This past Sunday, missionaries Chris and Tina Ferry sat down in front of Mosaic to close out our study of the Beatitudes, and instead of a typical sermon, they told us stories. Some were about the work God is doing among indigenous women across the Amazon, where Chris and Tina serve. Some were deeply personal, the kind of story you only share with people you call home. Both were rooted in the same two verses: “God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (Matthew 5:9-10).
Peacemaking and persecution do not sound like they belong in the same sentence, let alone the same blessing. But by the end of the morning, it was clear they are two sides of the same call: pursue real peace, and opposition will find you. The question worth sitting with is whether we actually believe that opposition is something to run from, or something God calls blessed.
Peacemaking Is Not Peacekeeping
Tina named the confusion most of us carry before we even get started: we mistake peacekeeping for peacemaking. One teacher she loves calls peacekeeping what it often really is, “peace faking.” It is smoothing something over so it looks calm on the surface, without ever touching what is actually broken underneath. Silence and quiet around you, she said, are not the same as real peace. They can seem like it. They are only surface level.
Kingdom peacemaking is different because it is work. Matthew 5:9 does not say blessed are the peace-havers; it says blessed are those who work for peace. That word “work” implies effort, patience, and going into the root of something rather than covering it. That process is what brings actual healing, lasting restoration, and reconciliation, between us and God and between us and each other. It is also messy. “This is a messy work,” Tina said, and she and Chris will keep saying it as many times as it takes for it to sink in.
That is even true of God’s own peace. Tina pointed to Paul’s closing words in Romans 16:19-20, where he prays that the Roman church would be wise in doing what is right and innocent of wrong, “and the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” That is not a Zen kind of peace. It is a peace that conquers sin and death, the same peace we see in the suffering and victory of Christ. God is not a peace-faker. He is a peacemaker, and that crushing happens right under our feet.
Twenty-Four Years in the Making
Chris and Tina serve with the Three-Waves Movement, a gospel initiative working to strengthen the indigenous church across the Amazon through unity rather than division. To show what perseverant peacemaking actually costs, they walked through a timeline. In 2002, a woman named Corina walked into her husband Henrique’s office, frustrated that men were being equipped for ministry while women were not, and told him plainly, “Honey, listen. I love you, but this stinks.” In 2007, Henrique cast a vision with leaders from six other countries to plant indigenous networks across the Amazon, but every one of those networks was made up entirely of men. Five years later, the networks were growing, but still nothing had shifted for women. It was not until 2014, twelve years after Corina’s conversation with her husband, that five indigenous women, wives of the network’s presidents, were even invited into the room.
This year, twelve years after that, fifty indigenous women from six countries and seventeen ethnicities gathered together, alongside five servant men, speaking twenty languages between them, to seek God’s voice and decide together how they would step into their part of the Great Commission. Twenty-four years. Layered on top of that timeline were racial conflict between territorial indigenous groups, denominational disagreements over dress, music, and worship style, and a view of women that in many of these cultures ranks them as, at best, second-class and, at worst, property. “Perseverance and peacemaking are synonymous,” Tina said. Reaching that gathering was never the obvious next step. It was decades of going to the root of real division and staying in the room for it.
Walking With, Not Dragging Along
Chris and Tina admitted this has cost them something as Westerners who like to plan and move. “Peacemaking is not having a plan and bringing other people with you,” Tina said. “Peacemaking means going along with others as you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit together.” That is a hard distinction to feel, but it changes everything about how peace actually gets made. It is not dragging people toward your version of a resolution. It is listening. It is pacing. It is holding outcomes loosely and trusting that God is already at work in the room, even when the process takes longer than you would choose.
The Life Built to Avoid Persecution
Chris shared a different kind of peacemaking story, the story of trying to avoid persecution his entire life, and what it cost him. As a child, he invited a Jewish friend named Gabe to a church event, and when Gabe responded to an altar call, Gabe’s parents were furious and kept the boys apart until the friendship eventually fell away. Watching that happen taught Chris a lesson he carried for years: do not let your faith cost you your belonging in the world. By fourth grade he had already had his first drink, and a double life was underway, faith at home, something else everywhere else. What followed was roughly two decades of drinking and drug use, including nearly a decade as what he called a functioning addict, all of it an attempt to numb the conviction of trying to belong to two kingdoms at once. “You cannot serve two masters,” Chris said, and he tried anyway, for years, until God pulled him out of it. He has now been clean for twenty-six years.
Chris was honest that the pull has not fully disappeared. He still catches himself hesitating to share who he is with people out of fear it will cost him the relationship. But he named the truth underneath all of it: he did not believe that being persecuted for doing right was actually a blessing. He wanted his own peace more than he wanted the kingdom’s.
Two Kingdoms, Two Voices
Chris and Tina laid the two kingdoms side by side, and the contrast is worth sitting with slowly. The kingdom of the world says: I need to belong here. Do what it takes to fit in. Protect yourself. Earn people’s love. Keep their approval. Make yourself enough. Do not risk rejection. The kingdom of God says: I already belong. I am unconditionally accepted. The Lord is my protector. I live in God’s unearned gift of love. I am never alone or abandoned. My God is enough. I am a child of God.
God never promised us belonging in the kingdom of the world. He promised us something better, an identity as his children that no persecution can take away. That is the real blessing tucked inside both verses. It is not being understood. It is not everyone agreeing with you. It is not success, or a calm and unbothered life, or the absence of criticism. The blessing is knowing whose you are and where you belong.
Your Next Step
Peacemaking and persecution are two ends of the same call: go to the root of what is broken, and expect that the world will sometimes push back when you do. This week, let these questions sit with you rather than rushing past them.
- Where in my life have I been peace faking, covering something up so it looks calm, instead of doing the slower work of real peacemaking?
- What conflict or root issue have I been avoiding because going there feels too messy?
- Am I trying to belong to two kingdoms at once, the way Chris did for years, and what is that costing me?
- If pursuing what is right cost me some comfort or approval this week, could I recognize that as a sign I am on the right path rather than something to fix?
- What would it look like to hold an outcome loosely this week, pacing with the Holy Spirit instead of dragging people toward my own plan for peace?
Join the Journey This Sunday
Experience Mosaic in person this Sunday at 10:00 AM. Come as you are, grab a coffee at the café, and discover what it means to belong to a kingdom that does not ask you to earn your place in it. We would love to meet you there.
