How to Gain True & Lasting Peace
Worry, anxiety, depression, marital problems, parenting troubles. These are just a few examples of the ways we lack peace in our lives. Whether we categorize it as mental health, relational challenges, or whatnot, it boils down to one thing: a lack of peace.
Despite the turmoils that clutter our daily life, Scripture tells us that we can have a life that is dominated by peace. In this study we will discover why this is so and come to understand how this peace can be achieved.
Despite the turmoils that clutter our daily life, Scripture tells us that we can have a life that is dominated by peace. In this study we will discover why this is so and come to understand how this peace can be achieved.
We have entered the Christmas season. By now you are well steeped in fuzzy sweaters, greeting cards and hallmark movies. And as you know this is supposed to be the season of peace and glad tidings to men.
Well, since peace is a Christmas theme, I thought I’d take a moment and talk about that here this morning. And this morning I want to talk about how you can have a life which is dominated by peace.
Now, perhaps that may sound a little queer to you. But it is true. That’s what verse 15 tells us that we are actually called to as Christians. Verse 15 says that we are to “let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, to which you were called in one body.”
That’s pretty explicit. Peace is to rule us. In other words, peace must be the governing characteristic of our life. It must define us and be the supreme trait that distinguishes our daily experience.
This is not the typical experience. Normally, our daily life is a clutter of worry, fear, strife, and whatever other kind of turmoil you can think of. You don’t have to look far to find that the world is fraught with emotional and relational turbulence. It would seem that, for many, there is no rest to be found.
But the great thing about the gospel is that it affords us peace. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what the angels first proclaimed from the heavens: Peace on earth, good will towards men.
That is why this Scripture is one that really should perk our interest. It demands our attention because it is so contrary to the everyday occurrence of most people’s lives. This Scripture tells us that Peace is to be the dominating factor that governs our lives. Peace is not a pipe dream. This is not something you can just hope for or look forward to in some distant future. It says that right now it can be that which is the norm for your life. And best of all, it tells us how this peace can come to reign supreme in our lives.
But before I get to that, I want to just take a second and have us think about the things that are typically put forward as the agents of peace. We all recognize that peace is perhaps the most sought after commodity in the world today. There is no doubt about it that people want peace. It is perhaps the number one thing on everyone’s Christmas list. And there are a lot of ways people seek to get peace. Unfortunately, it continues to be elusive. But that doesn’t stop people from seeking peace by means of these different avenues.
And so for this reason, we need to understand something about peace. And we’ll start by talking about what peace isn’t.
I. What Peace is not
A. Peace is not environmental.
That is to say, it is not an issue of where you live or the setting that surrounds you. There is a growing belief in our culture that peace is directly tied to the atmosphere around you. And they believe that if you simply change your location or improve your environment, you will have peace.
The belief goes like this: you need to get away. Each day you go off to a job where you experience all kinds of things that mitigate against peace. You have the stress of your workload. You have coworkers and clients who are annoying and create all kinds of discord. There is this constant tension that intrudes upon your personal peace. And so you need to break away from this.
So today you have people who are building homes not with the intent of housing their families, but with the intent of creating a “getaway space.” If you’ve ever watched a single episode on HGTV, you probably know what I’m talking about. People want to come home to a spa like retreat where they can have peace.
But of course, when you get home, you will often have family meeting you at the door: some kids, and your spouse. So that means you need to construct a get away space within your getaway space. So you build a special bedroom which has all the amenities of utopia wherein you can get away from your family.
A while back I saw a documentary on professional athletes which talked about the incredible financial problems that pro athletes face. One of the more interesting segments featured Bernie Kosar, the 1980’s star quarterback from the Cleveland Browns. And if anyone knows what it means to lack peace, it is a Cleveland Browns fan!
Kosar detailed how his life was fraught with all kinds of problems. He talked about how he could not wait for Sundays because when he was out on the field, he could have a degree of peace. For 4 or 5 hours, it was as if the world melted away. Despite being chased by 300 pound men at every snap of the ball, that field was a setting in which he could gain some measure of relief from his problems.
Do not mistake this: what Kosar expressed is what many millions of people in our world today believe. People are so dedicated to the idea that peace comes from changing your location that they will pack up and move out of state at the drop of a hat. They think that if they get away from certain people or certain strains in their life, that will fix everything.
