Extreme Life Makeover
Galatians 5:22-23 - Peace
This is our third week in the Extreme Life Makeover
series. I watched an episode of the TV
show Extreme Home Makeover this week. It
is such a great show. And I love that
part where they destroy the old house. I
guess because they get to build a brand new house. One of the things I have
learned in remodeling is that as you try to repair or remodel an area, you
often end up uncovering more problems – in an unending cycle. And you often end up feeling it would have
been better if I had just destroyed that thing and started all new. Well, remember, that is what God says he
wants to do to us. When by faith we
accept God’s grace in Jesus, God gives us a brand new life. That means the old person dies. We don’t get a remodeling job or just
redecorating. We get a brand new
life. That new life is well described in
Galatians 5:22-23. It is described as
fruit the Holy Spirit grows in us. It
doesn’t take just seven days like the house in the show on TV. It begins with an instantaneous new life God
gives us at conversion. God forgives us
and makes us right with him. But then
there is a LIFE-LONG process of growing the character of Jesus in our
lives. The third fruit is peace.
Jesus is the secret of peace. When you get Him in your life
you're going to be at peace. When we
come to faith in Jesus, almost everyone feels a need for peace in their life –
especially peace with God. We know that
this is an area we cannot help ourselves and we need God to do an Extreme Life
Makeover with us.
Proverbs 29:8 – “Fools
start fights everywhere; wise men try to keep the peace.” (Living Bible) Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount – “Blessed
are the peacemakers.” Today we are going
to look at peace and peacemaking from the Bible.
I. Misconceptions
about peace.
Lloyd Cory once said, “Peace is the brief glorious moment
in history when everybody stands around reloading.” That is not peace. It is funny, but not peace.
A. Peace is not avoiding a problem. Peace is not running from a problem, ignoring an issue, pretending that it doesn't exist, sticking your head in the sand. A lot of people simply avoid issues rather than face them "Let's just don't talk about it. Don't make waves " But an unresolved conflict is like termites in your relationship. If you don't deal with an issue eventually it will bring the house down. When you avoid a conflict, by just running from a problem, that's not peacemaking. That's cowardice. Peacemaking does not mean “I'll just ignore the problem, run from it.”
B. Peacemaking is not appeasing another person for the sake of avoiding conflict. In other words, I always
give in to your ways, have it your way, do it your way. I'm manipulated, I'm dominated by you. God doesn't expect you to be a doormat. You study the ministry of Jesus Christ, Jesus never backed off from a legitimate issue. Sometimes, confrontation is appropriate. When people say, "Because you're a Christian you have to give in and do what I say " That's called manipulation, folks. When you always give in for the other person, that's called co-dependency. God doesn't expect you to be a doormat. That's not peacemaking. The result of appeasement is always resentment in the long run. It builds up in yourself When I swallow my feelings, my stomach keeps score. And I can't have a healthy relationship with you because it's a sick relationship. Peace at any price is not legitimate peace.
II. How to be a
peacemaker – God’s way.
A. Know and experience God’s peace through Christ – let God
be your peacemaker. Notice the greetings
in almost all the N.T. letters (epistles).
“Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.” To experience God’s peace, we must deliberately believe in God’s work
and promises. Specifically, we must
believe that God sent His Son Jesus to earth to die for our sins on the cross,
so that those who place their faith in His death and punishment in place of our
own could be at peace with God with the promise of eternal life. A person cannot experience the peace of God
until he has experienced the grace of God.
It is interesting how people try to find peace or sometimes how they are
resigned that they cannot find it at all.
Video – “Peace”
Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” In other words, I can now make the choices that do not come naturally, because that strength is found in Christ who first treated me with love and made peace with me. I know God's peace, and that enables me to do what is not natural to me - to treat others with the same love and unselfishness that brings helps make peace.
Isaiah 26:3 – “You
will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts
are fixed on you!”
B. How to be a peacemaker with others.
P = Plan a peace conference.
