Peace 2
Last week, we began an exploration of
peace with four biblical definitions of peace. Peace is organization and
order. Peace is the absence of armed conflict. Peace is calm. Peace is the
absence of worry. In today’s post, I want to offer you four more definitions of
peace. As before, we will draw these from the Word of God.
Fifth, peace is harmony in our
personal relationships. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the
law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain
one new man, so making peace (Ephesians 2.15).
In context, Paul is dealing with the
roots of the religious/ethnic strife that dominated so many early churches. Christianity
has its roots in Judaism, and the more observant the Jew the more racist he
was. Paul’s method of starting churches was to enter a synagogue, reason with
the Jews from the Old Testament that Jesus was their Messiah, persuade them to
believe in Christ, and then take the resulting group of believers out of the
synagogue and form a church. So far so good, but when Paul began to preach the
same message to the Gentiles, and to bring believing Gentiles into the church
all sorts of mayhem broke loose. Paul offers us a scriptural solution to ethnic/religious
racism in Ephesians 2 by showing us that in Christ we are no longer
separated; we are one. There was no longer Jew and Gentile, God’s people and
the unclean. Now there was the church, God’s people, period.
Though Paul has the ethnic squabbles
of the early church in mind here the application is much broader. There can and
ought to be harmony in every personal relationship we have. God and I ought to
live in harmony. Parents and children ought to live in harmony (yes, even
teenage children.) Husbands and wives ought to live in harmony. Brothers and
sisters ought to live in harmony. Friends ought to live in harmony. Employees
and employers ought to live in harmony. Neighbors ought to live in harmony. Church
members and their pastor ought to live in harmony. Teachers and their students.
The list could go on and on.
Life is not what you do, where you
live, how much you have, or what others think of you. Life is a matter of
relationships. The Word of God is first and foremost the revelation of God, but
that revelation of what God expects of us does teach us how to live in harmony
one with another. And what peace there is in such harmonious relationships.
Sixth, peace is freedom from
unsettling thoughts or emotions.
Have you ever lain awake at night,
troubled by what to do? Have you ever been frustrated by the course of events?
Have you ever been upset by the circumstances in which you found yourself? Then
what you need is God’s peace.
Sometimes, God brings that peace
by taking away what is troubling you. In Luke 8 we find the story of a
confrontation between Jesus and the woman with an issue of blood. For twelve
years she had dealt with it, moving from doctor to doctor in an increasingly desperate
attempt to solve an intractable physical problem. Having heard of Jesus, and of
His ability to heal, she reasoned that if she could get close enough to touch Him
perhaps the touch of Christ might heal her. And it did. And he said unto her,
Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace (Luke
8.48). Twelve years of emotional stress, frantic effort, and physical
weakness were gone in a moment when she threw herself in simple faith at the
feet of Jesus. She was freed from it all. She was at peace.
Most of the time, however, God does
not calm the storm rather He calms the child in the storm. Paul tells us we
ought to let the peace of God rule in our hearts (Colossians 3.15). Where
do these unsettling thoughts and emotions arise? In my heart. Then there must
be a solution in my heart, not just in or even if there never is a solution in
my circumstances. So often, external things contribute to my lack of peace but
they are not the cause of it. The cause of it is that I have failed to learn
how to let the peace of God rule in my heart. So I worry instead. I fret. I gnaw
obsessively over my concerns like a dog with an old bone. In such situations I
have no peace and neither does anyone else around me.
Seventh, peace is the quiet confidence
that God will take care of you. He hath delivered my soul in peace from the
battle that was against me: for there were many with me (Psalm 55.18). When
the Syrian army surrounded Elisha at Dothan his servant panicked. Elisha,
though, was perfectly calm. Why? Elisha saw what the servant did not see, the protective
angelic host encircling the city (II Kings 6.15-17). Martyn Lloyd-Jones,
England’s last great preacher, defined faith as a refusal to panic. Not coincidentally,
peace is the same thing or perhaps I should say the result of the same thing.
It looks bad but I am at peace. Why? Because I know God will take care of me.
Several times in my life God has
granted me such peace in unusual circumstances. At nineteen, while soul winning
in a particularly violent neighborhood in Chicago, a young man high on drugs
pulled a gun on me. Staring at me glassy eyed over that wavering barrel, he accused
me of all kinds of things. God’s peace flooded my heart and greatly enabled me
to defuse the situation. At twenty-five, poor as a church mouse I was striving
to get an infant church off the ground. One day, out on visitation, I wrecked
my car, totaling it. I had no money. I had no credit. I had no friends. GoFundMe
did not exist. I knew I needed a car to serve the Lord with, but had zero prospects
to obtain one. Once again, God’s peace flooded my heart. I knew not just that
He could take care of it but that He would take care of it. And He did.
Lastly, peace is our final rest in Heaven.
And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good
old age (Genesis 15.15). Rest in peace has become a graveyard cliché, but
like most cliches it has its origin in truth. Someday, if the Lord tarry His
coming, I will rest in peace. It will not be because I pick precisely the right
spot under the shade tree in the Garden of Consolation. It will be because
death is the door that opens for me on my long Home. I will lay down with
finality the burdens I have carried, burdens of pastoring, parenting,
mentoring, witnessing, studying, writing, encouraging, pursuing. Most of all, I
will lay down the burden of my flesh. In that long Home there will be no world,
no flesh, and no devil. Sin will never again rear its ugly head in my mind, my
heart, my tongue, and my life. I will be with Him. I will be like Him. And I
will be at peace.
Is that what you want? You can have it,
if you like. The peace of God can rule in your heart no matter your circumstances.
Such a peace does not come by way of the world. It only comes by way of Christ.
Peace begins with Christ, continues with Christ, and finds its ultimate
expression in our lives when we are finally at Home with Christ.
O soul, are you weary
and troubled?
No light in the
darkness you see?
There’s light for
a look at the Saviour,
And life more
abundant and free!
Turn your eyes
upon Jesus,
Look full in His
wonderful face,
And the things of
earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of
His glory and grace.
-Helen Howarth
Lemmel