And this is why a lot of people will change churches and become nomadic Christians too. Because they’ve bought into this idea of environmental peace.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Peace cannot be obtained in any ultimate fashion through a particular gps coordinate. Perhaps you may have something serene to look at. You may be able to close off some noise, but you must understand that there is no where on this sin filled planet that you can go where you will have real, lasting peace. Certainly not the kind that “rules” and becomes the dominating factor as is described here in verse 15.
B. Peace is not biological
There is a significant portion of our society that is saying that peace can be ours if we get our bodies rightly balanced with the proper food or hormones. If we only get the right mix of chemicals flowing in our brains.
And this is where we need to understand that much of the science in our world is built on a vain philosophy and human centered wisdom. Psychologists and psychiatrists will try to tell us that a good mood (or a feeling of peace) is all about getting the right levels of serotonin or dopamine. The food cult that naturally grown, free range carrots are key to personal tranquility.
Being that we do not have cable, I don’t see a lot of commercials anymore. But there used to be a lot of advertisements about certain drugs along these lines. The pitch was “take this medication and you’ll be happy again.”
Humanism today is touting the fact that there is peace through pills and prescriptions or diets and detoxing. But we should not be fooled by this train of thought. This belief is built on the idea that man is merely a physical entity and that he does not have a soul. Moods, to them, are merely hormonal in nature and not spiritual. They want to tell us that your brain or your bowels are the epicenter of behavior and not the soul.
But this is where we as Christians know the truth. All behavior is a product of the heart. The soul is the source of where our life springs. It is not in our biology.
If this were true, Scripture would have given us some direction on it. God would not have waited until the 21st century to reveal this grand means to achieving peace. Paul is saying here in this passage that peace can and should dominate our lives. And is not saying that it comes from any organic or genetic causes. As a matter of fact, peace is something that you can have even when your biology is disaffected.
There are a couple other items that I wanted to address, but I’m only tackling the main ones here. And I want to simply point out one more of the “big three.” We should not think that peace is circumstantial.
C. Peace is not circumstantial
That is to say, peace is not directly tied to our circumstances. And if these circumstances change, then we will have peace.
For instance, if you are sick, you may be lacking peace. And you’re attitudes is that “if I only get better, then I will have peace.” Or someone could say, “Right now I do not have peace because I do not have a job. If I just was able to tap into a good paying job, then I’d be at peace.” Or maybe someone will see it as a relational thing. If my husband or wife would just ________, then I’d be so much better off.
You see, people fix peace on something located out there in the future. The present moment does not offer them peace because of x or y going on. In other words, if we could just fix the circumstances that I am in, then I would have a much greater chance of being at peace.
But I’ll tell you, if you are waiting for health or a job or a person to come along and give you peace, then you are going to be waiting a very long time. Job said it best when he said, “Man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward.” There is nothing in this world that is able to work that miracle. Your circumstances will always be adverse in some way or another.
Your health is a limited time offer. We are all dying to one degree or another. If you do get a job (and that is not guaranteed), I’ll just point you back to the first point I made about changing your environment because of the unrest you experience through clients and coworkers and the rigors of having to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.
You have to understand that there are no perfect circumstances. There is no perfect environment. And there is nothing that you can do physically or organically to bring about peace. Again, you may be able to alleviate things to some degree, but it will not be a full fix. The methods that are employed by the world around us certainly will not allow peace to rule and become the dominating dynamic of our lives.
And this is why we have to turn to Scripture. When we understand what Scripture says and begin to heed what it tells us about peace, then peace will be a reality and sit on the throne of our life.
When you turn your eyes to this Scripture, what do you find out about peace? It is not environmental, or biological, or circumstantial. It is moral and spiritual in nature.
II. What Peace is:
A. Peace is spiritual
Look at what verse 15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”
And the domain of peace is the heart. It is an issue which pertains to your soul. As such, it is not material or earth bound. It is not attainable by material or natural means. It is something that must possess that part of you that cannot be accessed by any earthly means.
As you see here, peace is inseparable connected to Jesus Christ. It is the peace of Christ. It is His peace. It belongs to him and flows from Him.
