The major candidates
for nomination as President of the United States are debating about
withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq immediately or leaving them there
indefinitely. What I’ve not heard anyone talk about is making peace in Iraq.
We have many
decorations for our war heroes but the Nobel Peace Prize stands out as one of
the few for our peacemakers…and it is from a private foundation in a foreign
country.
Yet we desire peace.
We desire peace globally. We long for peace locally. And we are desperate
for peace personally: peace within our own hearts, our own minds, our own
souls.
Jesus wants us to have peace in
our hearts. In fact, on the very night that he was to be betrayed by a friend
and denied by his disciples, he told his disciples, “Let not your hearts be
troubled” (John 14:1).
Is there anyone within the
sound of my voice who wants a peace like that? Anyone here who wants a peace
that the world does not give so the world cannot take? Anyone here want a
peace that passes understanding and that defies definition? That is what
Jesus offers as a blessing to those who follow him.
I. THE PEACE-TAKERS
But as we begin, we must first look at those
peace-takers that steal our peace. These thieves of peace make war in our
hearts and this conflict, unresolved within, boils over to be conflict with
those around. The peace-takers are those forces in our lives that would rob
us of a sense of peace.
A.
Unconfessed Sin
The first
peace-taker that we must consider is unconfessed sin.
In Psalm 32:3-5,
David wrote:
3
When I kept silent,
my bones
wasted away
through my
groaning all day long.
4
For day and night
your hand
was heavy upon me;
my
strength was sapped
as in the
heat of summer. Selah
5
Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did
not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I
will confess
my
transgressions to the Lord”—
and you
forgave
the guilt
of my sin.
No one is truly at
peace with himself when he is battling the shame, the remorse and the inner
conflict of a guilty conscience. Unconfessed sin robs us of a sense of
peace in our hearts and that, in turn, will affect our relationships with
people around us. It is impossible to look other people in they eye and
relate to them in a healthy way if your soul is dark under a cloud of
unconfessed sin.
B.
Uncertain Soul
An uncertain soul is
another thief of peace. Having confessed your sin to God, are you able to
rest in His grace? Do you trust God to keep His word and forgive your sin
once you have confessed it?
Sadly, many people
do not. They feel sorrow for their sin. They confess their sin. But then
they keep striving, working to earn the forgiveness that only comes as a
gift of grace. A soul that is not certain of its forgiveness and salvation
can never be at peace. Anyone here this morning who longs for the peace of
a soul that is certain of its forgiveness?
C.
Unbelieving Heart
There are many
people who, in their minds, believe there is a God but who, in their hearts,
do not trust Him. If you do not believe that God will provide peace despite
the circumstances of your life, you will never know real peace. That is why
Jesus called it a “peace that passes understanding.” Human reason says you
can have inner peace when all of your circumstances are resolved. But God’s
way is to grant peace so that our circumstances can be
resolved. Do you believe God will do that for you? Are you trusting Him?
D.
Unforgiving Atmosphere
Biblically, sin is
not only to be confessed to God, it is to be confessed to one another. But
you cannot fully know the freedom of forgiveness if you are in an
unforgiving atmosphere where you do not feel safe to confess your sin.
Students of church
growth have found one thing that all growing churches have in common. Some
have contemporary music and some have traditional. Some have new buildings
and some do not. Some are older, established congregations and some are
young. But one thing that all growing churches have in common, regardless
of denomination or non-denomination: they are all places where sinners feel
safe to confess their sin and secure that they will receive forgiveness.
Criminologists tell
us that criminals are often caught because they have an irresistible need to
tell someone what they did. And while sometimes it may sound like boasting,
in reality it is the mournful cry of a guilty soul that needs to confess and
then be accepted in spite of the crime. Churches that offer a forgiving
atmosphere will find sinners beating a path to their door, seeking the
forgiveness for which their hearts so desperately long.
E.
Satan, himself
One other
peace-taker is Satan. Never forget that you have an enemy who is a thief
and a liar. Your enemy wants to rob your peace and tell you that you cannot
have it back. Sometimes, if we do not feel very serene, it is Satan trying
to persuade us that God didn’t deliver on His promised peace. Scripture
says to submit to the Lord and resist the devil and then he will flee from
you. Cling to the words of Him who is truth rather than listening to the
one who has been identified as the father of lies.
II.
