Peace Will Prevail
By Rev. Heidi L. Barham | June 14, 2026
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Read Romans 5:1 – 8 (NIV)
When I started working on the bulletin for this week, after reflecting on the Lectionary texts, the subject of PEACE WILL PREVAIL came to mind.
I had just finished reading the verse of the day in the You Version Bible App and the accompanying devotional really stuck with me. I knew I wanted to incorporate it into a sermon in some way.
So, with your indulgence, I would like to share that devotional with you now. It is entitled, “Working for Peace” and it reads as follows:
In all honesty, that could have been the sermon right there… we have been called to be peacemakers… to take intentional action to ensure PEACE WILL PREVAIL.One look at the world around us and it’s clear: peace isn’t going to make itself.
Nations are warring and people are fighting. You may even have some personal relationships filled with bitterness and contempt. Thankfully, we can lean into Jesus’ wisdom in the seventh beatitude:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
Matthew 5:9 NIV
Let's be clear, peacemaking is different than peacekeeping. In fact, Jesus assured us that as long as we’re on this earth, we will face trouble. There will be chaos, division, misunderstandings, and a need for making peace. And that is why…
Peacemaking requires action.
Yes, peacemaking compels us out of our own comfortable lives. But for those who are willing to step into the tender space of making peace, here are some thoughts to help you lead the way:
- Peacemakers lead the way with humility. No one is perfect and we all need grace. None of us are God, but we all need Him. Leading with a posture of humility is key.
- Peacemakers lead the way with empathy. Even when we disagree with someone, respectfully listening and seeking to understand their perspective is essential for making peace.
- Peacemakers lead the way with truth and grace. Any time Jesus interacted with people, He did so with both truth and grace. We must have both to accurately represent Him.
- Peacemakers lead the way to the feet of Jesus. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. Apart from Him, we are nothing. When we realize our mutual brokenness, as well as our mutual need for Christ, everything can change.
Seeking to be a mediator for those in disagreement doesn’t mean that every problem will be solved—immediately or ever. But when we invite God into those spaces and commit to the hard work of peacemaking, He can do more than we can ask or imagine.
But there are a lot of things that have happened recently that I believe are calling for our attention… incidents that call for our intentional response as the church… as the body of believers… not the least of which is the ongoing conflict in Iran.
But, I want to invite us to think about just a few of the other things that are happening… and to consider them against the backdrop of this morning’s theme… PEACE WILL PREVAIL.
Now, one of the things that I believe invites our attention is the Cleveland Clinic’s settlement agreement with the Department of Justice that will restrict its practice of providing gender-affirming care for minors for the next twenty years.
At the core of this settlement is a hospital system making a pledge to the federal government that they will not provide certain types of healthcare to certain individuals FOR TWENTY YEARS… once again restricting access to health care for targeted groups of people…
The war has already been waged regarding women’s reproductive rights, and it is continuing with attacks on gender-affirming care for young people…
And if it feels like we are on a slippery slope… perhaps it is because we are. I can’t help but wonder what happens if someone decides that providing care to seniors is no longer worth the cost… oh wait… that’s right… they have already been working on gutting Medicare and Medicaid.
But even with the threat of access to healthcare being stripped from more and more people… I still have to believe that PEACE WILL PREVAIL, if we keep speaking up and speaking out, speaking truth to power.
Now, something else that began flooding timelines and feeds recently was news about the Department of Defense making a decision to decrease the number of recognized faiths from 211 to just 31…
Sadly, there are many Christian denominations that are among the 180 faith traditions that have been taken off the list… including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ… effectively putting all of us here into the category of “other.” (See DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military's Recognized Religion List for the full list.)
It is not lost on me that both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ are open and affirming denominations with African American women serving in the office of General Minister and President…
It is also not lost on me that many of the denominations that made the cut, so to speak, are denominations that do not recognize women as pastors… but make no mistake… even in the face of ongoing sexism and racism… PEACE WILL PREVAIL as long as we refuse to let our voices be silenced.