Take the initiative and don't wait for them to make the first move. Matthew 5.23-24 tells us if you remember that your brother has something against you, go first to make peace. When does it say to do it? At once. Don't delay. Don' wait. Don't postpone. If you're the offender or if you're the offended, the Bible says, the ball is always in your court. You take the initiative. You take the first step.
You say, "But they hurt me. Why should I do that?" Because Jesus says so. If you're a believer you're to always take the initiative in seeking peace, whether you have been offended or you are the offender. Why? Well first, because that's how God treated you. Romans 5:8 tells us that God made the first move to peace with us. While we were still sinners, He demonstrated His love by sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Colossians 1:20 says, “He made peace through the blood of His cross.” God set the example.
Secondly, the longer you wait to resolve a relationship
problem the bigger it gets. Peacemakers always take the initiative. In 1979, Anwar Sadat of
Here is the first step.
Schedule a face to face peace conference with someone you have been at
odds with. Do it when it is convenient
for them – at a place they will feel comfortable. Think of a person you need to make peace with
and take that step.
E – Empathize with their feelings.
1 Peter 3:8 – “All of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.” He's saying you need to be sympathetic and empathetic. Once you've set down in a peace conference with a person you're having a problem with - your husband, your wife, a parent, a teenager, a partner at work, a neighbor - the first things you do is listen. Listen to them. You don't talk. You don't try to get your point across. You just listen to them. You may learn something. Why? Listening shows you care. People don't care how much I know until they know how much I care. The starting point is to listen because if you care you'll be aware and you empathize with their feelings, you let them say their piece before you deal with it. Sympathy is saying, “I'm sorry you hurt.” Empathy says, “I hurt with you.” This does not mean that you say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. It means you say, “I'm sorry you hurt.” The Bible says to "weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice."
1 Peter reminds men, “You husbands, likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way.” In any relationship with conflict, that is not a natural behavior – understanding. But Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” In other words, I know God did this with me first, so I can rely on the strength from that fact to help me make the choice that is not natural to be understanding with someone I have conflict with.
Cartoon: Wife said, “I know you believe you understand what you think I said but I'm not sure you realize what you heard is not what I meant.”
Sigmund Freud: “Despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul I have not yet been able to answer the great question, What does a woman want?”
Frustration often occurs when we don’t understand each
other and feel we can’t win no matter what we do or say. I like the way
that the Living Bible paraphrases Romans 15.2 – “We must bear the burden of being considerate of the doubts and fears
of others.” Philippians 2:4 says, “Don’t
look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.”
If you want to make peace you need to empathize with these three things -
people doubts, fears and interests. Whenever there is conflict in a
relationship, it's usually because you're not sympathizing, you're not being
considerate of other people's doubts when you “have no doubts about it,” or other
people's fears when you're “not afraid of it,” or other people's interests when
you “couldn't care less about it.” But if you care, you will be aware.
In Philippians 2:4, when it says to “look out for” the interests of others, the words “look out for” come from the Greek word scopos. It is the word we get scope from. It is like the scope on a rifle or a telescope, microscope or stethescope. Scopos literally means “to focus on, to pay attention to.” If you want to make peace with somebody, you've got to change the focus from just looking at what you need, your hurts, your needs, your wants, your fears, your doubts and to focus on their needs, hurts, wants, doubts and fears. When somebody is hurting you, it's natural to want to hurt back - hurt people hurt people. One reason people hurt others is because they're hurting inside. So often you have to look beyond the hurt that you're receiving and ask, “What is hurting them that's causing them to hurt me?”
This is not natural, because when you are angry you naturally focused on yourself. When I'm ticked off, I'm thinking about my needs, my hurts, how you have abused my rights, how you have hurt me. When I'm angry all I can think of is me. I have to make a mental shift in which I choose to consider, to focus on, your needs, your doubts, your fears, your interests. When you say, “I can't help it, it just makes me mad when ...” - that isn't accurate if you have Christ in your life. Because with Christ, we now have the power to choose to resist what comes naturally.
