The Cost of Peace | Matt Shetler

We live in a world obsessed with winning arguments and protecting our peace. But Jesus calls us to something harder and better: making peace. In this week's message, we dig into what shalom actually means, why peacekeeping and peacemaking aren't the same thing, and what it looks like to go first — even when it costs you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

This is the last week of our series called Blessed, and we've been exploring uh some of the Beatitudes. Uh we didn't go through all of them, we're going through some of them. And um this week we're gonna talk about blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they'll be called children of God, which is interesting because I don't know about you, but it f it doesn't just feel like, but we really are living in a time of conflict, a time of war. It might, and it's not just that it feels like it. Statistically, there's actually more armed conflicts and wars happening now than there were 15 years ago, twice as many, actually. Uh we think about the ones that are on our news headlines, right, in Iran and Ukraine and Gaza. Those are the ones that hit our headlines. We don't often hear about wars that have been going on much longer, like in Congo and Ethiopia and Sudan. Some of those actually hit home to people that are parts of our church community. And if we look in our country right now, though there might not be war in our country with missiles and guns and bullets, those things happen with shootings. It certainly feels at times like we're in the middle of a war in our own country, a culture war, though, right? A war around ideas, beliefs, lifestyles, politics. And if we listen to media on every side of the spectrum, we're told that there are enemies everywhere we look. We're under attack. Whatever your position is, whatever your stance is, whatever your beliefs, they're under attack. And you need to be careful. Whether it's attacking our way of life, our religious beliefs, the stability of our government, even in Lakewood, right? Even in Lakewood, whatever things are happening on, right? There's been a lot of things going on with our schools, and it's, you know, people who just used to be our neighbors put out a different yard sign, and all of a sudden it's like, ugh, I don't know. I don't know if I can trust that person anymore. I don't know where they're coming from. We're told, and maybe we feel like everything is under attack, right? Democracy, families, freedoms, rights, economy, way of living, foundational beliefs. And others quickly become the enemy. Quickly become an us versus them. And this is not, this is not to make light of disagreements. There are real things that are being debated in our country, and in our in our culture, even in our city, that really do matter. They impact real people. So don't hear that they don't impact real people. They do. And they should be engaged with, debated on, voted on. But what's interesting, with all the disagreement in our country, here's one thing that an NBC poll found that everyone and almost everyone in our country, both sides of the aisle, majority of people agree with this. They agree with that the language we use and the rhetoric we use, the extreme language of attack and enemies, it's increasing the level of violence in our country. Everyone agrees with that. Now, this isn't going to be surprising to you, but do you know who they think is really at fault? The other party. They're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The language is terrible. It's dividing us as a country. Everybody agrees with it. But like, well, no, not my language. No, like their language. Like the way they talk about things. The way that they discuss that principle. Not me. Literally, the poll. It splits down. Everyone thinks, yes, our language is creating division and enemies and a sense of war, but then everyone thinks it's the other person. Right? That's probably not that surprising. In other words, no one is taking responsibility. And there's always someone else to blame. And I don't know about you, maybe you've seen this in your relationships, but when no one accepts any blame, that's simply a recipe for things getting worse. The divide between us as people keeps getting wider as we draw clear lines between us and them. But it's not just out there where we create enemies. It's not just like culturally, you know, whatever, whether it's CNN's telling us or Fox News is telling us or whatever it might be. It's not just that we create enemies with people that we vote differently or believe differently or have different lifestyles. We do this in our own relationships. We do it in our own living rooms, in our own families. Let me share an example from my life. So our family, um, gratefully, based on our schedules, are able to eat dinner together pretty much every night, which is amazing. I know that's not able for everybody. And uh, we love it. But last week, if you heard uh the talk about distraction and focus, I was like, hey, I can be easily distracted. I can struggle to focus. And sometimes that's at the dinner table as well, too. And sometimes that looks like me having my phone out at the dinner table. And of course I'm I'm not, and to be honest, it's rarely that I'm screwing social. I'm like maybe doing a grocery order, I'm looking at like work email, which is not