Introduction
A
All around us lies the evidence that peace is a sometime, fragile thing. Everywhere we turn we discover that peace has been broken, peace has been shattered.
1
We have the international scene to remind us. A few years ago we hardly knew where Yugoslavia was, but now we are having to learn about all of its Humpty-Dumpty parts, and are sending troops to a place called Macedonia and flying fighter jets over a land called Bosnia. A few months ago we couldn’t even have described a nation called Somalia, but now we know about starvation and the warlords, we know about riding on technicals, we know the geography of Mogadishu. Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, on and on it goes; the international scene reminds us how fragile peace is.
2
And we have the home front to remind us as well. The strife and slaughter on the streets of the city remain unabated. It is still here. It is still unacceptably high. It is still robbing us of young men with tremendous potential. It is still stripping us of our sense of security. The plight of our city reminds us that peace is fragile, peace can be shattered in an instant by one malicious bullet.
3
The international scene, the home front .. but more. We also have historical reminders of the issue of peace. Our history as a nation marked by too much violence keeps on jumping up to slap us in the face. We schedule this day of prayer for world peace on the first Sunday of August, because of history. It was in early August of 1945 that nuclear bombs showered down death on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. History reminds us of the issue of peace.
The other day, while I was away on my reading week, I invested a couple of days reading a major new biography of Frederick Douglass, that great crusader against slavery and oppression. All of that happened, as you know, a hundred and more years ago. What an irony, then, when I took a break from my reading, turned on the TV, and picked up the United States Senate in session. I watched fascinated as the junior senator from Illinois spoke with deep, burning passion about the insult implied if the Senate were to approve a symbol of our nation’s most ruinous war. Even history comes alive, you see, and jumps up to remind us that peace is difficult to achieve and even more difficult to keep.
By the way, I was embarrassed at the junior senator from my home state of Kentucky, who responded by emoting about how his ancestors had fought to preserve the peculiar institution. I don’t see any point in defending your ancestors if your ancestors were wrong and if somebody else, here and now, is being injured!
And I will say nothing at all about the response of the senior senator from you-know-where!
Peace is a fragile thing, a sometime thing. Peace is all too rare in this world. Strife and hostility are the norm.
B
If we were to analyze this business of war this morning, we could do so something like this: Hostility, has in it three components; we fight because we break down in one or more of three different ways.
1
First, we break down socially; we break down in our relationships to others. That shows up as nationalism. It shows up as power-grabbing. It shows up as racism. It means, "My people are going to take what your people have". Aren’t you just astounded that Yugoslavia, having broken up into six countries, is now further breaking up, so that Bosnia will apparently become three more? How many ways can you divide a nation and still have any meaning? Hostility is a social breakdown.
2
But hostility is also a personal breakdown; that’s the second component. We break down in our relationship to ourselves. Whenever there is conflict, it always involves individuals who become overly aggressive, selfishly trying to gain for themselves. So in Somalia, for example, you have competing warlords, each of whom has no other goal than to line his own pockets, consolidate his own power, and fatten his own stomach. He will ride roughshod over the bodies of defenseless children to get what he wants. His personal integrity has broken down.
Or in Nazi Germany, thousands upon thousands of people lost their integrity; they just gave blind allegiance to Hitler, and lost all perspective. They broke down their relationship to themselves. Whenever there is conflict, it involves not only a breakdown in our relationships with others; it involves also a breakdown in our relationship with ourselves.
Now, I’ve said that when peace breaks down, there are three components: a breakdown of relationships with others, a breakdown of relationships with ourselves; but most of all, most profoundly of all, when peace is destroyed, it means that there is a breakdown of another relationship. What is it?
3
A relationship with God. A relationship with God. Mark it down. When warfare comes, it is because a people is out of touch, totally out of touch and out of harmony with our creator God. In fact, I am going to argue today that that is the very heart and core, the very root, of strife. If our world does not have peace, it is because it does not know peace with God. Let’s explore this further:
Colossians 1:21-23 ... without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel.
