Matt 5.9 "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God."
Intro video: Virtual Family
Isn’t that a great invention!
Many people are like that family. The words they say might sound nice, but under the surface, they’re really not happy. They just don’t want to have to deal with the fall out. They’re peacekeepers rather than peacemakers. They want to keep the peace, but they don’t really want to make peace!
But Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." So what’s the difference between a peacekeeper and a peacemaker? Which are you?
1. MOTIVE
Sometimes I think it’s a lot easier dealing with unbelievers than with Christians. Unbelievers often don’t mind telling you where you stand because they don’t have this conception that they have to be nice. Christians know we’re mean to be nice and get on, but we’re not always exactly sure how to do that in a real way.
A. PEACEKEEPERS ACT OF DUTY
Not that I think we’re all brimming with subterranean conflict, but we can settle for being peacekeepers rather than peacemakers. We’re nice out of duty, because we’re meant to be, not because we really want to be (sometimes).
The problem is, when you’re doing things out of duty, you never really get beyond the basics of what you have to do. You don’t go that extra mile and take that extra risk that peacemaking often calls for. A superficial peace is kept. But the deeper peace, the shalom, is never really reached.
B. PEACEMAKERS ACT OUT OF LOVE
Because that’s what we’re aiming for when we aim for peace. Biblical peace isn’t the absence of conflict, it’s a wholeness, a completeness, a harmony of relationship.
So to that end, peacemakers act out of love. They’re seek to more than a superficial peace and to the deeper shalom that can only come when people are truly committed to something out of love, not out of law.
Love is precisely what sent Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to the cross. He didn’t go out of some sense of duty. He went out of a complete commitment to loving us.
Peacemakers act out of love.
2. CONFLICT
Being a peacemaker means, by definition, you’re going to find yourself in areas of conflict. Making peace implies that there is an absence of peace in a situation. In one sense peacemakers go looking for trouble! Or it means you’re committed to working through a conflict situation you find yourself in.
Problem is, most of us don’t really like conflict or confrontation? We try to avoid it. And we avoid it in all kinds of ways.
A. PEACEKEEPERS TRY TO STOP CONFLICT
ILL: I have to admit, that when Andrea and I disagree over something… just hypothetically, because we never disagree of course!… I tend to just shut down and walk away because I just know the argument… discussion… won’t go anywhere because she just won’t see reason. Because, of course, I’m right. Or at least I would be if that ever happened.
I’d rather keep the peace than work through the issue and make peace. Which is all peacekeepers do - try to stop conflict.
ILL: The UN has just approved a peace keeping mission to the Darfur region of Sundan. Darfur is a terrible humanitarian crisis with drought, famine and war and desperately needs intervention. As important as it is the peacekeepers are basically there to keep warring parties apart and hopefully protect innocent civilians. But they won’t bring a peaceful resolution to the region, it’s not their role.
B. PEACEMAKERS TRY TO BRING RECONCILIATION
But that’s not what peace is. That’s just a truce. General McArthur said "A truce just says you don’t shoot for awhile. Peace comes when the truth is known, the issue is settled, & the parties embrace each other."
Peacemakers don’t just try to stop conflict. They’re doing something far more meaningful, something healing and restoring. They try to bring about reconciliation and relationship, even if it means going through the conflict.
ILL: I had friends who once got into a conflict situation. One was a single guy who had taken the others, a couple, out one evening. But the evening went so late that it put them and their babysitter out. They had quite a heated but honest discussion, and do you know what? Their friendship grew! That couple could have just avoided the whole thing, but they confronted the truth in love and a deeper relationship resulted.
The cross was the greatest act of violence and conflict possible. In fact, much of Jesus ministry involved conflict and confrontation. He wasn’t afraid of it because he was committed in love to working through that if need be to bring reconciliation.
Peacemakers don’t try to stop conflict, they work for reconciliation.
3. PERSONAL ATTACK
Of course, whenever there’s conflict, whether you’re directly involved or being asked to help solve it, you’re often going to come under fire. Someone doesn’t like what you’re doing so they’ll try to take you out, emotionally or physically.
A. PEACEKEEPERS SHOOT BACK!
What do peacekeepers do when they take fire? Obviously they’ve failed their first goal, which was to avoid the confrontation in the first place. So they return fire! In fact, in the early days of peacekeeping the only time peacekeepers were allowed to fire was when they personally were under fire. Now days they may be allowed to fire at an aggressor who is attacking civilians. But in any case, the bullets are flying!