The only way you can have this peace is if you have Jesus Christ. If you are to have peace reigning in your life, you must have Christ reigning in your life. And if you are not in fellowship with Christ and you are not making him the object of your life, then there is no possible way you can have peace.
Jesus Christ is the prince of peace. Peace is an attribute of God. And the only way to have this attribute is to be in spiritual union with the Lord.
When you turn to Christ you are spiritually united to the very fountainhead of peace. And the first few verses of this chapter talk about this.
Look back at the beginning of this chapter. We can start with verses 5 and 6. In verse 5 it talks about the lifestyle of someone who is not in relationship with Christ. Their life is characterized by sin, and it lists several sins which are stereotypical of an unbeliever. It lists sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. Certainly, he could have listed more, but these were the one’s he grabbed off the top of his head and were likely characteristic of the Colossian people.
But notice what it says in verse 6. It says “on account of these the wrath of God is coming.” So the first instance of peace that is to be gained is the highest form of peace: peace with God. Christ came into the world to take away God’s wrath. By virtue of his death, he takes upon himself the guilty and punishment that you incur by your sin.
And if you back up to verses 3-4 you’ll notice that it talks about the unity and fellowship you have with God as a result of Christ’s mediation. Verse 3 says you life is hidden with Christ in God. You understand that you cannot be in close quarters with someone who is hot with anger towards you. And if you are hidden with Christ in God, then you are on good terms with Him.
And then in verse 4 it says that when Christ appears, you also will appear with him. That’s indicating the communion you will enjoy with him on the day of Judgment. When all the rest of the world falls into perdition to die the eternal death, you will be with Christ enjoying life and communion with him.
There is the first indication of the great peace that Christ affords. And how much of the world’s problems would be solved if people would understand that they are lacking peace because God was against them!
But there’s more to this. You need to recognize that since peace is spiritual, it is also is moral. Or, perhaps I should say, it has a moral dimension.
B. Peace is moral
It is important to understand that verse 15 falls in the midst of verses 1-17. In this passage Paul’s telling the Colossian Christians that they need to change their lifestyle. Verses 5-11 tells us to put off things like anger, obscene talk, lying, and the like. Then in verses 12-17 he tells us that we need to put on the kind of behaviors that are righteous and good, things like compassion, kindness, humility. He says we need to demonstrate patience and forgiveness.
At the end of this is where he says, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” The idea is that if you do these things and live in this kind of way, then you will let loose the peace of Christ. As you submit to the Lordship of Christ and let him rule over your character, His peace will come to govern your heart.
And, to the contrary, if you are not following Christ in these ways and you are living in sin, you should not expect to have any kind of peace, should you?
If you are not seeking to live as Christ wants you to live, you need to recognize that you end up robbing yourself of peace. You are depriving yourself of the peace that Christ would willing give you. So if you are angry towards your boss or towards your brother, you will not have peace will you? No, you are inwardly going to be entangled with all kinds of unrest. Sinful anger by its very nature is an extremely volatile thing. It naturally mitigates against peace. Not only does it disturb you inwardly, but if it is unleashed it creates all kinds of havoc relationally.
Jay Adams tells the story about a couple who came to him for counseling. He said that when they sat down you could just tell how things were going to go. She began by saying, “I’m only here because my doctor said I have an ulcer and it is not from anything medically wrong with me.” She proceeded to pull out a think stack of papers and hand them to Dr. Adams. She said, “This is why I believe I have an ulcer.” Adams said he couldn’t have even begun to read the entire document. It would have taken months to go through it line by line. But a quick perusing of the pages was enough. It was a 13 year list of wrongs that her husband had done to her. They were all listed and catalogued in full detail.
Do you see how her anger had gotten virtually eaten her alive? Instead of “bearing with one another” and “forgiving each other”, she harbored all kinds of wrath and malice. And it was wreaking havoc on her. Not just destroying her marriage, but her very own body. There wasn’t any kind of peace to be had.