better, by the way. But uh, I guess I tried to make it sound better, didn't I? That's like why I said it. I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not like you who does social media. I'm being productive. Uh but let's be honest, that doesn't my kids don't experience it any different. My wife doesn't experience it any different. And sometimes she will gently, and if you know my wife, you know this is true, this is not tongue in cheek, gently will say to me, Hey, um, could you put your phone away? Oh my gosh. Can I just tell you what I feel inside when she says that? Like, my first reaction is like defense. It's like, then I feel shame, and then I feel like then I'm like, well, I'm thinking you do it too. Sometimes I say that out loud. Uh and I feel embarrassed and I feel challenged, and the deeper thing that's happening is like as I reflect it, not even that deep of a reflection, but in the moment it's like, what is like what is she saying about me as a husband or as a father that she has to ask me to be present? What does that say about me? That I she has to be like, hey Matt, can you be present to our family? And she never says it con 100%, no sarcasm. She just never says it condescendingly to me. It's always gentle and kindness. But in that moment, it's easier for me to make her into the problem. And to make her into the enemy is why would you bring that up? Why would you say that? That doesn't make me feel good. It's easy to make her into the enemy and me to just avoid whatever I need to focus on, which is probably tossing my phone onto the couch. Because in that moment I feel like my identity is attacked, my character is attacked, it touches an insecurity or a fear about me. And she becomes the enemy. And this is often how enemies get made. Not just out there, but in here. An us versus them. We have this ability just to a knack for creating enemies or putting people on one side of the other. And then a world like ours, full of conflict and full of division, whether it's on the news, whether it's in our community, whether it's at our dinner table, Jesus steps into a world like that, because his world wasn't that different in those ways, and he says this in Matthew 5 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Now let's be honest, in our world, and it's easy to go out there in our world, let's see, in here, let's just say in here, even, just by statistics, right? Including with peacemakers are short in supply in our world, in our community, peacemakers. And the same was true for Jesus in his day. When Jesus taught this message, taught this, taught this to us in the Beatitudes, he was giving this sermon called the Sermon on the Mount, his most famous teaching he ever gave. And this language of blessed are the peacemakers, and this idea of peace, this word for peace, would have been really, really common and familiar language because peace was a strong theme, a consistent theme throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, which would have been their Bible at the time. And to understand what Jesus means by peacemaker, we have to understand what this word peace means. Not to us, but to them. And when they heard the word peace, that would have been in Greek or Aramaic then, they would have thought of this Hebrew concept of peace because they were Jewish. Those are the scriptures written in Judah in the Hebrew. And it would have been this word shalom. Have you ever heard this word shalom? Shalom is one of the richest and most important words in the Hebrew Bible. Why? Because it rarely means what we think of when we say the English word peace. It's important for us to know because it's an important theme and it's important for us to dive into. When we think the word peace, and when I think about it, often it's the absence of conflict, right? It's like at the end of the day, when you get in your car and you go, ah, and like the emails aren't coming, you know, maybe we have our phone turned on, silence, like we just hear like the hum of the engine, or even we didn't even turn the car on because we just went the silence. We think peace. And that's not bad, by the way. Those are good things, right? Or we think of no stress and no anxiety. Again, very good things, all the things that I want in my life. But when Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers, his understanding of peace is quite different. It was much less about the absence of something and much more about the presence of something. Because this word shalom, it's this experience of wholeness, of completeness, of everything being as it should be. So a better English translation might be flourishing. Blessed are those who who who help, who make those to flourish, or well-being in every dimension of life. For peace it was that all things were as they should be. So when they would greet someone in in Hebrew, when you say, How are you doing? it would be mashalomka, which is meaning literally, what's the state of your shalom? What's the state of your peace? In other words, how's your peace? How's your well-being? How are your relationships? How's your physical health? Do you have enough to eat? How's your community in relationships? Is it is your community, is your family a place of justice and order and mercy? When you're saying, how is where is the peace there? It's this is what's coming. It's not just, am I feeling peaceful?