Once you sit down at this peace conference with this person you've had conflict with, you say, “We're not going to avoid it anymore. We're not going to sweep it under the cover. We're not going to just appease each other and pretend it's OK. Let's deal with it.” You first listen and ask yourself, what are his needs, what are her needs, what is hurting them. One of the real values of conflict is that when you resolve it, it always creates greater understanding. Through conflict you work out what each other is like. Couples that have had tremendous conflict and have worked it out, actually have greater understanding of each other than those who don't. Ironically, a key to intimacy is conflict. If you never have any conflict you always deal on the surface level and not really how you have major differences. But when you deal with conflict in a positive way and resolve it, it creates greater understanding (I understand you more, you understand me more) and that creates intimacy. The very thing that you think is often going to separate you, if you'll go through that tunnel of conflict, will actually bring you closer and make you stronger than if you'd just ignored the problem, or hid it, or pretended it didn't exist.
A – Attack the problem, not the person.
This is tricky, but it can be learned. On the one hand you've got to attack the problem in your relationship honestly whether it's a friendship, partnership, marriage or whatever. You've got to deal with it, not beat around the bush, you've got to say this is wrong, this is not right, there's something wrong in our relationship. You face the truth about your relationship. Be straightforward about it, candid, blunt - on the one hand, attack the problem.
On the other hand, you need to attack the problem without attacking the person. So you need to speak the truth in love.
Facing the facts is how you have peace in a relationship. When we lie to each other, we're only hurting ourselves and you're only hurting your relationship. But by speaking the truth in love as Ephesians 4:15 tells us to do, “we grow up in all aspects into Him.” What are you pretending is not a problem in your relationship? What are you pretending not to know? Anytime I talk with someone about conflict in one of their relationships and there's no peace, it tells me one thing: somebody's hiding something. It is the truth that sets you free. You've got to be honest.
But do it in a spirit of love. You say it in a way that you value the relationship. You're never persuasive when you're abrasive. You don't get your point across by being cross. You've got to stop fixing the blame in order to start fixing the problem. There is no place in peacemaking for sarcasm and labeling and nagging and judging. You know by experience that those things don't change anybody anyway. They don't work. Speak the truth in the spirit of love.
Ephesians 4:29 teaches us “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” Be realistic, but optimistic about the relationship. If you say something offensively it will be received defensively. I could probably say in just a few sentences enough to alienate everybody here this morning. I could make you all mad real quick, just by the tone of my voice and a poor choice of words. On the other hand, I could say the same truths, but say it in a positive way, and you'll sit there going “Yes, that makes sense.”
So let me suggest some ground rules for you - 7 rules for
fighting fair in a relationship.
1. Never compare. Never say, “Why can’t you be like ...” or “You’re just like…”. It’s unfair to compare.
2. Never condemn. Never say, “You should…” “You ought to …” “You must …” “It’s all your fault…” These are absolutes. Whenever you start a sentence with an absolute, it is perceived as a condemnation. Use words like “It seems” or “It feels like.”
3. Never command. Never end an argument by force. “I demand you do what I say.”
4. Never challenge. Don’t threaten people. “Just try that one more time and see what happens.” The most common items used in threats are money, sex and divorce. You are deteriorating the relationship every time you do that.
5. Never condescend. Don’t belittle, ridicule or play psychologist. Don’t say things like “I know why you do that.” You can’t figure our your own motives well enough much less someone else’. Jeremiah tells us in the Old Testament that the human heart is deceptive above all things. Who can understand it?
6. Never contradict. Don’t interrupt in the middle of a sentence. Wait your turn to talk.
7. Never confuse. Don’t bring up unrelated issues to create a diversion. Stick to the main issue.
Following these rules helps you to attack the problem and not the person.
C – Cooperate as much as possible.
Look for areas where you can compromise. Try to find areas of common ground. Where can we be flexible? Where can we meet in the middle? Where can you give a little and I give a little? Compromise is essential in every relationship.
