We Are Peacemakers
Last week we learned that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Every every person, every human life is valued and loved by God because they are created in God’s image. We must love all people as God loves them.
We talked about living in an age of anger and outrage, hatred and contempt. We are easily consumed by anger and outrage when we allow our ego’s and self-righteousness to control us. When we embrace and cultivate anger, our anger turns into contempt, and contempt becomes outrage, which turns into murdering rage as we kill others, either physically or their souls.
Jesus takes us to the heart of the matter, the heart. Our hearts must be transformed by Jesus Christ. We must abide in Christ. We must live by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then we will be able to respond to anger, hurt, contempt, hatred, and persecution in kingdom ways, namely, persistent love, grace, forgiveness, compassion, and patience.
We are children of God. We are our brothers’ keepers. Therefore, we are peacemakers. The kingdom ways of winsome love and peacemaking always aim at reconciliation — reconciliation with God and others, which is possible through the cross of Christ. But it requires of us to take up our own crosses to die to self. Therefore, we must reconcile with our brother and settle matters with our accuser,, our enemy. Brother and enemy, that means all people.
1. Be Reconciled
A kingdom heart who loves and cares will know that when there is anger, hurt, conflict, contempt, whether I am angry with someone, or someone is angry with me, a kingdom heart knows that it’s hurting, damaging our souls. Therefore, it is urgent to be reconciled as quickly as possible, to make and find peace so that our souls can be healthy.
When we are angry at others, show contempt and disrespect, when we do not love them, we are guilty of murder and we damage our relation to God. We erect a barrier not only between ourselves and our brother, but also between ourselves and God. Our worship of God is disturbed.
We can read the Bible until it flows out of our ears. We can pray like crazy. We can come to church every Sunday, go to every Bible study and prayer meeting, do as many church ministries as possible. But these will all be dry and hollow when there is anger, contempt, unresolved conflict, and no love between brothers and sisters. God does not want our external actions of worship. God wants our hearts and our love, and our love for him is shown in our love for others.
So, what does this mean for coming to church and worship? We cannot use our conflict or disagreement with someone as an excuse to not come to church or worship, or to go to another church. Jesus did not say, “Do not come to worship,” but, “First go, and be reconciled.” Thus, if I am not in church because of a conflict, it means that at that time I am meeting with that person to make peace. I cannot just stay away, and sit at home and watch television.
When we leave churches because of conflicts with others we must really examine our hearts. Have we tried everything with self-giving, self-sacrificing love to make peace with them, or have we just packed up and left because that is the easiest way.
And we who are remaining in the churches left by people, what are we doing to be reconciled to those people, or are we just happy and thankful that those difficult people are out of the way, and now we can continue to do things our way? The kingdom way is always persistent love. We must do our utmost best and exhaust every avenue to be reconciled with one another.
2. Settle Matters—Make Friends
Settle matters quickly with your accuser or enemy. The Greek word here means more than just to settle matters out of court. It means to come to an agreement with someone, to consider the other’s view favorably with the intention to finding a solution. It also means to make friends with the person.
This is crucial, urgent, very important. Because, as we have just seen, when our relationships with fellow human beings are disturbed, hindered, our relationship with God is disturbed and hindered. We must get things right with others before we stand before God (NIVSB, 1539).
But also, if we do not settle matters and allow things to go full cycle, or allow them to get out hand, then we may have to bear all the consequences, go through all the difficult steps, and pay the full price, which would not have happened if we have settled the matter quickly and early on. Therefore, resolve our differences before it escalates and creates more problems.
Do we want to overcome this outrage, hatred and division in our country? Do we want to make America great again? No politics, no economics, no military might will make America great. No politician, no leader will make America great. We, you and I, can make America great again, if we are willing to die to self, and to love all others unconditionally. If all of God’s kingdom people will stand up for love, and reach out to others in love, we will make this land great again, and God will be glorified.
