Active Peace

Peace sounds great until it costs you something. We start the week by getting honest about a common mistake: calling conflict avoidance “peace” and hoping time will smooth out what we refuse to face. Using Matthew 5:9, we break down why the Beatitude “Blessed are the peacemakers” is not a compliment for staying quiet or keeping the mood nice. It’s a call to action.

We dig into what the word peacemaker actually means in its original Greek sense, and it’s strikingly active: peace plus making. That shift changes everything about biblical peacemaking and Christian conflict resolution. Real peace doesn’t come from pretending, postponing, or compromising your convictions. It comes when we step into the tension with truth, love, and gentleness, refusing to bully but also refusing to hide.

We also talk about the hidden cost of sweeping issues under the rug. Unspoken frustration in marriage, unresolved stress with kids, and lingering grievances with friends don’t disappear. They pile up until a small moment triggers a big reaction, and then we wonder why we feel stuck. Jesus shows us the opposite pattern by stepping into our deepest conflict to bring lasting peace.

Before you move on with your day, we give you one clear action step: identify the conversation you’ve been avoiding and bring it into the light. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs courage, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

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Welcome And Week One Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning. Happy Monday. Welcome to the Field Notes, a five-day devo from right here at Mission Scent. And we are on a new week this week looking at what it means to be a peacemaker. Now remember, this is only going to be, you know, around five minutes long. So there's going to be a lot that's going to hit you. You can always go back and re-listen to if you need to. But our full sermon is always available at MissionScent. Just look at that wherever you get your podcast, or you can always hit it up at missionscent.org forward slash church. So let's jump into today, right? It's Monday. We're going to get our week started right and we're going to do things different starting this morning.

Active Peace Versus Avoidance

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Day one here, we are looking at active peace, not avoided conflict. And we are looking at Matthew 5.9, which says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. It's one of the most famous Beatitudes. We've all heard it. And a lot of us misunderstand what the word peacemaker means. See, when we hear peacemaker, some of us, our first thought goes to the cult firearm from the Wild West, right? The cult peacemaker. Some of us we think of that person that just no matter what doesn't like get rattled and they don't want to rock the boat and they avoid conflict. That's not what a peacemaker is. Although the cult one is true. And it actually has more in line with what a peacemaker actually is in scripture.

What Peacemaker Means In Greek

SPEAKER_00 1:41

See if we look at the original language, like we looked at on Sunday, we understand that this is not a passive concept at all. In fact, the Greek word, which is a reino poios, is a compound word made of these two words, arene meaning peace, and poieo meaning to make. It is literally an active word. It is an active thing to be a peacemaker. A peacemaker doesn't just avoid conflict and call it peace. A peacemaker enters into conflict with truth, with love, and with gentleness and makes peace. And you can't make peace without entering into conflict. That's the hard truth we have to swallow right out of the gate. If we want to be a peacemaker, we cannot avoid conflict. That is not making peace. That is compromising. And that puts us in a very bad position. See, making peace and avoiding conflict are very different things. And I know how easy it is to want to avoid a fight. And I'm not saying that there's not wisdom in that from time to time.

The Hidden Cost Of Unspoken Conflict

SPEAKER_00 3:02

For example, in the example I gave in my message on Sunday, my wife Debbie does not like to argue. She is a conflict avoider. She hates arguing because it emotionally drains her. And so she will do everything she can to steer clear of an argument. However, me on the other hand, it's not that I go and look for arguments because being a peacemaker does not mean you're a bully. But if an argument comes up, I'm not gonna shy away from it either. I'm going to lean into it. I'm gonna go, hey, let's dig into this. Let's it's gonna get awkward, it's gonna get emotional, it's gonna get all of those things, but let's lean into it, let's dig into it, and let's get down to what is actually going on. Let's deal with the problem head on, and then we can move away from the problem into peace. See, a lot of us are still holding on to things from years ago because we didn't want to deal with it, because we're we avoid conflict. We just swept it under the rug, and we don't realize that that pile under the rug is what we keep tripping on nowadays as we're trying to move through life. We pushed all the conflict down, we never talked about it, and we we had this fake idea of what peace is, and then we wonder why there'sn't a massive explosion in our lives because someone asked, What do we want for dinner? See, a peacemaker doesn't run from the uncomfortable, awkward moments. A peacemaker actively steps straight into the conflict.

Jesus As The Model Peacemaker

SPEAKER_00 4:38

And we see this in Jesus. Jesus leaving glory in John 1, when it says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is showing us what it looks like to enter into the conflict. The conflict of sin and death, the conflict that we have been experiencing since Genesis 3, he steps into it and goes, Hey, I'm gonna fix this. I'm gonna bring peace.

One Hard Conversation To Start Today

SPEAKER_00 5:04

So today, your action step is to identify one area in your life. Maybe it's a marriage issue, maybe it's frustration with your kids or a lingering grievance that you've had with a friend. Whatever hard conversation you've been trying to avoid, commit to bringing it to the light today. Have that conversation today. I know it will be uncomfortable, I know it'll be awkward, but it'll only be uncomfortable and awkward for a minute. It leads to true peace. So we can't wait to see you tomorrow morning right here on Field Notes.