Romans 12:18 – “If it
is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”
(NIV)
Wisdom is willing to yield to others. Compromise. Wisdom allows discussion. If you are wise you'll compromise. It’s foolish to be inflexible. You cooperate as much as possible. More marriages die from inflexibility than from adultery or abuse, alcohol or anything else. They are just unwilling to change, unwilling to move, to budge. The excuse I've heard so many times – “We're just incompatible.” In other words, “I demand they change in this way, but they won't, so it's over.”
Incompatibility is a myth. Two of the most respected
psychiatrists in
Dr. Paul Popineau, director of the
Psalm 37:37 – “Look at those who are honest and good, for a wonderful future awaits those who love peace.” Compromise pays off.
E – Emphasize reconciliation not resolution.
There's a big difference. “Reconciliation” means to reestablish the relationship. “Resolution” means to resolve every issue. You're just not going to resolve every issue. You try, but you reconcile even when you cannot agree on something.
Why is this? We are all shaped differently. God has used many things to shape you: spiritual gifts, your passion, what your interests are, unique abilities, unique personality, unique experiences in life. We are all as different as snowflakes. That means it is inevitable that there's going to be differences in a relationship.
However, you can disagree without being disagreeable. You can have unity in a relationship without having uniformity. Just like churches. In the church, you separate the essentials from the non-essentials. There are some things you cannot compromise on and some you must compromise on. You do not compromise on the resurrection of Jesus, but you do not make the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper an issue of fellowship. It's an important issue, but it's not an essential. Likewise in relationships, there are some fundamental essentials, but a whole lot of non-essentials. You can walk hand in hand in a relationship without seeing eye to eye on everything You can have reconciliation without having resolution of every difference. Because you are different. When two people agree on everything, one of them isn't necessary. God meant for those differences. In fact, opposites often attract. Once they're married they often attack. So you have to get back on track by emphasizing reconciliation not resolution.
2 Corinthians 5:18 – “God
reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation.” Reconciliation is a synonym for being a peacemaker. It says God is a peacemaker. He has made peace with us through Jesus Christ. Now he has given to you the ministry of being a peacemaker. First in helping bring people to a reconciled relationship with God. But that’s hardly possible unless you are at peace with that person you are sharing Jesus with. When you attempt to be a peacemaker you're doing the work of God. When you're restoring relationships, you're doing the work of God. Who do you need to seek reconciliation with? A husband? wife? daughter? son? friend? parent?
What’s the conflict in your life? How do you become a peacemaker there? You first have to have peace in your own heart. Where do you get that peace? By meeting the Prince of Peace – Jesus. And you ask the Holy Spirit to help you grow peace in your life.
When you are filled with anger and selfishness, almost
anything can make you mad. But when you
are filled with God’s peace, not much rattles you. Like a toothpaste tube, whatever is inside
you when you put on the squeeze will come out.
If you're filled with God's peace, when the squeeze is on you and
the world puts on pressure, His peace is going to come out. But if you're
filled with yourself and your ego and your pride then when the world puts on
the pressure that's what's going to come out.
Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”
Jesus Christ can take the broken pieces of your life and replace them with His unbroken peace. When you accept God's peace, you can begin to have peace with other people that you never thought possible. Are you at peace with God? I'm not talking about a truce. A truce is saying, “God, you stay on your side of the line and I'll stay on my side. God, you handle all the big problems of the world, I'll handle my life.” That's not peace. That's a truce. Peace comes when you say, “Jesus Christ come into my life and give me Your peace. Lead me, guide me, help me to respond to people the way You would and give me the power to do it.” Are your relationships today characterized more by peace or conflict? Who do you need to make peace with? Parent? Husband? Wife? Brother? Sister? Daughter? Son? Coworker, Former Friend... You may not be able to resolve all those issues but you can make peace in the relationship. Maybe you need to go home and sit down and make phone calls and set up a peace conference and take these steps. But before you do you need to let Christ come into your life and fill you with His peace.