while he's casting off all restraint, he's sprinting towards us and he's embracing us and he's pouring all of his love and all these riches upon us. And there's nothing you can do to counteract the Father's love for you and Jesus Nothing. And to experience the life and flourishing of fellowship with God, having peace with God, jesus is saying to experience that flourishing is to not only receive his peacemaking transformation but be a conduit of that peacemaking transformation in the world. When we experience the peace of God, we have the source to drink from and then to channel the peace of God to others. We have to get the order straight. If you trust in Christ, you have complete peace with God. Okay, we need to say that. I wanna end with this story To try to bring a number of things together To show what a Shalom contending family can look like when we drink deeply from being reconciled to God through the peacemaking sacrifice of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Many of you know this. There was a group of us who thankfully got the opportunity to travel to Israel, palestine, just shortly before October 7th. It was in August of last year and we all know the evil, wicked realities that transpired on that day. Some of the communities that were affected most we visited on the border of Gaza and you don't know how to handle all of those stories when you're there. You're trying to take them in. One of my friends helpfully said it's kind of like a movie. At the beginning you're like, oh, I know who the bad guy is, and then you keep watching. You're like, oh snap, I don't know who's who, and it's really disorienting.
Speaker 1:And the trip was led by an organization called Telos and one of the co-founders of Telos is a man named Todd. I've come to deeply respect Todd and one night we were having dinner at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem and we're having dinner, we'd experienced all these things, and Todd happened to be sitting next to me and I looked at Todd and I said Todd, how many trips is this? And it was something like over 60 trips, 60. And I said why do you keep doing this? It's such an intractable situation. Why are you giving your life to this? Todd's a Christian, loves Jesus. And before I give you his answer, which just sticks with me it haunts me in all the right ways Let me read you the mission statement of Telos. That is to form communities of American peacemakers across the lines of difference and equip them to help reconcile I did not know this before I asked him this question. It was later I found this out and equip them to help reconcile seemingly intractable conflicts at home and abroad. So I'm like how do you do this? And he's like this is the thing we do, this is the thing we do. And so when I asked him, how do you do this. This is what he said to me. He said, damien, christians have a superpower in this conversation. And I said pray, tell Todd. And he said, quote we have an eschatology of hope. End quote. In other words, we know how the story ends.
Speaker 1:We met another man, a long time pastor, a theologian pastor, in Bethlehem. We visited him. His name is Dr Mitri Raheb and he had this quote that he'd been discipling his people in for 20 something years and had become the rallying cry of these Christians in Bethlehem amidst all the struggle and pain that they had been experiencing, and it caused them to create beauty and art and share their faith and pursue peace. And this was the phrase hope is what you do. That's what he told them. Hope is what you do. Now, is that legalistic gospel? No, it's actually taking the beautiful quote from Todd and putting feet on it, damien.
Speaker 1:He said Christians have a superpower in seemingly intractable situations of conflict because we have an eschatology of hope, dr Mitri hope is what you do. What was he saying? He had been discipling his people in the midst of an intractable situation and it's so powerful because what he's saying is Christians have a sure hope in the future. And what he's really saying is is that if that hope is not shaping our lives now, we might not have embraced that hope like we think. How do you know that you hope in the peacemaking God, that one day all things will be made right, is because it changes your life. It's because you move toward peacemaking. Not winning or condemning, but telling the truth, being humble, listening and finding your identity in the peace that you've been given by Jesus.
Speaker 1:This is not merely social justice. This is a shalom contending family value to pursue peace. Listen, we have an eschatology of hope. We know how the story ends and we have access to that transformative power now in Jesus. And every time I read this beatitude now I see the hope in Todd's eyes as he looked at me and said Damian, christians have a superpower. We have an eschatology of hope.
Speaker 1:Let's pray, father. We come to you asking for your mercy in our lives as we, in our own fear and insecurity, fail to be peacemakers. We fail to pursue peace, we sit back and wait for others to do it or we just keep the peace. We ask that you would convince us of the beauty of this beatitude, that we really would believe that the discomfort of peacemaking would lead to flourishing, and this takes faith, because everything in our body tells us otherwise. Would you change us this morning by the fresh receiving of the peace that we have with you, father, through our Lord Jesus, and it's in his name we pray, amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we will take a few moments, as we always do, to reflect at the end of our time hearing from God's word, and this morning I wanna invite you to reflect on a relationship that you're being called to pursue peace in. I want you to recall that relationship. It could be in your family, your friends, your workplace. Where have you been peacekeeping but not peacemaking? And after that relationship may come to heart and mind. Ask for wisdom on what to do next, ask for wisdom on how to pursue peacemaking. So what relationship, lord? And give me wisdom. Let's take a few moments.