I
First I want you to notice that Paul’s analysis of the problem falls exactly along the lines we have been talking about. I want you to notice that when Paul speaks of the human problem, he describes it first as a spiritual breakdown, then as a personal breakdown, and ultimately as a social breakdown.
Look at his words:
A
"You who were estranged .." Estranged. The word means spiritually disconnected. It means separated from the source. To be estranged means to be removed from the source of your meaning. You feel estranged when you cannot get to the source from which you draw your significance.
I spoke with someone this week about the grief she and her husband were feeling, knowing that their son and his wife and child were about to move all the way to Sweden. The sheer distance was bad enough; but it was compounded by the fact that their little grandson is about to be joined by a new baby, due in about two weeks. But then the family is moving just two weeks after that. My friend says her grief is that these little children, whom she will have barely even touched, will grow up in another culture. They will become little Swedes, not little Americans. She will feel estranged from them. Spiritually, she is afraid, she will be disconnected from them.
Now you take that feeling of estrangement and you write it larger, and you have the root of the problem. Millions of people feel estranged from God; millions do not know their Creator. I did not say they did not know about Him; I said that they did not know Him personally. That separation, that estrangement, that spiritual breakdown, soon pays off in other kinds of breakdown.
B
Look at Paul’s next word: "You who were once estranged and hostile in mind ..." Hostile in mind.. that’s a perfect description of what
what happens to us when we are out of connection with our God.
Hostile in mind means being chronically unhappy with ourselves. Hostile in mind means zeroing in our own problems until we see nothing else except ourselves. Those who are out of harmony with God soon hate themselves. We call that it low self-esteem.
Then, hating themselves, they become enemies of others. The criminal mind is one which says, "I’m not OK; therefore you are not OK. And so I will destroy you." The criminal who is so bent on breaking the peace is not only destroying you; he is trying in some dismal way to destroy himself.
C
So Paul has it right. Look at the sequence. "You who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds... .". Estranged, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. People do evil deeds, we have social breakdown because there is personal breakdown. And we have personal breakdown because there is spiritual breakdown.
Do you have that sequence now? It’s almost like reading a formula for disaster: estranged, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. Say it with me: estranged, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. The issues of war and peace are ultimately spiritual ones. Yes, there are economic causes and political causes. I don’t want to oversimplify. I do not question for a moment that poverty breeds crime, or that hunger agitates war. I do not discount things like the presence of guns or the appetite for drugs or the influence of violence in the media. All of these things are real, and all of them we should fight against. But I am saying that behind all of those immediate causes lie deeper causes. I can find no better way to say it than Paul’s way: estranged, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.
Or, in other words, spiritually broken and therefore personally broken; personally broken and therefore socially broken.
II
But now let me show you what is possible. Let me show you what God has planned and, in fact, what God has provided. Let me, with Paul’s help, get you to see what can be.
"You who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel."
A moment ago we used three words or phrases to describe the human predicament; what were they? Estranged, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.
Now three words describe the human possibility. And they fall along exactly the same outline.. the spiritual, the personal, and the social. Just as we looked at spiritual breakdown, therefore personal breakdown; and personal breakdown, therefore social breakdown.. now Paul shows us that if there is spiritual healing, it will be followed by personal healing; and personal healing in turn will be accompanied by social healing.
Follow the exact words again with me:
A
The possibility is first to be holy. Holy. To be holy is to be joined to God. To be holy is to be pulled away from the things which drag us down and to be pulled into fellowship with God. Anything which is holy belongs in a special way to God.
Why do we call this room a holy place? Not because it is physically anything other than wood and concrete and glass and steel; but we call it holy because it is set aside for one essential purpose, for the worship of God. We don’t play games in here, we don’t sell merchandise in here, some of us don’t even like to raise our voices in this room, because we have a sense that it is set aside. It is holy. It belongs to God.
Now Paul says that’s what God wants us to be. He wants to make us holy. He wants to connect with us.
Now if that happens, what are the consequences? If God and we get close together, what happens?
B
Well, the next word is blameless Present you holy and blameless. You become blameless.
