In the world today people call for peace. They paint signs, write letters, drop bombs, and murder trouble makers, all in the name of peace. As I’m sure you all know the Bible tells us there will be no peace, and here are some stats to prove it. According to the Society of International Law in London; over the past 4,000 years there have been only 268 years of peace. 85% of all history concerns itself with war. In all the years over 8,000 peace treaties have been made and broken. While the Bible prediction and all the corresponding statistics may be disheartening, I urge you not give up. For the Bible talks about peace between nations, as do the stats from London. While peace may not be attainable on a global scale, it can be achieved on an individual basis. This is not only possible but required.
Today I want to discuss how to achieve peace. Peace is listed in Gal. 5:22 as one of the fruits of the Spirit, a trait that is to be held by all Christians, yet one that is too often absent from our lives. Many people search for peace, few often find it. Those who don’t are left asking “Why is it that some people have peace, while others are going to pieces?”
Perhaps part of the problem is that we don’t know what peace really is. Peace is not merely the absence of activity or hostility, nor is it just getting away from reality. Peace can be described as both the freedom from disturbance as well as an inward sense of well-being. Peace comes from only one source and it is not the United Nations. There are three different types of peace: Peace with God, the Peace of God; and Peace with Others.
It seems to be human nature to be at war. From fighting other nations to squabbling amongst ourselves. Many states have aggressive driving laws to try to curb road rage. Companies have ombudsman to settle disputes. Our civil court system is overrun with lawsuits from those who demand satisfaction and retribution for wrongs they have suffered. In our own lives we often take a comment from another and build it into a declaration of war. And we make the smallest annoyance into a dilemma of global proportions. If you go to the psychology or self-help sections in a bookstore, you will find scores of books on the negative effects of stress and ways to cope. Turn on your televisions and you will see reports on how stress has been linked to yet another ailment, and advertisements for the latest wonder drug to help reduce anxiety. We let anything and everything burden us down with more stress and more anxiety. We are like balloons, in that with just a little more air blown in and we will pop. Someone once said there’s only a couple of things that worry him.
1. His wife says good-morning Bill and his name is George. and
2. His horn goes off accidentally and remains stuck as he follows a group of Hell’s Angels down the highway.
Stress and anxiety are nothing new. Look at Ps. 77. The psalmist is going through some type of calamity. He can’t sleep or speak. It is affecting every part of his being. He feels alone, dejected, helpless, and hopeless. Everything is crumbling around him, with no end in sight. But then he remembers the Lord. Everything he had been feeling has been reversed.
As I said earlier, there are three types of peace; the first is being at peace with God. Now with our limited human thinking we may say that we have no conflict with God, but we would be wrong. Hopefully hostilities have ended, but at one point in our lives we were at war with God. Though God is a God of love, he loathes sin. Because of our sinfulness we are in opposition to God; he is repulsed by us. We may believe that we are holy and pious individuals, but when we sin we place ourselves on the wrong side of the cosmic battlefield.
But there is hope. Turn to Rom. 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Even though we had by our sins taken up arms against Him, Jesus came and gave His life that we might not only be set free from the burden of sin, but also to secure peace between us and the Father. The first step in the road to peace is to accept this gift. To take hold of the gift that has been laid before us, even though we don’t deserve it. This should help us sleep a little easier at night, knowing that we are no longer at war with the ultimate power in the universe. It is imperative that peace is made with God, for without it we can have no other peace.
Once we are granted peace with God, He will further bless us with His peace, the peace of God. Many times we assume that the peace of God, that calm inner being, some possess. The ability to keep a level head and stay cool while everyone else has a nervous breakdown, is reserved for only the old, seasoned Christian. The ones who have a scripture for every situation. Those who take everything with a smile. We hope that someday we may come to that point in our lives. We pray for it, but believe that for one reason or another we will not receive it until after we retire and have more time to come up with wise sayings like some guru on a mountaintop. Why do we wait for so long to accept God’s peace? Luke 2:14 says “and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.” Who has God’s favor? Anyone who has discarded his worldly being for one justified and sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ. Once we are reconciled to God we are eligible to not only be at peace with Him, but to be granted His peace.
So how does this peace come to us? The more we let God have control of our lives, the more peace we will find. It is proportionate to the room we give the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we give Him a little room, we will have a little peace. If we give Him all of ourselves we will have complete peace.
How do we experience God’s peace? The answer is in Ph. 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” I cannot tell you how many mental disorders deal with anxiety. Generalized Anxiety, social anxiety, agoraphobia, hypochondria, obsessive compulsive. All of these and many, many more concern themselves with persistent, overwhelming thoughts of dread. These irrational thoughts can lead to breaks in reality, or psychotic episodes, or eventually to full blown psychosis, where one cannot differentiate between what is real and what is created in the mind.