THE PEACE-FAKERS
In John 14, Jesus said that he was giving
his peace to his followers and he told them that his peace is not like the
peace that the world gives. The peace that the world gives is forced,
fleeting and, ultimately, false. It is a pretend peace.
The peace that the world gives is:
A.
Denial – You know, the kind of peace where people say, “No
problem. I don’t suffer from guilt, shame or remorse. I don’t need
forgiveness. I don’t need a Savior. I don’t need Jesus to have peace. I’m
fine just the way I am.” But sometimes, when it is very dark and the room
is very still, their consciences still will haunt them with the memory of
their sin and the fear of death. Because they worry that it just may be
true and one day they may have to meet their Maker and account for the deeds
of their lives. In those moments, they realize that theirs is a false
peace: the peace of a peace-faker.
B.
Avoidance – A second peace-faker is avoidance. Emotional and
spiritually, we run and hide from our guilt. We try to ignore it. When the
topic comes up, we try to change the subject. (In fact, some of you may
have decided to day dream about something else for the last twenty-minutes
rather than face your fears and the lack of peace in your hearts. That is
avoidance.) The rampant use and abuse of drugs and alcohol are often
attempts to avoid facing our guilt and dealing with our inner conflict by
accepting God’s peace.
C.
Transference – Sometimes, our inner struggles show themselves in
outward displays of anger or frustration with people who are not even the
cause of our conflict. The person who battled the boss all day, comes home
and takes it out on an unsuspecting spouse. The spouse spanks the child and
the kid kicks the dog. Or we drive aggressively and shout at other
motorists. Or we snap at the clerk, the cashier or a colleague. But that
never really satisfies because it does not resolve the inner conflict. In
fact, it intensifies it. Transference is a peace-faker, not a peacemaker.
D.
Repression – is a peace-faker. Unlike denial, which is a form of
lying to our self and saying there is no problem, repression acknowledges
there is a problem but refuses to deal with it. You are upset. You know
it. But you decide you will hide it. You resolve that you will not let it
show and you will not talk about it. The problem with repressed conflict
is, not only does that kind of conflict not go away, it festers, worsens and
grows so that, over time, it is even more difficult to resolve than it was
at the start.
E.
Pretence – Another peace-faker is pretence. You see this a lot
in the homes of alcoholics, users and abusers. The deal is that everyone is
to pretend everything is OK. There is a “no talk” rule that is strictly
enforced. So the drunkenness is something we don’t talk about. Or where
the bruises came from. We pretend everything is alright but it is just an
act we put on in hopes that nobody knows the truth. But people, pretence
does not bring peace. In fact, it prevents peace.
III.
THE PEACEMAKERS
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Not the peaceable. Not the peace loving. Not the peacekeepers or the
peace-fakers. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Peacemakers deal first with the truth. They
confront what is real and expose what is failed.
In Matthew 10 and Luke 12, Jesus said, “Do
not suppose that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to
bring peace but a sword.” Isn’t that kind of confusing? He called
himself The Prince of Peace. Before he died, he told his disciples that
he was bestowing his peace upon them. Yet here he says he did not come to
bring peace but a sword. What does that mean?
May I illustrate? In
1981, we took our four-year-old
daughter, Cherish, to Minneapolis Children’s Health Center to have
open-heart surgery. She was born with a hole in her heart. The surgeon
explained that he was going to have to cut open her chest; crack open her
ribs; stop her heart; lift it out of her body, cut it open and sew a patch
over the hole that was deep inside. I wanted him to give her medicine. I
wanted him to give her therapy. I wanted him to do anything but what he
was proposing. But the doctor gently explained that if he did not do this
drastic thing, she would not live to be ten.
The doctor did not want to just make us feel
better; he wanted to make Cherish well. He did not come to us to bring
comfort, consolation and smooth words. He came to bring healing. And in
this case, healing came at the point of a knife.
The apostle Paul said that Scripture is like
a two-edged sword cutting deep to the point where bone and marrow
separate. Peacemakers confront conflict with God’s Word and use it with
surgical precision. They speak the truth in love for the purpose of
restoring wholeness and peace. But not just any truth: they speak God’s
truth in love.
CONCLUSION:
In Colossians 1:20, Paul wrote:
19
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus], 20
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on
earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the
cross.
The message of Scripture is that the source
of peace is the blood of Jesus. It is through Jesus Christ that God
reconciles all to Himself, making peace by means of the blood of His son,
shed on the cross.
INVITATION: # 337 – “Nothing
But The Blood”