The best way to gain peace through obedience to Christ. And Christ says that we must subdue our anger, stomp it out, and put it to death. And in its place develop the attributes of compassion, kindness, and patience. This woman had learned to respond wrongly to her marriage. She needed to change. She needed that moral change that is spoken of here. To be sure, her husband needed to change too. We are not downplaying that. But this serves to show how anger and sin mitigate against the peace that Christ affords us.
Now imagine if you approached every situation with compassion, kindness, humility, patience, and a forgiving attitude. Imagine what difference that would make in your life. If you practiced kindness rather than having fits of anger and a vengeful attitude, imagine the serenity that would fill your life. I would probably say that the problems you have with other people would be subdued to a great degree. I’m thinking that relationally, you’d have so much more harmony. You probably wouldn’t have as many people who hated you and those who did hate you, would probably be subdued pretty fast. As the proverb says, “A soft answer turns away wrath.”
But even if you did have some relentless person (or group of people) who just harassed you to no end. Let’s say you had some who just hounded you and created no end of trouble for you, what would happen if you handled yourself with compassion, kindness, humility and patience? Would you not still have peace? You might not have the relational peace, but there would still be a peace that surpassed all understanding, wouldn’t there? That’s because there would be a divinely imparted peace—the peace of Christ would be yours.
I want you to memorize these qualities: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness. And I also want to make sure you emphasize thanksgiving. That’s because Paul emphasizes thanksgiving.
At the end of verse 15 he adds, “with thanksgiving” as if to say that thanksgiving is just as vital to this whole idea of peace. But you may also notice that he mentions thanksgiving 2 more times in the following two verses.
A few weeks ago, I wrote in the Hopewell Weekly about anxiety. One of those articles stressed the role of thanksgiving. It is very difficult to be worried when you are thankful. Those two things cannot coexist together. That’s because worry and fear are based on a man-centered life and your control. Thanksgiving is theo-centric and emphasizes the fact that God is in control and working all things well.
And so, thanksgiving—like kindness, compassion, humility and patience, is a tool that God uses to impart His supernatural gift of peace.
Conclusion:
As we enter this time of Christmas we are being inundated with "peaceful" things. You may put on your warm sweater and drink your cup of cocoa by the fire. You may see the snow gently falling outside your window, which gives you a sense of peace and indicates some level of tranquility. But let us remember that these fade quickly, just as any other worldly remedy for your troubles.
But where the world fails, that is where Christ succeeds. The Lord this day calls you to peace. His will is that you would be dominated by it. But to have it you must put on Christ. As you come and submit yourself to the Prince of Peace, you will find that you will have peace.
Well, since peace is a Christmas theme, I thought I’d take a moment and talk about that here this morning. And this morning I want to talk about how you can have a life which is dominated by peace.
Now, perhaps that may sound a little queer to you. But it is true. That’s what verse 15 tells us that we are actually called to as Christians. Verse 15 says that we are to “let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, to which you were called in one body.”
That’s pretty explicit. Peace is to rule us. In other words, peace must be the governing characteristic of our life. It must define us and be the supreme trait that distinguishes our daily experience.
This is not the typical experience. Normally, our daily life is a clutter of worry, fear, strife, and whatever other kind of turmoil you can think of. You don’t have to look far to find that the world is fraught with emotional and relational turbulence. It would seem that, for many, there is no rest to be found.
But the great thing about the gospel is that it affords us peace. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what the angels first proclaimed from the heavens: Peace on earth, good will towards men.
That is why this Scripture is one that really should perk our interest. It demands our attention because it is so contrary to the everyday occurrence of most people’s lives. This Scripture tells us that Peace is to be the dominating factor that governs our lives. Peace is not a pipe dream. This is not something you can just hope for or look forward to in some distant future. It says that right now it can be that which is the norm for your life. And best of all, it tells us how this peace can come to reign supreme in our lives.
But before I get to that, I want to just take a second and have us think about the things that are typically put forward as the agents of peace. We all recognize that peace is perhaps the most sought after commodity in the world today. There is no doubt about it that people want peace. It is perhaps the number one thing on everyone’s Christmas list. And there are a lot of ways people seek to get peace. Unfortunately, it continues to be elusive. But that doesn’t stop people from seeking peace by means of these different avenues.
And so for this reason, we need to understand something about peace. And we’ll start by talking about what peace isn’t.