The freedom from worry or anxiety cannot be achieved of our own volition. Paul says we must give our requests to God. Once we lay our burdens on Jesus an wholly trust Him, our fears and worries will be relieved. They will be replaced with thanksgiving or happiness and peace. Peace that no dictionary or philosopher has a definition, for it is the peace of God that is beyond human comprehension. The best I can describe it is like this. After working outside in the heat chopping wood, breaking rocks, or plowing the fields. You come in to a delicious dinner, take a long hot shower, put on a pair of underwear right out of the dryer, for there’s not much better than warm undies, then as you crawl into bed it begins to rain. You drift off the sleep listening to the pitter patter on the roof and window panes, and sleep knowing there is no alarm clock to wake you up in the morning.
This peace is available to all of us, without breaking rocks all day. All we need to do is ask for it. Its like this: Don’t worry about anything, but if you do, give those cares to God, so that He will fill you and protect you with His peace, so that you will worry no more.
Solomon knew that worry was a waste of time. In Ecclesiastes he declares “everything is meaningless.” This book is not a cynical outlook on the wanderings of man, but a profound statement that was reiterated by Paul. That worry and anxiety will come to nothing but trouble, but if we seek the Lord we may “banish anxiety from our hearts.” Nothing that we face in this life is too overwhelming to deal with. Though we believe that we are daily faced with problems in whose answer lies the fate of the universe, in reality we don’t have a whole lot to worry about, most everything is already taken care of . Gravity, light, the growth of food, all we have to do is reach out and take what we need. And remember that God is the best anti-anxiety medication known to man.
Now we come to what is probably the most difficult peace to attain. We see that it is easy enough to be at peace with God and have the peace of God, but find it much harder to be at peace with each other. Friends, it’s a package deal. You cannot have one peace and not all three, or be at peace with God and inwardly, but be at odds with our brothers and sisters; it doesn’t work that way. Its all or nothing. They build upon each other, peace with God enables us to have the peace of God, which gives us the ability to live in peace with each other.
Mt. 5:9 calls us to be peacemakers. Peacemakers are happy, finding joy in all things. Carpe diem. Seize the day, they suck the marrow out of life. They are not only happy, but actively seek peace. They try to preserve peace and if it is broken try to repair it. The role of peacemaker to make amends is a role especially designed for ministers, and as we are all to be ministers of God’s word, we are to be promoters and restorers of peace.
The quest for peace should be sought no matter what the cost. Look at the book of Philemon. Paul wrote this letter to Philemon in hopes of reconciling him with one of his slaves, Onesimus. Onesimus had stolen from his master, then run away; an offense punishable by death under Roman law. While on the run Onesimus met Paul and was converted. He now wanted to make the 1,000 mile trip back to make things right with his master. They hardest step of the peace process is admitting you have wronged someone. Two of the boys I work with were having problems with each other. They were in a cycle of saying nasty things about each other. Finally I took them both aside and had them explain their actions to each other and develop a plan to get along. When we were finished and the air cleared, they both told me how hard that conversation had been. It is always hard to admit that we have made fools of ourselves by our actions.
Many times because of our own stubbornness an outside party must intervene for the sake of peace. Remember me talking about “holy meddlers” in Sabbath school. The first step of our holy meddling should be prayer, for without it we could, and often do, end up making the situation worse. Often times we try to face a problem or an injustice indirectly by telling someone else what another has done. In common terms this is called gossip. The church is like a small town, everybody thinks they know the other’s business, only because we are concerned. Without the direction of the Holy Spirit, this concern can easily turn to slander, for some times there is a fine line between voicing a concern and gossip, and between help and hurt. George Bush the first made a trip to Australia during his term in office, when getting off the plane he decided to flash the reporters, tv crews and bystanders what he thought was the peace sign. What he accomplished was flying the entire nation the bird. Gossip can destroy a church as easily as a fire burns dry brush. It can also destroy the prospects of brining new members in, for no one wants to be part of a church that is constantly at each other’s throats. Eph. 4:29 tells us “not to let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Before we spread any “news” about someone else we need to follow the policy of checking to see if the situation has been addressed and save the gossip for the tabloids at the grocery store.
At least one time in our lives we will face a situation where we are at war with another. How do we handle that situation? Do we ignore it and hope it goes away; bite our tongues but plot in our minds; or do we avoid it as much as possible but let the pain and bitterness fester in our hearts like a cancer? Do we want a peaceful solution or do we merely hope for what one writer called “that brief glorious moment when no one is fighting because everyone is reloading.” Peace is not the absence of the storm, it comes in the presence of the storm because Jesus is walking beside us, and we have our eyes fixed on Him.