And that brings me to the third recent event which was the Southern Baptist Convention voting in favor of a formal ban on churches with women pastors. I don’t think it is hard to see why that feels particularly problematic to me.
So, not only do we have the government and health systems colluding to withhold care from certain individuals… and the Department of Defense trying to decide which faith traditions merit recognition within the context of the military… we have denominations literally voting to ban churches for having women pastors.
Praise God that our denomination is not that shortsighted and bigoted.
Praise God for a denomination that celebrates and elevates women in ministry… recognizing how God has used women throughout history to spread the Good News about Jesus… in fact, the very first person that Jesus revealed Himself to and told to go tell the disciples that He was alive… was a woman!
And if sending a woman to proclaim the news about the risen Christ was good enough for Jesus… it just ought to be good enough for the rest of us.
But sadly, we live in a world that likes to go out of its way to complicate things unnecessarily… (can someone say voter suppression and intimidation?) … we live in a world that makes a habit of pushing people to the margins… a world that seems to thrive in the face of other people’s suffering and sorrow…
And yet, even with all of that, our text encourages us:
And that is good news for us… because at the end of the day… PEACE WILL PREVAIL.Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
But how can you be so sure Pastor?
It’s simple… I have read what it says in the Bible…
All we have to do is look at the Gospel of John where we find these words of Jesus, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
And a little further on we come to one of my favorite verses when Jesus told His disciples, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Simply put, PEACE WILL PREVAIL… because Jesus said so… Jesus said it… I believe it… and that settles it!
Now, in spite of what some folks would have us believe to the contrary… regardless of the litigation intimidation, governmental grievances, and denominational declarations… the Word of God is quite clear when it comes to the command to take care of one another.
We would do well to remember what Jesus said when telling the story of the Sheep and the Goats, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:45) …definitely an indictment against those who would withhold care for women, children, and seniors.
And we should not forget the Parable of the Good Samaritan which Jesus used as a teachable moment on what it means to show kindness and compassion to one’s neighbors… making it clear that even those who we might otherwise despise are to be cared for when we see that they are in need.
The fact of the matter is that none of us has earned the right or the privilege to judge anyone else… regardless of whether they think like us, act like us, look like us, talk like us, or believe like us…
Jesus said we are to love one another, period.
And His command to love includes even those who we think are the most unlovable.
Because when we look at the last verse of our text for this morning, we are reminded that Jesus gave His life for each of us… when we were at our worst…
Verse 8 of the text says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Or as it reads in the Message Paraphrase, “But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”
And if Jesus was willing to go to those extraordinary lengths for us… who are we to withhold the basic common decency that Jesus commands us to give?
It was in his letter to the Galatian Church that the Apostle Paul wrote these words, reading from the Message Paraphrase:
We are called to do good and work for the benefit of ALL people… and while Paul says we should start at home with the family of faith… we cannot and must not simply stop there.So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith (Galatians 6:9-10).
Keep in mind, Jesus initially only sent the disciples out to the lost sheep of Israel (see Matthew 10:5 – 6) …but He ultimately called them to be “[His] witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” (see Acts 1:8) and to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
We have been called to tell a dark and dying world about Jesus the Christ… the Light of the world… who is our living Savior… the One who gave His life for ours… to pay a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay… “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
And it is because of our faith in Jesus the Christ as our Lord and Savior that we have the promise of eternal life… in Ephesians 2:8 (CEV) we read, “You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve. This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed.
And so, let us end where we began, with verse 1 of our text, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is through faith that we have the assurance that no matter what it looks like… no matter what the world may try to convince us of to the contrary… if we keep the faith… PEACE WILL PREVAIL.
God’s peace… the peace that surpasses all understanding… and my prayer for you today is simply this, peace be with you.
Amen.
Hymn of Discipleship: My Faith Looks Up to Thee #576 Back