unknown 10:58

Right?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

And I want to feel peaceful, by the way. Like I want to. But shalom speaks to ourselves, to our relationships, in our world functioning as God intended them to be. It's not just the quiet on the drive home, or when my kids stop fighting, or when you finished your yoga class. Those are good things. I love breathing techniques, like I'll do when I'm feeling anxious, like, because my body matters, and so like, how do we like lower it? That all that matters. It matters. Your body matters. But that's not the depth of peace that Jesus is talking about. It falls short. And so if peace is different, then when Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers, then he is talking about something different as well, too. He's talking about people who are actively working to restore what's broken. They're actively working to restore what's broken in relationships, in their neighborhoods, at their workplaces, in their schools. They're actively working to bring restoration. And in every generation and society, including the ones that Jesus spoke to and the ones that we're at, usually the loudest voices are those who are not interested in peacemaking, but winning an argument. Getting their point across. And today, if we talk about peace at all, we usually talk about our inner peace. Sometimes we make choices to avoid conflict, to maintain our peace. We talk about protecting our peace. But it's rare that we talk about making peace. Because sometimes when we try to keep the peace or protect our peace, what we're actually doing is costing us and others real peace. Let me give you an example of just the last couple weeks with myself. So my son William, uh, some of you guys have met him, he's gonna be six in a couple months. And we're at the playground right by our house, Madison Park. And he was playing with some friends, and then I saw him playing with some other kids I'd never seen before, but they were a couple years older, probably, I don't know, second or third grade. And uh he looked like he was having fun, you know, he was having a good time. And uh we're about to leave, and first his friend comes down, and then William comes down and says, Hey, these kids were tricking me. And I was like, What do you mean tricking you? Well, they were they like lied to me about something, and then they said, Well, that's because kindergartners believe anything. And uh he was like, Will you talk to them for me? Will you talk to them, Daddy? And and he actually told me that he went up to them and said, Hey, why are you why are you doing this? This isn't kind. He actually confronted these older kids. And I told him how proud I was of his response. And uh but when he asked me to go talk to them, I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to, I'm like, I don't want to like at first they were kind of higher up on the playground, like, I don't want to walk up there. And then I was like, okay, uh, William, if they're down here when we leave, then I'll go talk to them. And uh he goes, okay. And then I saw them down there, and I just didn't say anything about it and just walked away. I mean, I was like, you know, William, sometimes it's just better to just like walk away from a situation. Sometimes it's better to just like not confront things, just walk away, play with some other kids, which is good advice. But I was saying that because I really didn't want to talk to those kids. And can I be honest? Man, that's sad on me for the last couple weeks. Because here's my kindergartner son who says, Will you talk to those boys? And I, because it I didn't really want to. It wasn't on principle, because it felt uncomfortable. I could have done it with kindness and gentleness, and hey guys, hey, it's so cool you can see you play. And I could have done it in a like, I wouldn't have done it confrontationally, been like, hey, hey, just something to pay attention to when you have younger kids, you know, just be kind to them. You know, like it's your responsibility to take care of younger kids. You know, I didn't have to be like a call out of a dad. But in that moment, I did what was comfortable. I didn't make peace. I didn't stand up for my son. I didn't give those kids an opportunity to learn. I chose comfort. I didn't make peace, I avoided conflict. And you can argue, well, maybe that was the right decision. I just knew my own motivation. And it was comfort. I just made the discomfort go away. But maybe some of that discomfort stayed with William, I don't know. And here's the thing. I could have called it peacekeeping. Keeping a status quo, not making things worse, but peacekeeping and peacemaking are very different things. They're very different things. Peacekeeping assumes that everything is already as it should be. Or nothing needs to change. Shalom is already present. But peacemaking looks at things very differently. Peacemaking sees the broken places in the relationships that aren't right. Peacemaking says, I see people who aren't experiencing shalom. I see people who aren't having maybe the experience that I am. And you step out of your comfort place to help them experience the peace that maybe you're experiencing. Peacemaking steps into uncomfortable situations when we would rather not, when it's easier to do nothing. Earlier this year, um, I'm part of the the national leadership team for the vineyard, and they had people uh come down, and we all met in Birmingham, Alabama, which when I heard we were going to Birmingham, Alabama, I'm like, why are we meeting there? I mean, Birmingham's fine, but before