I. What Peace is not
A. Peace is not environmental.
That is to say, it is not an issue of where you live or the setting that surrounds you. There is a growing belief in our culture that peace is directly tied to the atmosphere around you. And they believe that if you simply change your location or improve your environment, you will have peace.
The belief goes like this: you need to get away. Each day you go off to a job where you experience all kinds of things that mitigate against peace. You have the stress of your workload. You have coworkers and clients who are annoying and create all kinds of discord. There is this constant tension that intrudes upon your personal peace. And so you need to break away from this.
So today you have people who are building homes not with the intent of housing their families, but with the intent of creating a “getaway space.” If you’ve ever watched a single episode on HGTV, you probably know what I’m talking about. People want to come home to a spa like retreat where they can have peace.
But of course, when you get home, you will often have family meeting you at the door: some kids, and your spouse. So that means you need to construct a get away space within your getaway space. So you build a special bedroom which has all the amenities of utopia wherein you can get away from your family.
A while back I saw a documentary on professional athletes which talked about the incredible financial problems that pro athletes face. One of the more interesting segments featured Bernie Kosar, the 1980’s star quarterback from the Cleveland Browns. And if anyone knows what it means to lack peace, it is a Cleveland Browns fan!
Kosar detailed how his life was fraught with all kinds of problems. He talked about how he could not wait for Sundays because when he was out on the field, he could have a degree of peace. For 4 or 5 hours, it was as if the world melted away. Despite being chased by 300 pound men at every snap of the ball, that field was a setting in which he could gain some measure of relief from his problems.
Do not mistake this: what Kosar expressed is what many millions of people in our world today believe. People are so dedicated to the idea that peace comes from changing your location that they will pack up and move out of state at the drop of a hat. They think that if they get away from certain people or certain strains in their life, that will fix everything.
And this is why a lot of people will change churches and become nomadic Christians too. Because they’ve bought into this idea of environmental peace.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Peace cannot be obtained in any ultimate fashion through a particular gps coordinate. Perhaps you may have something serene to look at. You may be able to close off some noise, but you must understand that there is no where on this sin filled planet that you can go where you will have real, lasting peace. Certainly not the kind that “rules” and becomes the dominating factor as is described here in verse 15.
- So that’s the first thing we must understand. But just as it is not environmental in nature, neither should we dare to think that it is biological.
B. Peace is not biological
There is a significant portion of our society that is saying that peace can be ours if we get our bodies rightly balanced with the proper food or hormones. If we only get the right mix of chemicals flowing in our brains.
And this is where we need to understand that much of the science in our world is built on a vain philosophy and human centered wisdom. Psychologists and psychiatrists will try to tell us that a good mood (or a feeling of peace) is all about getting the right levels of serotonin or dopamine. The food cult that naturally grown, free range carrots are key to personal tranquility.
Being that we do not have cable, I don’t see a lot of commercials anymore. But there used to be a lot of advertisements about certain drugs along these lines. The pitch was “take this medication and you’ll be happy again.”
Humanism today is touting the fact that there is peace through pills and prescriptions or diets and detoxing. But we should not be fooled by this train of thought. This belief is built on the idea that man is merely a physical entity and that he does not have a soul. Moods, to them, are merely hormonal in nature and not spiritual. They want to tell us that your brain or your bowels are the epicenter of behavior and not the soul.
But this is where we as Christians know the truth. All behavior is a product of the heart. The soul is the source of where our life springs. It is not in our biology.
If this were true, Scripture would have given us some direction on it. God would not have waited until the 21st century to reveal this grand means to achieving peace. Paul is saying here in this passage that peace can and should dominate our lives. And is not saying that it comes from any organic or genetic causes. As a matter of fact, peace is something that you can have even when your biology is disaffected.
There are a couple other items that I wanted to address, but I’m only tackling the main ones here. And I want to simply point out one more of the “big three.” We should not think that peace is circumstantial.
C. Peace is not circumstantial
That is to say, peace is not directly tied to our circumstances. And if these circumstances change, then we will have peace.
For instance, if you are sick, you may be lacking peace. And you’re attitudes is that “if I only get better, then I will have peace.” Or someone could say, “Right now I do not have peace because I do not have a job. If I just was able to tap into a good paying job, then I’d be at peace.” Or maybe someone will see it as a relational thing. If my husband or wife would just ________, then I’d be so much better off.