We must face every problem that comes our way, especially in our relationships, for the small problems sometimes turn into big problems. A man backed his bright, shiny new Cadillac out of his driveway and sped down the highway for work. He was busy shaving, listening to the radio, talking on the phone. Witnesses say that suddenly he reached up behind his neck and slumped over the wheel. The car swerved and went over an embankment, killing the man. The autopsy physician noted a small pinprick behind the man’s ear. Apparently a wasp had flown in, stung him, temporarily paralyzing a particular are of nerve and blinding him with pain. He slumped over the wheel, lost control of the car, and died. Little problems can kill. Heb. 12:15 says “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” That bitter root is pride, animosity for others, rivalry, or anything else harmful to others. We must deal with the adversity we have with each other now, and make peace with each other, for if we cannot live in peace with them now, how will we be able to live together for all eternity?
So how do we make peace with each other?
1. Make peace with God, without this everything else we try is futile.
2. Identify the problem. If don’t know what the problem is, we can’t start to solve it.
3. Say something good even when all we think of is bad, eventually we will come to believe the good over the bad.
4. Remember that making peace is many time a thankless endeavor. We will not always enjoy the fruits of our labor, but know this, without making an effort, that first step toward peace, there could never be any peace at all. Sometimes we can do our best to make a situation better, but get nothing in return from the other party. All that we can do is pray for that person and leave that worry to God.
5. Finally plan a peace conference. You can remember the steps to a peace conference with this acronym.
P- Plan it. E- Empathize. A- Attack the problem. C- Cooperate. E- Emphasize reconciliation. PEACE.
Plan it. Many times there isn’t a third part to come and say “Hey, you two stop fighting!” It is our responsibility, our duty as Christians to try to make peace. We cannot wait for someone else to make the first step, they are probably waiting for us.
Empathize with their feelings. Like the man in the Cadillac it is often hard to see past our pain to see what the other person is feeling, this is empathy. Many times myself, and others I work with have been insulted, spit at, cussed at, and many other things. The way we have to look at it is that the youth is not really attacking us personally, but some unresolved pain he is struggling with. This is often true in our relationships. Thought the attack seems very personal, it is more often than not, an attack on some unnamed, unresolved issue. But if we take everything to heart, we will not be able to see past our hurt to help resolve the problem.
Attack the problem, not the person. We will never accomplish anything by attacking someone else. We must give our pain and anxiety to God in order to be more objective and productive in the situation. If we wag our fingers at someone and tell them all the things they have done wrong, no matter how true, they will throw up a wall blocking you out. We must help them make their way to peace with God. For just as we can’t have peace without Him, neither can they.
Cooperate as much as possible. The ability to be flexible and versatile is key to a successful and peaceful relationship. No matter what we might think, we are not always right. Nor do we deserve to dictate orders to our partners and friends all the time. Sometimes we must give a little to get a lot. The saying you reap what you sow is true even in this situation. If we plant peace, we will reap peace, but if we sow inflexibility we will harvest a conflict.
The final part of the peace conference is to Emphasize reconciliation. We must come to the understanding we will not fix every problem. We will not always agree or come to some sort of resolution. However, we can disagree without being disagreeable; have unity without uniformity. We can walk hand in hand, without seeing eye to eye. While we won’t always have resolution we can reestablish the relationship and let peace reign in our lives.
Peace comes through forgiveness. Its easy for an outside party to say what should be done to make peace, they haven’t been hurt. We all get hurt from time to time, but how long we will harbor that pain in our hearts? We must forgive even if it is not asked for. War takes us away from the work we are to be doing for God. It causes us to forget why we are here and diverts our attention away from the job we have been given, to bring others to Christ. Anger destroys relationships and our ability to witness to others. We are here for one purpose, to show others the love of Jesus, all this other stuff is “meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
In the movie “The Princess Bride,” the character Enigo Montoya is obsessed with revenge. He spent most of his life searching for the man who killed his father. He said that when he met him he would say “Hallo, my name is Enigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.” Well he eventually met and killed this man. Afterwards he said he wasn’t sure what else he was suppose to do, revenge had been his whole purpose for living. Now that this was satisfied, he could think of no other purpose for the rest of this life. We must not be of the same mind set. Sometimes we must take up arms and do battle, but eventually we must stop fighting. If war is our sole purpose for existence, what will we do in heaven where there is no war?
Do you have peace today? Are you at peace with God, with yourself, and with others? If the answer is no I urge you to get down on your knees and seek the peace God has to offer, all you need to do is cast your burdens on Him and He will fill you with peace and tranquility. If you are at odds with someone else, take that first step toward reconciliation. If we are to be sons and daughters of God, we must be peacemakers. Peace is not something that just happens, it is a project and a process. We must lay down our arms, swallow our pride, and with the grace of God move toward peace. You will sleep better at night knowing you’re no longer at war.
