It Starts Small

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Matthew 5:9

We live in a world that is not at peace with itself. We live in a world where violence is glorified in the entertainment industry, and crushing your enemies is the law of the land. When we come into conflict we tend to lean on one of two paths: we become defensive or withdraw. Both lead down the same path: disillusionment, isolation, and alienation.

Jesus says happy are those who make peace. What is a peacemaker? A peacemaker is seeing adversaries as partners to building bridges of peace and reconciliation.

Dictionary.com defines a peacemaker as, “a person who brings about peace, especially by reconciling adversaries.” Jesus tells us we must make peace with our enemies and that we must seek peace in all our relationships before we can ever come to him. How do we make peace?

¹³ Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. ¹⁴ But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. ¹⁵ This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. ¹⁶ For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. ¹⁷ But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. ¹⁸ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. James 3:13-18

James writes clear instructions on how to be a peacemaker. James was writing a letter to a church that was heavily divided and fractured. In verse 17 he gives 9 amazing traits we must have in order to be a peacemaker.

Moral Purity

We have to be honest with ourselves. We will never accomplish anything with a dirty heart! The origin of division is sin. It won’t matter how unified your relationship is, unconfessed sin will always cause division. SO the opposite is a cleaned and confessed heart. Peacemaker follows a pure heart in the sermon on the mount. I’ve been writing about the Beatitudes. Happiness is…. yesterday I wrote about happiness is a clean heart. If we want peace in all our relationships, we need purity. Only a heart cleansed by the blood of Christ and daily washing of God’s Word can be a peacemaker.

Peaceable

Peacemaking is more than just being peaceable. We have to first stop breaking the peace.

¹⁹ Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Romans 12:19

Peacemaking requires a spirit that grows in meekness, gentleness and patience. This is why the Beatitudes precede with these before peacemaking. We have to embrace and practice these before we can be peacemakers. We have to change our attitude from selfishness, revenge, and the me-now attitude to embrace and practice letting God be our vengeance.

Gentleness

As we go through this list James gives us, you’ll start to recognize that all these traits for a peacemaker are not just the list Jesus gave us in beatitudes, but also what is worked through by the fruit of the Spirit. Gentleness is listed as a fruit of the Spirit.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, ²³ Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

The fruit if the Spirit is a gift given to us by Christ. Gentleness and peacemaker are similar but different. We have to look to Jesus for example. Jesus works gentleness through us and through us we become peacemakers. In short, when we are punched we need to take the punch and respond without throwing punches back. Gentleness is our demeanor to an attack and peacemaking is the attitude we respond with.

Open to Reason

This is not “open minded.” By the world’s definition and expectations, “open-minded” is muting all conversations and accepting the behavior, no matter how horrible, of other people. God’s Word says we are to stand for truth and this will cause conflict. I’ve experienced this recently. Anytime I try to speak in truth to a broken relationship I’ve been trying to make amends, the other party tells me I am disrespecting them and not honoring their boundaries. They would rather mute the conversation and I am expected to honor their behavior and choices. They have even tried to use scriptures to justify their position but forgot the part on God’s Word that calls for love, grace, mercy and forgiveness to abound so peace can be made.

Peacemaking is not avoiding conflict. It is a call to peace to pronounce the gospel of peace. Peacemakers will listen first, to seek understand. Peacemakers are open to listen, but don’t swerve away from God’s truth. Peacemakers must speak the truth in love. Peace does not come from denying the truth of God. Peace-faking comes by denying God’s truth for the sake of peace. We must seek truth in order to seek peace.

Full of Mercy and Good Fruits

³ Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3

Those who keep their mind on the Lord are given perfect peace. Having peace and making peace are not the same thing. This is a good place to start from, but the peace of God does not make peace in our relationships. Peacemaking is doing. It’s an action. Mercy is a vital part of dealing with someone’s anger towards you and it reinforces our love of others in moments of conflict. Remember, mercy is giving someone what they need, not what they deserve. Peacemaking requires tangible acts of kindness to win the hearts of others.

Impartiality and Sincerity

Being impartial to others only comes when we sincerely love our Heavenly Father above all else. The only way this is accomplished is by not being double minded. The bible says doublemindedness is a split of loyalties. It is one foot in heaven and one foot in hell. Peacemakers must have a single heart and mind focused on God. When we are ruled by the Holy Spirit we make sound judgements according to God and not ourselves based on selfishness and pride. Peacemakers regularly submit themselves to God.

I often experience headscratcher moments. The Holy Spirit will press on my heart to share something or speak to this relationship he burdens me to make amends with. It is always received and responded to with ugliness. I often wonder why would he ask me to say something or do something when it’s received that way. I may never know why, but we always have to just do what we are asked. God’s ways are above our ways.

A willing Patience

I know…. there’s that word we all love. How about I use a willing endurance? This is not used in verse 17, but look down to 18.

¹⁸ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. James 3:18

This is part of the law of harvest. Peacemaking does not always happen right a way. It takes time. Healing does not come over night and the pain and suffering can last years before they are healed. This is not denying the power of healing or miracles in our lives. It is acknowledging that a harvest can take a few days to a few decades.

Peacemakers don’t need to despair over a slow growth of righteousness. We need to give the field back over to God and ask him to be God. To bless the field with abundance and to do more than what our feeble minds could ever imagine or accomplish. Peacemaking can be a long-term process that depends upon the timing of God.

Go the extra Mile

This requires peacemakers to do more than the peacebreakers. In James, we see a stark contract between between worldly and Godly wisdom. Worldly wisdom plants and grows two things: jealousy and selfish ambition. Peace breakers are driven by a strong desire to self promote themselves.

Making peace is far harder than breaking peace. Peace is cultivated over a long period of time, where as, breaking peace happens in an instant. It takes longer to restore a relationship than it does to break one. Those who want to be peacemakers need to delight in the extra steps and mile the Lord asks us to take to reconcile and restore peace in our relationships. It takes extra work, but Christ promises to be there every step of the way.

Growing from the Gospel

The last part of verse 17, James concludes with the harvest of righteousness. He tells us that peacemaking comes by sowing in peace. We need to be led by the Holy Spirit. When we are, wisdom comes from above to seek peace according to the gospel. True peace grows from the seeds of the gospel. It’s with holiness, peacefulness, gentleness and a firm conviction of the Holy Spirit we can act with mercy, impartiality and sincerity. The result is restoration to broken relationships.

This is the corner stone. Being a peacemaker can only come from believing the gospel and being empowered by the Holy Spirit to walk according to the gospel. Only through truth can we walk in everlasting peace.

What do we do when others have no interest in peace?

¹⁴ Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. Psalms 34:14

God commands that we continually seek peace.

¹⁹ Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. Romans 14:19

We need to make every effort we can to make peace. Of course there are going to be people who do not desire peace, even so, we are called to live in peace with others.

¹⁸ If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Romans 12:18

We have to always remember, we can not force peace. We can only pursue peace. In the end, those who refuse peace are dealt with by God.

Peacemakers are blessed with Happiness

There are going to be moments where peace seems to have failed no matter how much we seek it and open that door. Happiness comes through knowing that we are doing exactly what our Heavenly Father has asked of us.

¹¹ Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. 1 Peter 3:11

No matter what the outcome is, we can take solace knowing that Jesus promises us that we will be blessed with joy and happiness. When we seek peace, we invite God’s blessing into our lives. We are blessed by being identified as a child of God! When we seek peace, we have peace with God.

33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Romans 15:33