It’s a beautiful evening and i thought i’d go outside on the deck which overlooks the beautiful river below. i’m Social Porter with Cletus Iaomi and you’re listening to Outposts, cool jazz and contemplative conversation, broadcast semi-live from the deck of a rural cafe which overlooks the virtual cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the rivers edge, and every evening is oh so pleasant.
You know, just looking up at the night sky just makes me smile. Every evening leads into the next day, so pause for a moment, don’t stay inside if you don’t have to, breath in the clean evening air, and if the weather allows and you’ve got the time, it’s your chance to plan another brand new day.
There is just something profound about looking into the depth of the night sky. God is absolutely beyond brilliant…. capitalize the “G” remove an “o” and you get God. He’s more than good He is God, and all He’s done and will do is the very epitome and personification of “goodness”.
Do you realize just how many people are carrying around an offense; walking around in churches and fellowships all across America carrying with them some burdensome thing which hinders their forward progress? A true offense may not seem like it weighs much in the moment, but just give it time, it’ll get ridiculously heavy. The potential for offense seems available everywhere, all the time. What is it which hinders you and … where are “the peacemakers”?
Every turn in life offers some new opportunity to be offended and conflicted. Sometimes it seems justified, other times, maybe most of the time, the offense is just pride and arrogance. Please note i used the term “seems justified” because truly, there is NO good reason to carry around an offense, weighing you down, bending your mind and feelings around like a hair pin. And the longer we carry that offense, the more it twists our decision making mechanism into something God never intended, influencing everything else in our lives. Haven’t you met someone who was just bitter about almost everything? i can just about guarantee you it started somewhere with an offense and unbending unforgiveness.
Jesus and the Bible are our example of conduct, character, morals, principles, and ethics, so it’s important to note, Jesus NEVER carried an offense around. And because He didn’t carry an offense, He never needed a defense.
Anytime i meet someone who is defensive, they usually have pockets of offenses stored away and rotting. What will you do about your offenses, because eventually, we’ve all got to deal with our baggage?
Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.” Come out of hiding you peacemakers. It’s time to get to work.
Tap your toe, dream a little, and i’ll be right back.
The Bible contains all of the promises and principles needed for true peacemaking. One of the earliest Biblical records of arbitration and making peace was Moses.
Exodus 18:13, “And so it was, on the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening.” When Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law saw what was going on he asked Moses what he was doing. Moses replied in vs 16, “When they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and another; and I make known the statutes of God and His laws.” Moses was evidently acting as an arbitrator and using the statutes of God and His laws as his standard. That’s a good place to start, but Moses was taking it upon himself to be the decision maker without encouraging the people to be involved with God’s standards and statutes for themselves.
If we read on we see Jethro passing wisdom on to Moses by saying Moses should teach the people right and wrong so the people would know for themselves, and to delegate authority to Godly men to help with the job of making peace. i like that, teaching people right and wrong so they would know for themselves, not needing some agency standing over them, dictating their every move even to becoming the thought police. We all need to know right from wrong and God as our standard, not our neighbor or the government.
Are you a peacemaker, or an offense-taker? And i did say peacemaker. There is a difference between peacekeepers and peacemakers. In order to be a peacemaker we must be active participants of peace….while passive observers never get involved enough to make peace. Peacekeepers simply keep the chaos down to a tolerable roar. A peacekeeper serves to diffuse violence or the physical lead up to violence, whereas the peacemaker works to create a lasting nonviolent and creative community. One is a bandaid, the other is a lasting fix.
We can’t make peace by demanding the exercise of the law. Some think that by making the law louder with more severe penalties we can make peace in our communities, but truthfully, condemnation never delivered anyone from immorality or criminality…the law may have scared them into remission, but without Jesus, no one ever became reconciled and transformed.
The 1873 Colt Peacemaker was originally made by Colt Firearms, chambered for .45 Long colt cartridges. It has been called the “gun which won the west”. Law men enforced the law and used the Colt Peacemaker to keep chaos under raps among warring parties. Enforcing the law does not make peace, it just keeps the law. People stopped fighting only because they might get shot, not because their internal conflict was resolved. The gun helped keep the peace in a way, but certainly didn’t serve to create any long term unity. Maybe Colt Firearms should have named it a peacekeeper instead of a peacemaker.
