Not an Option: Peacemaking and the Christian Life
Christians, whose gospel is about forgiveness, should be the people most skilled and most determined at pursuing reconciliation in broken relationships.
Editor’s note: This article was originally given as an address at our peacemaking seminar in the spring of 2026. It has been lightly revised for print.
This past ministry year our theme has been peacemaking. Every year our elders set a discipleship theme for the congregation that guides us to focus on a topic. This year we chose godly conflict resolution, or peacemaking: the work of forgiveness and reconciliation. These topics are a huge part of life together, not just as a church, but in a marriage, in a family, in a workplace, and with neighbors and friends. We sin against each other, we hurt each other—how do we stay together in the midst of that?
Christians, whose gospel is about forgiveness, should be the people most skilled and most determined at pursuing reconciliation in broken relationships. This is because the gospel is about God making peace with us, as Colossians 1:13–23 shows us. This passage illustrates why peacemaking is so fundamental to being a Christian:
13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have
redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his
death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and
steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of
which I, Paul, became a minister.
Some of the most profound words from the New Testament are in this paragraph. I’d like to highlight some key insights we gain from them, answering three questions:
Why do we pursue peace?
Why can we pursue peace?
How do we pursue peace?
Why do we pursue peace?
Verse 20 describes God as the Great Peacemaker, as it were: “... and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” Three observations about this verse help us see how it provides a foundation for peacemaking.
First, both reconciliation and peacemaking are the targets of Jesus’ death on the cross. You can’t be a Christian and not care about these things. They are at the heart of the Christian faith.
Second, the verse shows us the scope of God’s peacemaking. It is striking that verse 20 doesn’t just say humans are reconciled to God through the cross, but that “all things, whether on earth or in heaven,” are being reconciled to God. God’s peace is coming to all of creation.
And that is related to a third observation: What does Paul mean by “peace”? In a place like Bellingham, people associate spiritual peace with inner peace. You might think of a statue of Buddha where his eyes are closed. He is turned in on himself. His anxieties are calmed. We think of peace as mindfulness. It is very individualistic, focusing on me and my personal peace—often resulting in selfishness against anyone disrupting my peaceful alone time.
“The cross tells us that where there is sin and wrong, it can’t just be ignored.”
The Biblical idea of peace, on the other hand, comes from the Hebrew word shalom. Shalom is human creational life functioning as God intended it in the beginning. Shalom is a dinner table with friends, family, neighbors, and fellow believers eating and laughing and talking, surrounded by the blessings of God’s creation: meats and cheeses, roasted vegetables and wine, butter and hot bread, ice cream and chocolate. There are smells and sounds, the singing of praise and thanks to God. Shalom is a deep conversation over a pint with a close friend.
That’s the kind of culture, the kind of life together, that the Lord is creating through the gospel: shalom with God and with each other. All of us hear that picture of shalom and say, “That is what I long for: rich shalom in my life. How does the Lord bring this kind of peace?”
Well, notice that immediately after the vision of cosmic shalom, he says the great obstacle to shalom is our sin. Verse 21—”... And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death…” (emphasis mine).
The gospel is about how the world was at war with God, was alienated from him, hostile toward him, doing evil deeds. Sin destroys shalom. That alienation from God made us alienated from each other because our hostility toward God spills out in bitterness toward one another.
Jesus came to reconcile us to God, and by reconciling us to God, he also reconciles us to each other.
Therefore, when we talk about conflict, reconciliation, and peace-making, the gospel is essential. It shows us how painful and messy this process is—for us to have peace with God, the only path was a cross. The cross tells us that where there is sin and wrong, it can’t just be ignored. You can’t just pretend it never happened. It has to be addressed. It’ll be painful; there’ll be a cost. Going through mini reconciliations will look like suffering through mini crosses.
So, the gospel is our reason for spending so much time on this topic. We pursue peace because the gospel is about God making peace.
Why can we pursue peace?
As I was preparing this teaching, there was a verse that struck me in a new way. Verse 17 says, ”And in him all things hold together.” I have always read this verse thinking about nature, that Jesus holds together the material world. He is holding my body together. He is holding the earth together. Think of the massive amount of energy in a little atom. That power is the strength of Christ.
I have always read that verse that way, but it occurred to me that one of the main things Jesus holds together is us, the church. How does a community like ours stay together over the long haul? In him all things hold together. It is only by being in Christ that we hold together. Jesus, above anyone else, cares tremendously about the harmony of little communities like ours.
