Romans 12:17-18 // Because of Grace, We Pursue Peace
This past Sunday at Word of Life, the message continued through the Romans 12 series with a challenging and personal word on what it means to pursue peace. The series has been building week by week around the theme of how God's grace transforms the way we live, and this week that transformation landed squarely in the middle of conflict.
The text was Romans 12:17-18, which reads, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."
Peace Is Not What the World Says It Is
The message opened by drawing a contrast between how culture defines peace and how the Bible defines it. Culture tends to define peace as the absence of conflict. But scripture presents something entirely different. Biblical peace, as shared on Sunday, is seeking to live in right relationship with God and others, even when conflict exists.
A simple definition was offered to anchor the message: peace is the quiet confidence that comes from trusting God enough to respond like Jesus. Two examples were given to bring that definition to life. Jesus slept in a boat during a storm. Paul sang while he was in prison. Neither had peaceful circumstances, but both had peaceful hearts.
The sermon traced the theme of peace across both testaments, showing that the command to pursue peace appears again and again in scripture. Psalm 34:14 says, "Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it." In Matthew 5:9, Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Paul returns to peace constantly throughout his letters, culminating in the call of Romans 12:18 to live at peace with everyone. The pattern across all of these passages is the same: peace is not passive. It is active, intentional, and it requires courage and grace.
What Keeps Us from Pursuing Peace
Three obstacles were named that get in the way of pursuing peace, and each one is deeply human.
The first is retaliation. The message acknowledged honestly that the natural instinct when someone wrongs us is to strike back. Paul's language in verse 17 is pointed: he doesn't say "try not to repay evil" or "consider your options." He says, "Do not" and other translations say "Never." Grace, the message argued, interrupts retaliation. Romans 12:19 reminds us that vengeance belongs to God, not to us. 1 Peter 2:23 was offered as a portrait of what this looks like in practice, noting that Jesus "did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly." To emulate Christ is to be a peacemaker, even when that runs against every natural instinct.
The second obstacle is the need to be right. The message used a lighthearted family illustration about the competitive drive to name a movie character before anyone else does, then turned it serious: sometimes we are more committed to winning than to reconciling. Peace, it was said plainly, will sometimes cost us our pride. Proverbs 14:12 warns that there is a way that seems right but leads to death. 1 Peter 3:9 extends the call further: "Don't repay evil for evil. Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing." The message named what we often chase from others, including validation, respect, an apology, and a sense of worth, and then offered this: if our identity is secure in Christ, grace has already given us what our hearts were really longing for. That is what sets us free to pursue peace rather than demand it from others.
The third obstacle is the need to control. The message drew on Paul's qualifier in verse 18: "as far as it depends on you." That phrase, it was noted, assumes there are things that do not depend on you. A GPS illustration brought it home: sometimes when we are certain of our route, the GPS recalculates. The destination has not changed. The GPS simply knows something we do not. Surrendering control is not saying "I do not care what happens." It is saying, "I trust God with what happens." Faithfulness is our responsibility. The outcome belongs to God.
How Grace Empowers Us to Pursue Peace
From those three obstacles, the message moved into three grace-empowered pursuits.
The first is choosing the high road. Paul is not just saying do not do evil. He is saying do not mirror it back. Grace refuses to come under what hurt you. An illustration was offered about mirrors and windows. Most people simply reflect what is in front of them: anger meets anger, sarcasm meets sarcasm. Paul's call is not to be a mirror but to be a window, letting people see Jesus through us instead. Matthew 5:16 was quoted: "Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father."
The second pursuit is valuing relationship more than being right. With a pastoral note that this is not about tolerating toxic relationships, the message posed a question worth sitting with: is winning this argument worth losing this relationship? Or more pointedly, is winning this argument worth causing someone else to stumble? Sometimes what looks like defending truth is actually defending pride. Those are not the same thing. Jesus did not sacrifice truth, but he also never used it to fuel pride. His truth won hearts.
The third pursuit is taking the first step. Peace does not happen accidentally. Someone has to make the call, send the text, or write the apology. Someone has to open the door. The reason grace says "I'll go first" is rooted in what Jesus already did. Romans 5 reminds us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He did not wait for us to make the first move. He made it himself. The invitation of Romans 12 is to imitate that. Pursuing peace does not mean pretending nothing happened. Peace is not pretending, and it is not enabling. Peace tells the truth. Grace simply changes how that truth is delivered.
A Closing Picture of Sanctification
The message wrapped with a personal illustration. A story was told about searching for a grandmother's garnet ring, inherited and then lost, and the day a still small voice directed the search to the back of a dresser drawer. When the ring was found, it was eventually gifted to a daughter on her wedding day as her "something old." The point was this: peace is precious, and finding it requires seeking the Lord, not just our own effort.
To close, the word sanctification was brought in as a word of encouragement. Sanctification was described as the lifelong journey of falling more in love with Jesus every single day, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit transforming us more and more into his likeness. A stock market chart was used as an analogy: in the short term there is fluctuation, but pull the camera back and the growth over decades becomes visible. The sanctification process looks the same way. Over a lifetime, the Holy Spirit's work shows up as a slow and steady rise, even amid the squiggly line of hard seasons and hard moments.
The message closed with Galatians 2:20: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." The invitation was extended for those ready to respond, and the church was called to pursue peace not because it is easy, but because grace has already moved first.