So right off the bat, it seems to me that for any of us to be peacemakers, we would have to start by knowing something about peace for ourselves within ourselves…. wouldn’t you think?
i make notes to myself and i jotted this interesting factoid out in my little book. i have no idea who wrote it but here it is: “It is estimated that in all the history of humanity less than eight percent of recorded history can be described as times of peace. In the last 32 centuries there have been fewer than 300 years of peace. Historians tell us that within the last 300 years there have been 286 wars in Europe alone.” God has given it to us who are empowered by the death and resurrection of Christ to be more than peacekeepers who control, but peacemakers who impart lasting peace, real peace to whom so ever would have it.
Gal5:22 says one of the fruits of the Spirit is peace, and Mark 9:50 says, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” i like that, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” Let us “be worth our salt” and season the world around us, being peacemakers not offense-takers. On a side note, a really interesting explanation of the idiom of “being worth your salt”, is that the Roman soldier’s wages were often paid in salt. As a result the person’s worth was the weight of salt paid for wages earned. Of course then, the higher in rank and better soldier you were, the more salt you were given.
According to Matt5:13, we, who believe in Christ, are the salt of the earth. We should be able to have an effect on the earth and those in it. Salt was and still is very valuable and i think the Lord is saying to us to “have value in yourselves and practice to be at peace with each other”. We are to be exercising our gifting which the Father has given us, never allowing a conflict to continue if we can help it…. oh and don’t you know there is opportunity for offense to ride on every side. Unresolved conflict is like having the devil around – if you let the devil ride, the next thing you know he’ll want to drive.
As people who are reconciled to God, we are called to respond to conflict in a way that is remarkably different from the way the world deals with conflict. The world returns anger for anger, and judgment for judgment. Romans 12:18-19 says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends…”
Our society seems to be obsessed with revenge and making sure other people get what “they deserve”. But i think a good question is how do we measure out “what they deserve” according to who? If it is what we deserve according to the world, then the only right the world extends to us is the right to suffer, but if it’s what we get according to Jesus, ahhhh….now we’re talking reconciliation! We get what we do not deserve, grace, because Jesus got what He did not deserve, judgment, suffering, and crucifixion. If He had not died and been resurrected from the dead, we would not get grace but condemnation.
When Jesus was crucified, Pontius Pilate asked the people what they wanted to do with Jesus, and with one offended voice they cried out “Take Him away! Crucify Him!” The unfounded judgment and prejudice was incredible. Jesus came to give mankind the opportunity to make peace with God, He was being a peacemaker between man and God, but yet all the people could say was “Crucify Him!” The wounded conscience and biased mind of the people was so offended, many missed the visitation of God.
Instead of setting our eyes on our own desires or spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about what others may do, or not do, should have done, or could have done but didn’t, let’s take delight in the Lord and posture His love by demonstrating forgiveness, wisdom, and exemplary character.
Offense is easy. hell makes sure ample opportunity abounds for offense. If the devil can get people motivated against people, prying their unity apart at the seams, then the people will become distanced from God, who is the very source of their peace, and maybe he can even influence them to learn to live with an ever deepening wounded conscience. To most people, peace is simply “the absence of strife.” But God’s view of peace is much deeper and much bigger than simply an “absence of conflict”. The Lord says true peace comes when we are re-established between ourselves and God.
What will it take for you to be a peacemaker instead of an offense-taker? Are we willing to undertake the task of being peacemakers? After all, Matt5:9 says being a peacemaker is one of our ear marks.
As quoted from the Peacemakers Pledge, “Instead of blaming others for a conflict or resisting correction, let us trust in God’s mercy and take responsibility for our own contribution to conflicts.” If we get offended and think if we just go and tell the other person the problem, they’ll just own it…. well, chances are very good the other person doesn’t even know they’ve offended anyone, so we can’t expect the other person to make everything alright for us. It is our responsibility to be reconciled to God; no one can accept the peace offering of the Blood of Jesus for us, neither can we receive this gift of God on behalf of someone else.
Another quote from the Peacekeepers Pledge says, “Instead of pretending that conflict doesn’t exist or talking about others behind their backs, we will overlook minor offenses or we will talk personally and graciously with those whose offenses seem too serious to overlook, seeking to restore rather than condemn. When a conflict cannot be resolved in private, we will ask others in the body of Christ to help us settle the matter in a biblical manner. Matthew 18:15 from the Message, “If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you’ve made a friend.” That is called being a peacemaker. Did you get that? If THEY hurt YOU, !YOU! go to them and practice your conflict resolution. And if they don’t then knock the dust from your feet and wait on God to resolve the dilemma.