we met in Orlando, that sounds fun. But we went down there to take a civil rights tour, to see a lot of the historic sites of the civil rights. And we heard so much about the evil and conflict that happened during the civil rights movement and still in places happen today. But I also heard so much about people who are sacrificially peacemakers. We visited the 16th Street Baptist Church where little black girls were killed in this horrific bombing. But we heard about a church that instead of coming out in anger and rage, said, even more we're gonna work for peace. Even more we're gonna work for reconciliation, even more we're gonna stand up for what is right and what is just, instead of growing in anger and hate. We learned about Dr. King and his work down there in Montgomery, Alabama, during the bus boycott and sit-ins across the region. And here's the things that because sit-ins, if you're not familiar, they would go and sit at counters where white people were only supposed to be able to sit, and African Americans would go and sit there and just sit there. Because they weren't allowed to sit there as a position, as like a stance of going, this is not right. And before they did that, Dr. King and others would train them on what it looks like to be peacemakers. And so to do things with respect and kindness, to not act, but to just be present. And they would get arrested, and they would be told ahead of time, you're gonna get arrested for this. And in the 16th Street Baptist Church, here was the incredible thing. There was a whole wall of people we've never heard of. High school students, college students, who had all been arrested with all their mugshots. Because they said, making peace and seeing things made right is worth it. I thought, wow, I was like in awe. I'm like, I don't what would I do that? Like you're gonna get arrested. Like you're gonna get arrested for doing this thing, but you're standing up for what is right and true. And it wasn't just like people who had lived, it was high school students and college students. That's true peace. Shalom making, where things are not right and they're stepping in and saying, I want to see wholeness and peace for everybody. It's not comfort. It's not what feels easiest. And connected, I was thinking about this letter that uh maybe some of you heard the uh letter from Birmingham Jail written by MLK Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, and he was written from jail because he got arrested for protesting without a permit. And he was writing in response to eight white clergy, pastors and rabbis, who essentially said, Hey, Dr. King, we we agree in theory what you're doing, but what you're doing is not in the right time. It's not the right time. It's it's like not wise how you're doing it. Like, you know, you really need to do it in a different way. Like just try to go through the courts, try to go through the system, like try to do mediation, try to like, and they had done all those things and been stonewalled. And so they're like, we believe in theory, but you really just need to slow it down. And these men, and they were all men, weren't racist or villains. They believed in civil rights, they just wanted to happen quietly, without conflict, without like agitation, where they wanted peace to still be in the cities, peace meaning absence of conflict. Meaning, I don't want it to feel uncomfortable for me and those that I care about. And so MLK writes this response in the letter to a Birmingham from a Birmingham jail, and he essentially says that they were more committed to keeping things comfortable than to peacemaking, to their neighbors' freedom. Can't we find a quieter way to do that? And then he says, here's this one quote. And he says how, you know, for white clergy, they're experiencing discomfort, things are changing around them, and it doesn't feel good, couldn't you do it another way? That's what they're feeling. And he says, but here's what black families are feeling. He says, Perhaps it's easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, wait. But when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering, as you seek to explain it to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she's told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness towards white people. There's cost in peacemaking and peacekeeping. The question is who's bearing the cost? Me and William. I don't know. I need to talk to him and ask deeper questions. But who bore the cost if anyone did? Something more deep and significant. Who is bearing the cost of let's slow down, let's keep the peace, let's slow change it. There's always a cost. Jesus knew that the call to peacemaking would be challenging to us. He knew it would be. But when we step into peacemaking, Jesus says we'll be called children of God. Children of God. Not because somehow if we become peacemakers, God's like, I finally love you, now you can be in my family. But because we begin to look like our Father. We begin to look like God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they'll be called children of God. And you know, oftentimes in the Bible you hear that phrase, children of God, and we think about like how if when you put your trust in Jesus, like you begin to have this relationship with God reconciled and healed, and we all of a sudden become part of his family. And it's amazing being called God our Father, Abba Father. And that is true. But what most commentators say is that that phrase also, children of God can also speak to when someone begins to embody the characteristics of the person. They begin to embody that.

