Good Morning!
For today's worship and life help I want to do a little bible study.
In his closing comments in the book of Hebrews the Apostle Paul gives his audience this word of counsel:
"Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled." (Heb. 12:14-15).
What we see here is something Paul gives us in Ephesians 4 and 5. The call is to love one another in an excitement of desire that all men and women might flee from empty things and into the fulness that we have in Jesus Christ. Notice how he places this call to "pursue peace" in holiness and grace, and then makes the comment that if you do not seek that which will bring agreement then bitterness will cause trouble. Let's unpack this for a second. Back at the beginning of chapter 4 we heard the clarion call of "one faith, one baptism, one Lord" and this unity we have he says will come for the Ephesian Christians if they, "...walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love." (Eph. 4:1-2). So what we are seeing here is that if the church is to be unified in love then we need to love the same thing, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. And this takes us back to this word holiness that Paul brings up in regards to peace in the Hebrews passage. The root of bitterness is sin. Sin is any want of or transgression of the Law of God. So if you do not want to have bitterness result from a lack of love then two people must be walking together towards the same goal. (Amos 3:3). This means that the two parties, whether they be husband and wife or father and daughter, or fellow Christian and fellow Christian, each person must, if they truly desire peace, be seeking holiness as well, and this holiness cannot be based on the shifting sands of what "everyone else is doing" or what the current culture says is right and good, it must find its footing in the eternal and unchanging character of the living God.
If we love Jesus then we love His commandments, and if we love His word then we will desire to see every member of Christ's church live in holiness and righteousness, centered on our common salvation from sin and our mutual place in being united to Christ by faith.
To think through this a little more I've attached and linked an article from William Plumer on peace and godliness.
https://www.gracegems.org/24/vital_godliness19.htm
Have a wonderful day!
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church