How many of us get offended and just quit on the relationship and go home, saying, “I’ll never speak to her again!” or “That’s the last time I give him any of my time!” OR, and i think this is often the action most take….. we smile, speak our spiritual talk only if necessary, generally keeping silent while maintaining our fascade of well being…. and just move away, maybe even to another church body, allowing the offense to stand and fester, thinking if we just don’t say anything, maybe it will go away. My friend, No, it does not just “go away”, there are no words which come out of your mouth which do nothing and will just “go away”. Do you know just how many offended people there are in churches today? There are so so many sheep from another pasture out there church surfing because somewhere they got offended and just moved to another body until they got offended and then moved again, and then moved again ….until it became a lifestyle of not dealing with conflict and simply moving on. It is truly a scandal!!
In John 6, when Jesus said “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him,” His disciples had a hard time with this. So Jesus asked them the question, “Does this offend you?” “Offend” is the Greek word, skandalizo, where we get our word for scandal. What Jesus was asking was “do you think my words cause you to stumble, becoming entrapped?” Offense is a trap, it immobilizes and neutralizes the offended person.
Offense is a stumbling block, but by the grace of God we can turn it from a stumbling down to a stepping up.
Conflict resolution has got to be one of the most under-developed skills in the Body of Christ. Honestly, i think true “peacemakers” are hard to find today, but i also think that in the days ahead, God will raise us up to be just that, peacemakers.
How about this? Instead of accepting premature compromise or allowing relationships to wither and fade, how about we actively pursue genuine peace and reconciliation—forgiving others like Jesus has forgiven us? How about if we take the time to look for and find … just and mutually beneficial solutions to our differences?
i tell you this too, just because we’ve forgiven an offense and gone to the other person and found an amicable solution, by no means signifies we must allow that other person back in our lives. There truly are some people in this world who are not good for us.
My job as a peacemaker is to reconcile men to God, with other human beings and with their own selves. When Jesus walked the earth as a man, the world was divided. One race hated other races, one nation hated other nations, and people of one religion hated other religions. An example of this is the feelings between Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish man thanked God for not being a Gentile, a slave or a woman. He despised the half-breed Samaritans, even to the point of walking many miles out of his way to avoid contact. He was saying to himself, “Oh my gosh, i’m so glad i’m not you because you’re so wrong and i’m so right.”
Peacemaking starts at home. The starting point of being a peacemaker for others is that we, ourselves, first must make peace with God. If we can be at peace and comfortable within our own skin, i believe that is a huge hurdle we’ve jumped by the grace of God which easily impacts the world around us.
What’d’ya think? Peacemaker or offense-taker? What’s it gonna be? Learning conflict resolution or just being mobile sheep; finding win/win solutions, being honest and trusting God, OR leading a life of being offended and always moving on to another pasture? We all must decide for ourselves. Think about it.
Hear this and hear well…as one fellow wrote: “Jesus embraced the worst sinner, touched the vilest leper, purified the most despicable prostitute, took all types of people and joined them together into one beautiful family of God. He paid a high price but saw his mission as a peacemaker as a priority in his life.”
The solution for family feuds, racial strife and civil conflict is Jesus. Peace does not come by political party, economic system, national flag or the United Nations. Jesus is the One who brings peace.
Thank you for listening in this evening. i’m Social Porter with Cletus Iaomi and this has been Outposts, cool acoustic jazz and contemplative conversation, brought to you by Living In His Name Ministries, the always amazing Andrea at Viva coffee house in Tucson Arizona, Area 22 Guitars, Kyle Walker alias Joe, Miss Gertrude Allen, Eugene Fowler at Fowlers Amoco Service, Myrtle Long, and Trinity Bakers where there’s always something good in the oven.
All music was by the Pete Minger Quartet, Jazz For A Rainy Day, Billy Cobham, Alex Gunia, and Curtis Fuller. All music use is licensed by BMI.
Do you spend your time pasting band aids on situations, just keeping the chaos and turmoil to a low boil until the next offense and explosion of drama in your life, or are you willing to do the work of learning to be a peacemaker, practicing God’s idea of conflict resolution, learning how to foster a long term, creative solution that is a win/win for everyone?
Matthew 5:44-45”… Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”
Make peace with God, yourself, and your neighbor, BE the example of how the Lord asks us to conduct ourselves. Peace my friends, real peace in the name of Jesus. Amen.