3. We Are Vessels of God’s Love and Forgiveness
The radical, alternative kingdom response is love, grace and forgiveness. Call it winsome love because it must draw people for God. Our ways of responding to anger, wrongs, and conflict must follow God’s ways. Our hearts must be guided by God’s character and God’s heart. Ex 34:5-7:
“Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
We are vessels of God’s love and forgiveness. We are kingdom people representing God to the world. Therefore, we must be slow to anger. We must be compassionate and gracious. We must abound in love and faithfulness. We must forgive. We must maintain love. This is the kingdom way of responding to anger, sin, and injustices. This is the kingdom way of making peace. If our responses and our anger are “not consistently and sacrificially tempered by steadfast love and forgiveness, it is not righteous anger” We must be “faithful vessel(s) of his steadfast love and forgiveness” (Stetzer, 79).
So how do we deal with anger?
4. QSSQS
No, this is no secret code or a dance step. There are the steps to deal with anger. Try to decipher it as we read the following passages. There are of course many Bible passages that teach us how to deal with anger and show us the same steps. We will look at just three of them.
James 1:19-20 — “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
Col 3:8 — “But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” Also means — put away, lay down, cease what you are doing, or plain simply, stop.
Eph. 4:26-27 (ESV) — “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Anger must be slow to rise and quick to die down. If we don’t deal quickly with anger we give the devil a foothold in our lives. He will take the chance and there will be hell to pay … the cycle is endless as long as anger has sway.” (Willard, 151)
Quick—Slow—Slow—Quick—Stop
Quick to listen — Practice empathy. Place yourselves in their shoes, and try to see things through their eyes. Remember that the world and the other person is as broken, in bondage and a sinner as we are. Listen to understand their viewpoints. Do not just listen to reload and found counter arguments. Before you react or respond, repeat what you have heard to ensure that you understand them correctly. Ask questions to clarify, gain deeper, better understanding.
Slow to speak — We are so conditioned to respond quickly, to shoot from the hip, to always have an answer ready. We cannot wait to get a word in. The Bible warns us against this because our initial and intuitive responses are often stupid, wrong, destructive. Practice self-control. Pause, ask a question to help you slow down. Pray, think what will be a God-glorifying response, that will love, honor and respect the other person. Then speak the truth in love with gentleness and kindness.
Slow to become angry — Honor, respect, love the other person. Remember they are created in God’s image, valued and loved by God. And if they are followers of Jesus then they are children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus Christ lives in them as he lives in us. See Jesus in the other person when you interact with someone. It will then be much more difficult to become angry.
Lay down anger Quickly & Stop to be angry — To remain angry is to embrace, indulge in and cultivate anger. And that is driven and motivated by self-righteousness, selfishness, self-centeredness, and our wounded ego’s. When we remain angry—Stop — examine our hearts. The biblical, kingdom way is to lay down anger, to stop being angry, quickly, before the sun sets. That requires that we die to our selves. We should embrace, clothe ourselves, cultivate, and indulge in love, self-giving, unconditional love that loves, honors, respects, values the other above ourselves and looks out for their interests.
And all of these steps leads to the next essential kingdom action — forgiveness. So actually, the code should read like this QSSQS—F. I am not going to talk now about forgiveness as we will come back to this in Matthew 6. “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt 6:14-15). Mark 11:25 — “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Conclusion
We are our brothers’ keepers. We are peacemakers. The ultimate aim of our kingdom response to anger and contempt is reconciliation — reconciliation with God and others. Jesus tells how a kingdom heart will respond. The radical, alternative kingdom way of love, grace, and forgiveness aims to call God’s people to obedience, and the world to repentance, and if God’s people were disobedient, to call them also too repentance. So that they all will be reconciled with God.
This is hard. This is difficult. This requires sacrifice. The world may respond with rejection, persecution, violence, and even death. But it does not matter what happens and how things turn out, we are standing in the kingdom of God. We must remain steadfast in love and compassion, persistent in grace and forgiveness, faithful and obedient to God’s ways, the kingdom life. And whatever happens, it does not really matter much because “we are in the kingdom of the heavens. In that kingdom nothing that can happen to us is ‘the end of the world’” (Willard, 158). Believe in God’s kingdom. Step out with boldness and courage, love, and be peacemakers. We are peacemakers because we are children of God.