unknown 23:24

Right?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

And so they begin to, so it's saying you're children of God means you begin to embody the heart and character of God. Because in the Bible, when this phrase is used, it's not just describing our relationship to God, but our reflection of Him. We become children of God, people who work for peace, working to see people reconciled to God, to each other. It's so central in the character and mission of God in the world that to work for the same kind of peace is to be called his children. And how did God do this? Because God is the ultimate peacemaker. In Romans 5, we read that while we were enemies of God, that's when he came close to us. He didn't wait for us to get cleaned up or get ourselves together. He took the first step. That's when he came in Jesus to reconcile with us at the cost of his son's life. In verse 10, it says, For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his son, while we were still his enemies, we'll certainly be saved through the life of his son. See this God saying, You were my enemy. I was never your enemy, it wasn't my heart. And so I'm gonna take the first step. I'm gonna go first in reconciliation. Because this is what peacemakers do. They take the first step. And God took the first step and in Jesus reconciled us, and now we're called friends. We're called children. And this is where the power to become a peacemaker comes from. It's when we experience that grace from God Himself. Like that He, that we see our need for forgiveness. We see that we were the ones who had something against God, and He's come to make peace with us. That He took the first step. That there was a price to pay, and instead of peacekeeping, He made peace by taking the cost on Himself to make peace with us. Because there's always a price to pay for peace, and Jesus paid it. And when we've experienced this kind of peace in our own hearts, peace that gives us wholeness, peace that lets us know that we're loved and accepted and we belong and that He's created us with purpose and meaning. When we experience that kind of peace with Him, it can begin to change our hearts. It can begin to change us, and obviously we're in process, just like I talked about when Aaron's like, Can you put your phone away, please? And I can still get defensive, and it means that God's peace with me and his love and acceptance hasn't gone deep enough yet. It hasn't gone deep enough yet that I have that level of insecurity. It means it hasn't transformed me enough. And yet he hasn't given up on me because he's still taking the first step. He's still taking the first step towards me. And it changes our heart. But peacekeeping is hard because we're trying to protect ourselves. And if we don't have that deep embedded in ourselves that God is the one who protects us, that we're secure in Him, then we're left to believe that only we can protect ourselves from accusations from others, from insecurities that rise up, from pain that comes up. And because I can't trust God to do it, so I've got to do it. And we're in default defense mode. But when we know that we're fully known and loved, and when that begins to settle in, we can begin to let go of that need to protect ourselves the same way anymore. And we can have enough security to move towards the person who has hurt you or the person you've hurt. Because we have enough security in our own hearts because of who God says we are, that I can come forward and say, I'm sorry. I can come forward and say, I'm sorry. Or to say, hey, I know things aren't right. It might have been a spouse or a family member or a friend that said something that cut really deep. Or maybe they weren't there when you needed them. But there's real pain between you and another person. And it's hard to do, and because it's hard and because it's vulnerable, you just kind of avoided talking about it, talking to them. So we just kind of brush it aside, and especially in church context, we just say, you know what? It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's okay. We think it's the Christian thing, and sometimes it is. Sometimes there are. There's like scripture talks about like love covers a multitude of sins. It doesn't mean we need to like every time anybody does anything, like, hey, by the way, hey, by the way, but most of the time, a lot of us, we err the other way. And we're just like, it's not a big deal. I just need to get over it. They didn't mean it. Or just like, I don't want to experience that discomfort. I don't want to experience that pain. And we tell ourselves we're keeping the peace and we let it go. We don't bring it up. And because of pain and hurt and insecurity and fear, we take the path of least resistance. And that can sound like peace, it can look like peace. It might even feel like peace for a while, but