What am I suggesting... that people who are close to the Lord never sin? That people who have been healed spiritually never make mistakes? By no means! I know better than that. I know very personally better than that. And if you tell me you think you can live without sinning, well, that means you just committed one!
No, to be blameless means to live without shame. It means you can live without dwelling on your personal inadequacies. To be blameless means that you know exactly who you are and what you have done, but you know also that you have been made clean, and the old dirt and shame is in the past. It’s gone. It’s over with. It’s taken care of. When you are blameless, you can hold your head up high... you can have self-esteem. No matter what you’ve done, no matter how much you regret your actions, you’ve come to the place where you are personally healed. And deep down you know, "I’m OK. I really am. I am a person of worth." Blameless.
Now are you following this? God wants to present you holy and blameless ... spiritually healed, connected with the source of meaning; and that will make you shame-free, guilt-free. That will heal you personally.
C
What else will it do? Is there anything more? Yes. Holy and blameless and irreproachable before Him.
Irreproachable.. giving others no reason to be offended. Sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Aware of the failings of others, yes, but also compassionate, understanding. Irreproachable ... giving no one any legitimate reason to be our enemy. Socially healed. Irreproachable.
It is God’s will that we should have these gifts. It is God’s intent that we be holy, blameless, and irreproachable. Can you say these with me now? Holy, blameless, irreproachable. Holy, spiritually together; blameless, personally satisfied; and irreproachable, socially sensitive.
How will it happen? Will it happen? What are the chances of peace in our time?
Conclusion
O, that I really knew how to say this in all its power and grandeur! I wish I could explain it with unshakable clarity!
God in Jesus Christ has already done the one thing necessary. It’s up to us to accept it, up to us to receive it.
If humanity’s hurts begin because we are estranged from God, and if that means that the healing of humanity starts with holiness, being set aside and joined to God .. then God says, "I’ll take care of the first step. I’ll just do that part, and then you can do the rest."
Hear it from the Scriptures: "You who were once estranged... he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death..." He has now reconciled. Our God, in Jesus Christ, went to the cross and suffered there for us, to deal with the central issue of our estrangement. He went to the cross to say, my child, if there is a gap between us, I’ll bridge the gap. I’ll take the first step, a giant step, toward you. I’ll identify with your pain, I’ll take upon myself your guilt and shame, I’ll fight your battle and pay your penalty for you. Step Number One is done.. the cross. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, the godly for the ungodly. It’s done. You don’t have to be estranged anymore. God has stepped forward toward us. He has narrowed the gap.
But as for being blameless instead of hostile and as for being irreproachable instead of doing evil deeds, well, friends, that’s up to us. Paul describes it as not shifting from the hope promised to us. Not shifting from hope. It just means accepting and receiving God’s gift of love.
I had a wonderful conversation this week with one of you. You told me about your past. You described some things of which you are not proud. There was a time in your life, you said, when you went very far away and created some problems for other people. You didn’t feel good about yourself at all. But then, you said, it all came crashing home.. that Christ had died for you, for you. And you said that to this day, when you think of His suffering, it moves you to tears. Then you said something like, "That’s the only hope .. the only hope for me.. Without shifting from hope.
Peroration
If I look at this world and all its problems, and I shift from hope, I’ve said I don’t believe the gospel.
If I look at children and youth committing crimes, and I shift from hope to despair, so that I don’t even want to talk to young people, I’ve denied what God has done for us.
If I look at crimes committed in the streets, and flee to the safety of some quiet place, I have shifted from the hope of the gospel. I have forgotten about the cross on which He who was no criminal was made to be a criminal for me.
If I see other people suffering from injustice and oppression, and take no action to intervene, claiming that it’s not my fight, then I have shifted from hope to indifference. I have undercut God’s reconciling work.
Most of all, if I look at my own life and see my own heart.. if I don’t like me very much, if I choose to be chronically unhappy.. then I have shifted far away from hope, and I am dangerous. Dangerous .. to myself and to my world.
Spiritual healing brings personal healing; and personal healing brings healing for all. "He has reconciled.. provided that you continue.. without shifting from the hope promised.."
