Inner Peace and Being a Peacemaker in Hard Relationships

From the sermon preached on June 21, 2026

Inner peace is not the same thing as a quiet life. It is not the absence of conflict or the relief that comes from avoiding a person you have been avoiding for two years. Inner peace, the kind Lead Pastor Ryan Mustered unpacked from Mark chapter 9, is something that has to be received before it can be given, and it holds even when the noise around you does not stop. If you are carrying a relationship that has gone cold or broken and you have mostly decided that is just how it is now, this post is for you.

Everyone knows what it feels like to have their peace taken. A person says something that cuts, a silence stretches on too long, a situation at work or at home or in the family turns sideways and suddenly the thing you were carrying quietly gets heavier. Worry steals peace. Pain steals peace. Fear steals peace. And yes, people can steal our peace, not because they have ultimate power over it, but because human peace is fragile by nature. What the message pressed on was this: there is a kind of peace that nobody can touch, and it comes from one source. The question is whether we are living from it.

Peace with God through Jesus is not the soft entry point into a sermon about getting along. It is the foundation without which everything else falls apart. This week’s message laid it out plainly: peace with one another starts by having peace with God, continues by having Jesus's peace in yourself, and only then does it become something you can carry into the hard places with other people. If you skip the first two, the third is nearly impossible to sustain.

In Mark 9:38, the disciples spot someone casting out demons in Jesus's name and they try to shut him down, because he was not part of their group. Jesus's response cuts right through it: "For the one who is not against us is for us." The disciples had drawn a circle. Jesus erased it. The us-versus-them mentality that the disciples defaulted to is the same one that shows up in a family that has taken sides, in a church where people choose camps, in a town where grievances get passed down like property. And it steals peace. It always does.

Peace with God through Jesus means that the Prince of Peace has already paid for the reconciliation we could not earn. He shed his blood so that God the Father could look at us not as people still carrying their wrongs, but as people clothed in his righteousness. That is not just a theological fact. It is the most stabilizing thing a person can stand on when someone has hurt them and they do not know what to do next. Peace that comes from Jesus is not fickle. In John 14:27, Jesus says it plainly: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." The world's version of peace depends on circumstances staying manageable. His version holds when they do not.

Take one small step today: when you notice your peace slipping because of a person or a situation, stop before you react and ask whether you are standing on the peace that comes from God or the kind that depends on everything going your way. The difference will tell you something important.

The hardest part of Mark 9 for most readers is the middle section: the hyperbole about cutting off hands and feet and tearing out eyes. Lead Pastor Ryan Mustered was clear that Jesus was not giving surgical instructions. He was using the most extreme language available to communicate a single, sober truth: how sin destroys peace with God and others is not a small subject. It is costly. It is devastating. And it deserves to be taken as seriously as it actually is.

Sin is the thing that creates distance between you and God and between you and the people in your life. It can be the sin you commit, the sin someone commits against you, or the sin you both stumble into together. Either way, how sin destroys peace is something you have probably felt even if you have never named it that way. A marriage that goes cold over years of small betrayals. A friendship that ends over something said that could not be unsaid. A relationship with a child or a parent that stays broken because no one has been willing to go first. These things do not heal on their own. They calcify.

What Jesus was pressing toward in Mark 9 was not a list of rules but a reckoning: the cost of sin is high enough that you would be better off without the thing causing it. And he died so that the cost could be covered. He did not just offer forgiveness in the abstract; he offered transformation, so that the things that once led someone into sin become things they no longer want. The Greek word for the peace Jesus calls us to in Mark 9:50 means to bring together, to make whole, to cultivate. Like a field, it requires effort and investment. It does not just appear.

One honest step: think of one thing you have been tolerating in your own life that you know is pulling you away from the person you want to be and from the people you love. You do not have to fix it all today. But name it.

The sermon closed with the most personal ask Lead Pastor Ryan Mustered made all morning: Is there anyone you are not at peace with? Not necessarily someone you hate. Just someone you are not at peace with. Someone you would cross the street to avoid. Someone you have not called back. Someone who hurt you enough that you have decided the relationship is just over now, even if you never said that out loud.

Restoring peace in relationships does not begin with the other person being ready. It begins with you deciding that the distance is costing more than the discomfort of going first. This week’s message referenced Luke chapter 10 and the concept of the person of peace: "Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house.'" In the original mission context, followers of Jesus were being sent out into unknown territory and told to lead with peace before they knew whether it would be received. That is still the posture. You go carrying something that does not depend on whether the other person has decided to meet you halfway.

The illustration that landed hardest in this sermon was about dolphins. Scientists have observed that in dolphin pods, when a conflict breaks out, a third dolphin will often swim between the two and simply place itself there, gently de-escalating without shaming either side. Researchers traced it back to one instinct: their survival depends on community, and disunity can be deadly. The application drawn was direct. What if there were more people in our families, our workplaces, and our churches willing to do that? Not to take a side. Not to manage the conflict from a safe distance. But to step in and say, "I care about you both, and I want to help bring peace."

Restoring peace in relationships is not passive. It is the most active thing a follower of Jesus can do. It may mean forgiving someone not because they deserve it but because Jesus has already forgiven you. It may mean being the one who asks forgiveness first. Either way, it starts with a decision made in the quiet before anything is said out loud.

A small step worth taking this week: write down the name of one person you are not at peace with, and ask God what your part in that is. You do not have to send a message today. But start there.

Mark 9:50 says it plainly: "Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another." Salt, in Jesus's framing, is not decoration. It is preservation. It keeps things from rotting. A person who carries the inner peace of Jesus into their relationships is doing something similar: preserving what could be lost, preventing the rot that sets in when people stop trying. The peace of Christ is not soft or sentimental. It is described in Philippians 4:7 as surpassing all understanding, which means it does not always make logical sense from the outside. It is not the peace of someone who has gotten everything they want. It is the peace of someone who knows who holds everything.

There is a particular kind of tiredness that settles in when a hard thing has been going on long enough that it just feels like background noise. You are not in crisis. You are not asking for help. You are just carrying it, the way people here carry things, without making a scene. That heaviness is real, and it is the exact kind of thing Jesus was speaking to in Mark 9. If you are in Watseka, Ashkum, Milford, Clifton, or anywhere across Iroquois County in Illinois or Newton County in Indiana, there are people at Trinity Church who are not going to perform concern at you. They know what it means to carry something quietly. Trinity has campuses in Ashkum, Goodland, and Watseka, and there is no script you have to know before you walk in. You can come as you are, with exactly what you are carrying.

Peace with God through Jesus is not something you arrive at once and then you are done. It is something you return to, especially when the storms keep coming. It is a posture of humility, an acknowledgment that forgiveness is necessary and available, and a decision to keep your eyes on the One who said he has overcome the world. That is the peace Lead Pastor Ryan Mustered was pointing toward from Mark 9 on June 21, 2026. Not a feeling that depends on everything going right, but a position that holds even when it does not.

Take a next step in person, Trinity Church welcomes you at our Ashkum, Goodland, and Watseka campuses.  Plan your visit below.

If you are carrying something harder than what you want to bring into a church on Sunday morning, you can also reach out privately. Take the next step here to send a prayer request or fill out a connection card at your own pace.