it isn't shalom. Because what happens is hurt and resentment and frustration build up slowly, quietly, the thing that we don't name, the thing that hurt you, the conversation that you didn't have, and then suddenly you respond with this anger that comes out that was unexpected, or you find yourself one day and just go, I just feel like my heart is closed to that person. Because you just couldn't, it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal. I'm not gonna just want peace. I don't, and all of a sudden, either you lash out or you just go, I kind of feel dead inside to them. But when we're so focused on keeping peace, we can find ourselves there instead of doing the hard things that make peace. Peacemaking starts by initiating, by taking the first step. And that's true also if you know you've hurt somebody, is that you take the first step to initiate. You take the first step. Man, that's hard, right? Because when someone's because we've hurt somebody else and they don't say anything to us, we can think, oh, it wasn't a big deal. Whew, bet they forgot about it. Man, I know I've been there. It's like, okay, I know what the thing I said to Aaron wasn't that okay, but probably maybe it wasn't that big of a deal because she didn't say anything to me about it. So I guess I'm okay. But like if I feel it, I need to go, I'm sorry. And I don't know if you've been there where you like apologize to somebody and they're like, I haven't even thought about it since then. I'd rather that be the response, right? Than like going, I bet they're okay. But peacemaking takes the first step, whether you're at fault or not. Jesus in Matthew, about 15 verses later, he says this thing. He says, if you're offering a gift in worship and you realize that someone else has something against you, you go to them and you make it right. Isn't that crazy? It seems like Jesus should say, Hey, if you're worshiping and you realize you've been a jerk, you should go and apologize. Like, I don't want to hear your worship. And there's, I mean, that's certainly also true, by the way. But that's not what Jesus says. He's like, if you know that someone has something against you, why? Because it's what the Father does. It's what the Father did. He came to us. He said, Hey, I want to forgive you. Like you might not even be aware of like how you're living, but you're living like with your arms out like this to me. And I'm just gonna come close and say, I I just want a relationship with you. I I want to forgive you. This is what peacemakers do. They don't we don't wait for others to come to us. We go towards them. We take the first step. And yes, there's always a cost. If you're the one who needs to apologize, and that's where I often find myself, it costs me the story that I've been telling myself about why I'm right and they're wrong. Right? Because that story's comfortable. When we've hurt somebody, we can twist it and make it in a way that's like somehow we become the hero or we become at least on par with them. And it's like equal. It's like, ah, I mean, you know, they hurt me, I hurt them, you know. But peacemaking says we give up that narrative and we say I'm sorry. We say I'm sorry. And maybe there is two sides to things. Maybe there is, and that person in a perfect world will also say sorry and would apologize and want to make peace. But all we, Jesus says, Blessed are the peacemakers. Not blessed are those who respond back to you the same way that you would hope them to respond to the way that you came to them. And if you've been hurt, here's the cost. It costs your silence that's been protecting you. Right? That's that's why we do it. It's safer. It feels safer to like keep the peace. Because if we name the pain, oftentimes it becomes real. Right? Oh, it's not a big deal, it didn't really hurt. Have you ever had those things? And then you get a moment of quiet, and then you like, or someone brings it up, or it comes up and you go, Oh, I felt that. Why did I feel that? I thought it didn't that's not a big deal. It shouldn't be a big deal to me, stronger than that. But when we name it, it costs us, it costs us allowing the other person to respond as well, too. Woo. When we say, This hurt me, it costs us giving them a voice, hopefully to apologize, hopefully to own things. But it also means they could respond really poorly. And here's the other thing. If you seek to be a peacemaker, like Jesus is calling you, because sometimes you find yourself in peacemaking and it doesn't actually involve you. It might involve two other people or two organizations or whatever. We have people that are right now dealing with different countries, right? We have people who are trying to make peace. And what it costs you when you're trying to help two parties reconcile, it costs you being liked by both of them sometimes.

unknown 34:03

Right?

