God Gives Inner Peace
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
This gem in Philippians 4 won’t get the attention it deserves in Sunday’s sermon. It comes as one command in a series of rapid-fire commands that Paul gives toward the close of the letter. This is a pretty common thing for Paul to do, called a peroration, such as in 2 Corinthians 13:11,
Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Or, take 1 Thessalonians 5:15–22,
See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.
It’s like the finale shots of a fireworks show — quick, jumbled, overwhelming, inspiring.
— except that Philippians 4:6-7, on the topic of prayer and its connection to anxiety and peace, is worth mulling over for hours.
I’d like to have a chance to do that sometime, but to whet your appetite for Sunday, I’ll just say that the peace Paul is talking about here is “inner peace.” That is probably obvious to most of us, but it needs to be said. The Puritan Thomas Watson has been helpful to me on this.
I’ve been trying to finish Watson’s Body of Divinity, written in 1692 — it’s not a huge book, but it has taken me a couple of years to get through it, partly because, in pure Puritan fashion, he can really zero in on certain things. His laser focus turns into subpoints beneath subpoints beneath subpoints under subheadings — and in my humanity, it’s not easy to stick with it. But I’m plodding, mining, and lo and behold I come across a whole section on “Peace” — under the heading “The Application of Redemption.”
Writing on the heels of England’s civil wars, Watson distinguished between external peace and spiritual peace (“which is twofold: peace above us, or peace with God; and peace within us, or peace with conscience”) (261).
External peace has to do with things such as economics and family, the politics of the state, and the life of the church. He says that when there is no schism or persecution, there is external peace, and “How pleasant it is when the waters of blood begin to assuage, and we can see the windows of our ark open, and the dove returning with an olive branch of peace!”
It is a blessing when a nation is not at war, and we should count that blessing, but it’s not lasting, and when that peace is ended, what then?
The only eternal peace is the peace we have with God (reconciliation), and the inner peace he gives us, which Watson says flows from our union with Christ. That is the peace of Philippians 4:7 we’ll talk about Sunday — the peace of God which is greater than human reason.
Although the peace of God refers primarily to the peace God has and is in himself, the peace of God also refers to the peace that God gives: “the inward peace of the soul which comes from God, and is grounded in God’s presence and promise.”(G. W. Hansen, Philippians, p. 292)