Take the church in Colosse, for example. Colosse was a small and insignificant town in the Lycus River Valley (modern-day western Turkey). There were two other cities nearby: Laodicea and Hierapolis, both more significant and prosperous. If Laodicea and Hierapolis were Seattle and Vancouver, Colosse is Bellingham.
In fact, we know Paul wrote a letter to the church at Laodicea (Col. 4:16), but it is lost. We don’t have it. The church in Colosse was a collection of small house-churches planted by Epaphras, who was from Colosse (Col. 1:7; 4:12). He had been sent by the Apostle Paul to plant a church in his home town.
How important is this little community being planted by the young Epaphras in an insignificant town to the Lord Jesus!
What is amazing about this statement by the Apostle Paul is that Jesus, who holds together the universe, holds together the angels in heaven, holds together history, also keeps as his highest priority the holding together of these little communities. It is the most important fruit of his work on the cross.
How do we know that Paul has in view Jesus, holding together churches? The very next verse makes it clear. “And he is the head of the body, the church” (Col. 1:18). Why do we do the painful, scary, messy work of peacemaking? Because we believe that the grace and power of Jesus Christ is holding us together as a community, and that gives us hope!
I have been a pastor for almost seventeen years. I was recently telling someone that these last few years have been the first really happy years of my ministry. I hope no one takes offense at that. I absolutely love our community, and it has been a tremendous gift to me and my family. But I’ve had years where I was emotionally torn up (and I wasn’t the only one who felt those pressures). It’s not from the amount of work. The church gives me days off and vacations, and even sabbaticals.
I’ll tell you what makes church life difficult: relational stress. Relational conflict is by far the most taxing thing in human life. You all know that. There are profound forces working to tear this community apart. We have an enemy who wants to destroy this community. As much as Jesus is focused on holding us together, Satan equally is focused on tearing us apart. We have our own sin, our very nature wanting to pull apart from each other. We have a world marked by hostility that is influencing us as well.
And probably some of the stress that I have experienced comes from me thinking that I need to hold the church together. This is not totally wrong. Actually, there is a verse later in Colossians (2:19) that says Christ is the “head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” John Calvin says those joints and ligaments are the pastors and leaders in the church. Joints and ligaments hold together the parts of the body.
But what struck me this time around was what hope there is in the words “and in him all things hold together.” When we are in Christ, he holds us together, way more than I or our elders can.
Peacemaking is a fruit of the gospel. The pursuit of peace is not a hopeless endeavor—Christ himself is holding us together, leading us in peacemaking. That’s why we can pursue it; in the end, it won’t elude us.
How do we pursue peace?
But then we have to ask this question: “How does Jesus hold us together? Is it just magic? Does it involve anything on our end?” Well, we have already seen that it involves the pastors and elders, who are like tendons in a body. But maybe even more than that, Jesus holds us together through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
This is what we see later in Colossians, this time in 3:12:
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and
patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has
forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect
harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be
thankful.”
Notice this phrase, my emphasis included: “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” “Rule” is the Greek word brabeuo. It means to control. One commentator says it means something like, “Be a referee.” When you get into arguments, the one calling the shots, telling you what you can and cannot do, is the peace of Christ that comes from the gospel.
That tells us that it’s not magic Jesus uses to hold us together. It is humility to admit our sins against one another. It is forgiveness to not hold our sins against one another, because Jesus has forgiven me so much more than I could ever imagine. It is love that rebuilds the broken trust after reconciliation happens.
This past year, Pastor Matt and I were in a meeting. It was with two people who had a conflict that made you think, “They will never talk to each other again.” The pain was so deep. The wrong such a betrayal. The emotions were so strong.
As we were going to the meeting, we thought, “Anything could happen—we just have to believe the gospel and pray for the Spirit to guide us.” When we sat down, the two people had prepared letters to read to each other. One confessed his sins and his wrongs. The other heard them, and while saying how painful and wrong the sin was, he forgave him. Matt and I were really just spectators, but as soon as the people left the room, we looked at each other and said, “This kind of thing doesn’t happen in the world.”
In the world, beloved family members and friends wrong each other and say, "You don’t exist to me any more.” Family members who were so close are wronged, and decades go by and they never talk to each other.
And we all get it. Why?
There is nothing harder than entering into conflict. There is nothing that requires a deeper trust in God and obedience to him. There is nothing that requires such a miracle of the Holy Spirit. We have to say, "I am only doing this because Jesus died for my sins. He came and sought me, so I am duty bound to try and seek reconciliation with my brother or sister.” Whether it has been a painful marriage or betrayal by a friend, we are a people of reconciliation. The Lord makes us a people of peace