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Like everyone's frustrated with you. It could cost you being misunderstood, it costs you time and effort and emotional investment. There's always a cost in peacemaking, whether we're apologizing, when we're owning that someone hurt us, or whether we're working for peace between other people. But there's such a great reward. Jesus promises it, that we'll be called children of God, but also we make space for there to be healing. We make space for transformation to happen. When we share with somebody about the hurt we've experienced, we create space for our healing and we allow them to have space to actually change, to be transformed, for them to experience the grace of God as well, too. Peacemaking is a call of a Christian. It's a man named John Perkins. He actually just passed away recently. Anyone ever heard of John Perkins? Um, John Perkins, yeah. He was an African-American man who grew up in Mississippi in the 30s and um and just really grew up in a difficult situation. His mom died of malnutrition, his father abandoned him. His brother came home from World War II, and he had fought for his country and comes back to a country where he finds out he can't drink from the same water fountain as white people. And he's his brothers end up being shot and killed by a police officer. So John leaves, he grew up in Mississippi, leaves Mississippi as a teenager and says, I'm never going back to that place. I'm never going back there. Like I'm going to the north, I'm going where it feels safer. And then he encounters Jesus. He encounters Jesus. And Jesus sends him back. Jesus calls him back to the state that killed his brother, back to the people who had only ever shown him what it meant to be on the wrong end of power. And he went. And you know what John worked to do? To build clinics and schools and churches. He organized his community, fought for dignity and justice. And then in 1970, the Mississippi police arrested him and beat him nearly to death. And then they made him mop up his own blood. In lying in a hospital bed, John Perkins, he made this decision that makes no sense unless you're a follower of Jesus and called to peacemaking. And he said the only way forward from this place is love. The only place and only way forward for him laying in this hospital bed is love. And then he spent the rest of his life working for reconciliation between black and white Americans. Black and white Christians in America. That was what he was fighting for. Certainly reconciliation between black and white generally, but black and white Christians in America. He went first. He stepped out first towards the people who had taken everything from him. I remember meeting him. He came down to the vineyard church in Columbus I was on staff at. I remember telling him that we wanted to plant a church in Cleveland. And we wanted to be a church that was, you know, welcome for all, home for all. And he I remember the thing that he said, he's like, if you really want to reach people that are different than each other, he's like, then move in between where different people live. He's like, put the church where different people live. And so in Lakewood, with church location, we just were kind of looking for wherever there's space. But it's the reason that Aaron and I moved to where we live in Lakewood, in Birdtown. Closer, near Birdtown, closer to Cleveland, where there are people who look and live different than us. That's not to cheer us, that's somebody saying, John Perkins, he left a mark on me, saying, What is it like to take the first step to be a place, a person who goes first for reconciliation? Now, of course, a lot of us go like, well, I'm not John Perkins, my situation wasn't like that, my situation isn't that bad. But John Perkins didn't go first because he was extraordinary. He went first because he met Jesus. He went first because he met Jesus, and Jesus caught that the path that Jesus laid was go first, love your enemies, make peace, real peace. Bring people who are separate together. He went first because he experienced a love so deep and forgiveness so deep that he didn't have to protect himself anymore. And that's available to us. That's available to you. To take that first step where there's not peace, where there's not shalom between you and another person. Whether that's because of you or because of them. Or maybe it's a little bit of a both. The call to be peacemakers, to see something in your neighborhood that's not right, or to see kids on a playground, or to see something at work, or to see something in our culture, our society in Lakewood, in West Park, and in Fairview Park, wherever you're coming from. And to say, I can't just see it. And because it doesn't directly affect me, I'm not going to do anything about it. Jesus calls us to be peacemakers. But for most of us, there is somebody, right? You know who it is. Or if you think long enough, it'll come to mind. Maybe they hurt you and you've been waiting for them to go first. And maybe you've just decided this relationship is it's fine, it's functional. It's surface, it's functional. Like most days, you don't feel ill will. Hopefully they don't feel ill will towards you. Maybe you're the one who needs to apologize, though, and you've been telling yourself a story about why you don't need to. Jesus says peacemakers are called children of God. Not because they've earned it, but because they look like their father. And our father, while we were still his enemy, came after us at an enormous cost. Enormous cost. And the question is, will we walk like our father? Will we walk in the steps of Jesus? So to invite the band up, I just this question. What would it look like for you to go first this week? What would it look like for you to go first this week? What would it look like for me to go first this week? To be the one who says this isn't how things should be. This isn't how things should be. And so this morning, God's invitation to us isn't comfort, isn't safety, but it is an invitation into deep blessing. For others, for ourselves.