B. PEACEMAKERS TAKE THE SHOT!
But here’s the real challenge for peacemakers. Because peacekeepers are armed, but peacemakers aren’t. The only weapons they have are wisdom, grace, love and peace. If they get fired on they’re pretty much defenceless.
So what do the bullets of interpersonal conflict look like?
Self-justification for one. ’It’s not my fault, my big brother dropped me when I was a baby.’ ’I wouldn’t do this if you didn’t…’ We can make all sorts of excuses that are actually an attack on the peacemaking situation - they’re aimed at preserving the status quo or getting the other person to agree with me rather than bringing about effective change and peace.
Another one is personal attack. ’You’re not so perfect yourself.’ What’s that got to do with it. If you really believe that do you really want to drag yourself down to their level? The basic point of launching this kind of attack is to intimidate the peacemaker so they’ll get out of the way and let the bully have their way. Because that’s effectively what we’re dealing with in this situation - a bully.
But if we’re committed to peace it also means when we get shot we’ll walk back into the situation, even if it means getting shot again. Of course, there will come a time when we’ve done our best to bring peace, but often it takes persistence to see the breakthrough.
Isn’t this what Jesus did on the cross? Big time! He took the bullets without shooting back. As he was dying he forgave his tormentors. In fact, he turned the violence and suffering into the means of making peace.
Peacemakers are willing to take the shots and keep pursuing reconciliation.
4. TAKING SIDES
A. PEACEKEEPERS DON’T TAKE SIDES
One of the hardest things to do in a peacekeeping situation is to remain impartial. Can you imagine being in a situation where you see innocent people being victimised and you can’t do anything about it. I don’t think I could do that. But that’s what peacekeepers have to do. They may help out in practical ways, but effectively they have to be the independent umpire.
B. PEACEMAKERS ARE COMMITTED TO BOTH SIDES
Peacemakers don’t have the luxury of impartiality. They have to take sides. But here’s the thing, if they’re truly committed to reconciliation - restoring relationships - then they have to be committed to both sides! They have to want to see both parties win.
But that’s not to say that they turn a blind eye to wrongdoing. If you’re going to be the kind of peacemaker that is called a child of God, you need an even stronger commitment to truth and justice, because there can be no true peace without both.
No one is more committed to reconciliation than God. But he isn’t committed to it at any cost. He isn’t committed to it at the expense of truth and justice. He doesn’t cover up sin. In fact, part of the process of covering our sin is first exposing it. We have to confess our sin, make it public - maybe not to everyone, but at least to God.
Reconciliation with God also involves a commitment to justice, or righteousness, which have the same idea in the Bible. Righteousness is being right before God and justice is doing right by others. And that means we need to repent, or turn away from sin, and towards God in order to be reconciled to God.
Friends, whether it is human to human, or human to divine reconciliation we’re working for, we can’t afford to be afraid of exposing the truth for the sake of peace, because their can be no peace without the truth.
And then, not only does the peacemaker have to be committed to both sides, but both sides need to become committed to each other. Remember, this is the goal of the peacemaker. Peacekeepers try to keep the sides apart so that their won’t be conflict. Peacemakers bring the sides together, risking conflict, working through it, and bringing them into a reconciled relationship.
And I wonder if this is why so many of our relationships don’t go any deeper than surface level. We aren’t willing to work through the issues of truth and justice and the risk of conflict or rejection. We’re happy to skate safely along the surface. Because this is ultimately the cost of deep relationship. This is what peace is about. It’s not the absence of conflict in a relationship, it’s wholeness and completeness in that relationship.
CONCLUSION
Jesus said that the peacemakers are blessed because they will be called God’s children. In other words, they’re doing what their heavenly father does - bring peace and reconciliation. God owns them. People can see God’s image in them.
Peacemaking is grounded in a relationship with the Prince of Peace - Jesus.
So are you a peacekeeper or a peacemaker?
Are you committed to avoiding conflict or to working to reconciliation and wholeness in relationships?
What about us as a church? What do you think an outsider looking in would say? Would they see polite conversation and superficial relationships? Or deep, committed, honest and uncompromising friendships.
Blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called children of God.
