The Art of Neighboring – Being A Peacemaker

Sermon Series: The Art of Neighboring

Message 6 – Final Message: Being a Peacemaker Among Your Neighbors

Lombard Bible Church

Aug 14, 2022

Gene Smillie

YOUR OWN SERMON NOTES

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. If you want to “love life,” have a long, happy life filled with good, what short formula might you suggest, to have that outcome?

[After ample discussion in your group, read Psalm 34:13-14   {which provides an answer to that question}

Note that 1 Peter 3:10-12 takes up this piece from Psalm 34 and applies it in a context where he is giving advice about how to live with/among people who are hostile and difficult to live with.]

2. Have you ever had a conflict with someone that just went on and on and on, never resolved, sometimes just simmering rather than flaring up, but inside you were just aching (or fuming)?

Stop and think about that for a moment.  (Not necessary to share with your group.)

  Is the pain still there?

In church Sunday morning we compared holding a grudge, or an unforgiven sin-against-you by someone else, with a charcoal you are holding in your hand.   Explain to the others in the group how this metaphor reveals the effect of holding on to a burning ember of resentment in one’s heart.    If you are able to “let go” of the smoldering ember, what happens inside you?

If you are going to exercise “good neighborliness” by being a Peacemaker, what do you have to assure about your own heart condition before you can go about “solving problems”?

3. How does Romans 12:17-21 expand on the solution to this problem of long-held resentments and the desire to “get even”?

4. What does the qualifying expression in Romans 12:18, “…if possible –so far as it depends on you—be at peace with all people”, tell us about this process?   

5. Psalm 34:14 and 1 Peter 3:11 both say to “Seek peace and pursue it,” suggesting peace may not be easily attained.   Can you share a time when you tried to make peace with a “neighbor” but they wanted none of it; they preferred to keep the hostility going.  How did you handle it?             Does anyone in the group have a story about how their hostile neighbor eventually “came around” and accepted the peace you were offering?  How LONG did you have to keep “pursuing peace” before you saw results?

6. Colossians 3:13-15 also discusses how to deal with complaints you feel towards those who have done you wrong (– perhaps are continually, still, doing you wrong).  Where does “peace” come in here, in these verses?

7. How does making peace with your ‘neighbor’ (however we want to understand that term) reflect on the view of Jesus which people derive from seeing us, his disciples, as peacemakers?