“Rejoice in the Lord always.
Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is
at hand. Be anxious for nothing, 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 minds through
Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 4:4-7].
Rejoicing in the Lord always,
living in gentleness toward all, recognizing the presence of Christ, living in
conversation with God born out of relationship with God – this all leads to the
peace of God (which is beyond our understanding) guarding our hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus.
I previously wrote that in a
sense we have the opportunity to relive the Garden of Eden each new day of our
lives, we can choose to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; or
we can choose, by God’s grace, to eat from the Tree of Life, our Lord Jesus
Christ. In another sense we can choose, by God’s grace, to live in the New
Jerusalem each new day – for in the New Jerusalem we see not the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil, but only the Tree of Life (Revelation 22:1-4). In a
third sense we live between the Garden of Eden and the New Jerusalem, we are on
pilgrimage from one to the other. We have left a high place (the Garden), have
fallen from that place, but are now in Christ traveling to a higher place (the
New Jerusalem) – see Hebrews 11:10, 15, 16; 12:18 - 24.
The peace of God surpasses all
understanding, we don’t comprehend it, it just doesn’t make sense. This peace
comes not from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it comes from our
Lord Jesus, the Tree of Life. This peace is not born of earth, it is rooted in
the joy and certainty of heaven. Some people think that when Paul writes that
the peace of God surpasses all understanding that he means that it surpasses
what the mind that does not know Christ can understand (see 1 Corinthians
Chapter Two for insight into the difference between the mind that knows Christ
and the mind that doesn’t). These folks think that the mind that knows Christ
can understand the peace of God.
For sure the mind that does
not know Christ cannot experience the
peace of God; while the mind that knows Christ can experience God’s peace. But Paul is not using a word that means
experience, he is not using a heart word, he is using a head word; and so I
think that Paul, in the midst of his own imprisonment, is saying what many
Christians have come to know in the their minds and experience in both their
hearts and minds – that the peace of God is so other worldly and so
transcendent that we cannot comprehend it, we cannot understand it, we cannot
(to use a current expression) “wrap our minds around it.” The peace of God does
not make sense. It does not make sense to experience overwhelming peace in the
midst of adversity and pain and persecution – it doesn’t make earthly sense,
and while it does make heavenly sense because of who our Father is, because of
who Jesus is, because of who the Holy Spirit is – we still can’t comprehend it.
We know it is so because of who God is, we know Jesus the Prince of Peace lives
within us and envelops us in Himself – but we do not understand how this can be
because it is so other than we are –
and yet praise God – it is who we are
becoming in Christ Jesus!
I’m making a point of this because
the peace of God is one of the most supernatural experiences (to take the risk
of using comparative language) that a Christian can know because it is a
contradiction of natural-earthly circumstances – it is an acknowledgment that
Jesus is Lord and that this present age
does not have the final word on the meaning of our circumstances. The peace
of God guarding our hearts and minds is the Kingdom of the Prince of Peace
establishing itself within us and building ramparts around its territory –
around our hearts and minds. This is why Paul will follow in verses 8 – 9 with
an exhortation to holy thinking and holy living – we do not want to dismantle
our defenses, we want to continually strengthen them.
The world tempts us to
retaliate, the enemy wants us to rationalize retribution and justify violating
the peace of God. “If someone does something harmful to me then it is only
right that I respond by escalating the conflict,” is the way of the age. Unholy
anger is the world’s ballistic missile. Yet Jesus proclaims in the Sermon on
the Mount that He is bringing a Kingdom to the planet with an entirely
different trajectory, it is upward and not downward – it is intent on building
and not destroying – the idea of “mutual assured destruction” is foreign to the
Kingdom of God. The laws and principles of the heavenly land in which we live
are different than the principles and laws of the earthly land upon which we
live – the laws and principles of the heavenly land are eternal, the laws and
principles of the earthly land are temporal.
When we experience the peace
of God that passes all understanding we taste our heavenly home – right now,
right here, in the midst of circumstances that shout, “How can you be at peace!
How can you not have worry and anxiety!”
One of the properties I manage
is a housing cooperative here in Virginia. However, even though the cooperative
is located in Virginia, it was incorporated in Maryland; therefore while it
must comply with Virginia laws for a foreign corporation, it must also be
governed by Maryland’s law regarding housing cooperatives. The people living in
the housing cooperative live in Virginia but are (at least in part) governed by
Maryland law – especially Maryland housing cooperative law. God’s people may
live on the earth, they may live in the world, they may live in the midst of
the spirit of the age – but they are not governed by the things of earth and
are not to subject themselves to the spirit of the age. The peace of God is to
rule us (Colossians 3:15) and that peace is not of the world (John 14:27) –
this is the peace we are called to, an other-worldly peace, a peace that
surpasses all understanding…keeping our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called sons of God.”
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