To bring about lasting peace as a peacemaker, you must first experience peace with God through Jesus Christ in salvation. We will talk more about this later, but here is how John Piper sums it up:
"In other words, even though by nature we are rebels against God and have committed high treason and are worthy to be eternally court-martialed and hanged by the neck until dead, nevertheless God has sacrificed his own Son and now declares amnesty free and clear to any who will lay down their arms of independence and come home to faith." (
Source.)
Once a person is reconciled to God and at peace with Him, how does he or she help bring peace to others? The greatest way to help foster peace for others is by introducing them to the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. That is the grand privilege and responsibility of those who know Christ and who desire to be peacemakers.
There are also other ways to be a peacemaker and help bring about reconciliation to warring parties. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones helped me with understanding better the responsibilities of peacemakers, who they are, and who they are not. He writes that the first and primary characteristic of those who promote peace is, "you
learn not to speak. If only we could all control our tongues, there would be much less discord in this world." When someone says something and you are tempted to reply, do not say anything. "Do not repeat things when you know they are going to do harm." This is great advice for promoting peace among families, businesses, and especially in churches. We have a long way to go here. In church, we justify our gossip and tearing people down by cloaking it as a prayer request. But have you ever noticed that after someone shreds the character and judges the motives of another person, there is no prayer, even though it was a prayer request! "We must control our tongues and our lips. The peacemaker is a man who does not say things. He often feels like saying them, but for the sake of peace, he does not."
Next, Jones instructs us to
view every "situation in light of the gospel." How will the issue bring about a blessing and a furtherance of the gospel? The next principle he gives after that is, "You must now
become positive and go out of your way to look for means and methods of making peace." He says at this point, before we speak, we should humble ourselves, perhaps even apologizing, and then try to be friendly and do all you can to produce peace.
The last thing he offered his church at Westminster Chapel in London, England, and what he offers the reader today is, "as peacemakers, we should
be endeavoring to diffuse peace wherever we are. We do this by being selfless, by being lovable, by being approachable, and by not standing on our own dignity." (
Lloyd-Jones, p. 106-107)
His words are convicting, are they not? But they are so very true. Think about the peace that would flood our lives if we lived by these principles of being a peacemaker.
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