You see, people fix peace on something located out there in the future. The present moment does not offer them peace because of x or y going on. In other words, if we could just fix the circumstances that I am in, then I would have a much greater chance of being at peace.
But I’ll tell you, if you are waiting for health or a job or a person to come along and give you peace, then you are going to be waiting a very long time. Job said it best when he said, “Man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward.” There is nothing in this world that is able to work that miracle. Your circumstances will always be adverse in some way or another.
Your health is a limited time offer. We are all dying to one degree or another. If you do get a job (and that is not guaranteed), I’ll just point you back to the first point I made about changing your environment because of the unrest you experience through clients and coworkers and the rigors of having to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.
You have to understand that there are no perfect circumstances. There is no perfect environment. And there is nothing that you can do physically or organically to bring about peace. Again, you may be able to alleviate things to some degree, but it will not be a full fix. The methods that are employed by the world around us certainly will not allow peace to rule and become the dominating dynamic of our lives.
And this is why we have to turn to Scripture. When we understand what Scripture says and begin to heed what it tells us about peace, then peace will be a reality and sit on the throne of our life.
When you turn your eyes to this Scripture, what do you find out about peace? It is not environmental, or biological, or circumstantial. It is moral and spiritual in nature.
II. What Peace is:
A. Peace is spiritual
Look at what verse 15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”
And the domain of peace is the heart. It is an issue which pertains to your soul. As such, it is not material or earth bound. It is not attainable by material or natural means. It is something that must possess that part of you that cannot be accessed by any earthly means.
As you see here, peace is inseparable connected to Jesus Christ. It is the peace of Christ. It is His peace. It belongs to him and flows from Him.
The only way you can have this peace is if you have Jesus Christ. If you are to have peace reigning in your life, you must have Christ reigning in your life. And if you are not in fellowship with Christ and you are not making him the object of your life, then there is no possible way you can have peace.
Jesus Christ is the prince of peace. Peace is an attribute of God. And the only way to have this attribute is to be in spiritual union with the Lord.
When you turn to Christ you are spiritually united to the very fountainhead of peace. And the first few verses of this chapter talk about this.
Look back at the beginning of this chapter. We can start with verses 5 and 6. In verse 5 it talks about the lifestyle of someone who is not in relationship with Christ. Their life is characterized by sin, and it lists several sins which are stereotypical of an unbeliever. It lists sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. Certainly, he could have listed more, but these were the one’s he grabbed off the top of his head and were likely characteristic of the Colossian people.
But notice what it says in verse 6. It says “on account of these the wrath of God is coming.” So the first instance of peace that is to be gained is the highest form of peace: peace with God. Christ came into the world to take away God’s wrath. By virtue of his death, he takes upon himself the guilty and punishment that you incur by your sin.
And if you back up to verses 3-4 you’ll notice that it talks about the unity and fellowship you have with God as a result of Christ’s mediation. Verse 3 says you life is hidden with Christ in God. You understand that you cannot be in close quarters with someone who is hot with anger towards you. And if you are hidden with Christ in God, then you are on good terms with Him.
And then in verse 4 it says that when Christ appears, you also will appear with him. That’s indicating the communion you will enjoy with him on the day of Judgment. When all the rest of the world falls into perdition to die the eternal death, you will be with Christ enjoying life and communion with him.
There is the first indication of the great peace that Christ affords. And how much of the world’s problems would be solved if people would understand that they are lacking peace because God was against them!
But there’s more to this. You need to recognize that since peace is spiritual, it is also is moral. Or, perhaps I should say, it has a moral dimension.
B. Peace is moral
It is important to understand that verse 15 falls in the midst of verses 1-17. In this passage Paul’s telling the Colossian Christians that they need to change their lifestyle. Verses 5-11 tells us to put off things like anger, obscene talk, lying, and the like. Then in verses 12-17 he tells us that we need to put on the kind of behaviors that are righteous and good, things like compassion, kindness, humility. He says we need to demonstrate patience and forgiveness.
At the end of this is where he says, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” The idea is that if you do these things and live in this kind of way, then you will let loose the peace of Christ. As you submit to the Lordship of Christ and let him rule over your character, His peace will come to govern your heart.
And, to the contrary, if you are not following Christ in these ways and you are living in sin, you should not expect to have any kind of peace, should you?
If you are not seeking to live as Christ wants you to live, you need to recognize that you end up robbing yourself of peace. You are depriving yourself of the peace that Christ would willing give you. So if you are angry towards your boss or towards your brother, you will not have peace will you? No, you are inwardly going to be entangled with all kinds of unrest. Sinful anger by its very nature is an extremely volatile thing. It naturally mitigates against peace. Not only does it disturb you inwardly, but if it is unleashed it creates all kinds of havoc relationally.
Jay Adams tells the story about a couple who came to him for counseling. He said that when they sat down you could just tell how things were going to go. She began by saying, “I’m only here because my doctor said I have an ulcer and it is not from anything medically wrong with me.” She proceeded to pull out a think stack of papers and hand them to Dr. Adams. She said, “This is why I believe I have an ulcer.” Adams said he couldn’t have even begun to read the entire document. It would have taken months to go through it line by line. But a quick perusing of the pages was enough. It was a 13 year list of wrongs that her husband had done to her. They were all listed and catalogued in full detail.
Do you see how her anger had gotten virtually eaten her alive? Instead of “bearing with one another” and “forgiving each other”, she harbored all kinds of wrath and malice. And it was wreaking havoc on her. Not just destroying her marriage, but her very own body. There wasn’t any kind of peace to be had.
The best way to gain peace through obedience to Christ. And Christ says that we must subdue our anger, stomp it out, and put it to death. And in its place develop the attributes of compassion, kindness, and patience. This woman had learned to respond wrongly to her marriage. She needed to change. She needed that moral change that is spoken of here. To be sure, her husband needed to change too. We are not downplaying that. But this serves to show how anger and sin mitigate against the peace that Christ affords us.
Now imagine if you approached every situation with compassion, kindness, humility, patience, and a forgiving attitude. Imagine what difference that would make in your life. If you practiced kindness rather than having fits of anger and a vengeful attitude, imagine the serenity that would fill your life. I would probably say that the problems you have with other people would be subdued to a great degree. I’m thinking that relationally, you’d have so much more harmony. You probably wouldn’t have as many people who hated you and those who did hate you, would probably be subdued pretty fast. As the proverb says, “A soft answer turns away wrath.”
But even if you did have some relentless person (or group of people) who just harassed you to no end. Let’s say you had some who just hounded you and created no end of trouble for you, what would happen if you handled yourself with compassion, kindness, humility and patience? Would you not still have peace? You might not have the relational peace, but there would still be a peace that surpassed all understanding, wouldn’t there? That’s because there would be a divinely imparted peace—the peace of Christ would be yours.
I want you to memorize these qualities: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness. And I also want to make sure you emphasize thanksgiving. That’s because Paul emphasizes thanksgiving.
At the end of verse 15 he adds, “with thanksgiving” as if to say that thanksgiving is just as vital to this whole idea of peace. But you may also notice that he mentions thanksgiving 2 more times in the following two verses.
A few weeks ago, I wrote in the Hopewell Weekly about anxiety. One of those articles stressed the role of thanksgiving. It is very difficult to be worried when you are thankful. Those two things cannot coexist together. That’s because worry and fear are based on a man-centered life and your control. Thanksgiving is theo-centric and emphasizes the fact that God is in control and working all things well.
And so, thanksgiving—like kindness, compassion, humility and patience, is a tool that God uses to impart His supernatural gift of peace.
Conclusion:
As we enter this time of Christmas we are being inundated with "peaceful" things. You may put on your warm sweater and drink your cup of cocoa by the fire. You may see the snow gently falling outside your window, which gives you a sense of peace and indicates some level of tranquility. But let us remember that these fade quickly, just as any other worldly remedy for your troubles.
But where the world fails, that is where Christ succeeds. The Lord this day calls you to peace. His will is that you would be dominated by it. But to have it you must put on Christ. As you come and submit yourself to the Prince of Peace, you will find that you will have peace.