By Dennis Pollock
In Isaiah we read, “The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There’s no peace, says my God, for the wicked.” (Isaiah 57:20-21). According to the prophet, wicked, ungodly people, people who have no use for God in their lives, are like water during a storm, which is constantly muddy and stirred up. They have no peace.
Ungodly, secular people can have a lot and be a lot. They can make plenty of money, have many friends, achieve great success, and be popular. They can also be famous. But the one thing they cannot have is peace. There is no peace, says Isaiah, for the wicked.
Now let’s move over to the New Testament and see what Jesus promises to those who will believe in Him and follow Him. Jesus says:
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:27)
At this point, Jesus is about to go to the cross and die for the sins of the world. He knows He will not be with His disciples much longer. But He leaves something behind for them. He is giving them the gift of peace. He tells them not to be troubled or afraid. His peace will be with them. No reason for worry.
Why the Ungodly Have no Peace
Let’s think about why it is that people who are completely secular and pay no attention to God do not have peace, and why people who love Jesus and abide in Him do have peace. One reason is simple enough. If you go through this life without regard for God and uncertain as to whether He even exists, then you must believe that when you die, that’s the end of you. And the older you get, the more dismal things become. When you’re in your 20s, it’s easy to ignore the fact that you’re going to eventually die. You have so many years ahead of you; at least that’s what you think, and it just feels like you’re going to be on this earth for a good, long time. No need to worry about or even think about death and aging. When you’re in your 50s, you’re much more aware that you’re getting closer to the end. And when you reach your seventies, the cruel reality of your own mortality is staring you in the face constantly.
Older people look at young people and realize that while the youth are on their way into this life, they are on their way out of it. And if you believe that the grave is your final destination, and there is nothing after that, well, that does not exactly bring peace. Whereas when followers of Christ grow older, they are convinced that they are drawing nearer to graduation and translation into a new and far superior life. If you talk to a college student who’s been through a lot of hard work at college, studying like crazy, taking exams, writing papers, and burning the midnight oil, and now he’s only weeks away from graduation, and you ask, “Are you sad that you’re going to graduate?” chances are, he’s not going to be sad at all. He’s going to be thrilled that his days of long hours of study and late nights are coming to an end. Jesus told us, “In this world you will have tribulation,” but He never said, “In heaven you will have constant struggles and trouble.” It generates a tremendous amount of peace knowing that we will live forever with God in heaven after this life of turmoil, fears, struggles, and hard work.
Peace from the Holy Spirit
There is, however, a supernatural aspect of God’s peace that goes beyond just knowing that we will go to heaven when we die. Paul writes: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7). It’s supernatural. There’s no explaining it. God’s peace has nothing to do with you getting a raise at your job or the fact that your boyfriend just asked you to marry him. The peace of God doesn’t relate to what’s going on in your life circumstantially. It relates to the fact that because of Jesus, God is living in you. He’s in you today. He’ll be in you tomorrow and all your days on the earth. The Bible tells us that the fruit of the Spirit includes love, joy, and peace, along with other blessings and character traits. We have peace because the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus, is living in us through His Holy Spirit, and this has nothing to do with our current circumstances.
Another aspect of the peace that Jesus gives us is knowing that we are doing what we were made to do. I have many different tools, including saws, hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and power drills. Suppose they could think and talk. And suppose I was so ignorant I had no idea what each tool was made to do. I sometimes use a screwdriver to hammer nails. If that screwdriver could talk, he would probably ask me, “What in the world are you doing? This is stupid. I’m made to be a screwdriver. I’m not a hammer.” If tools could think and talk, I have no doubt that they would always be happiest and most fulfilled when they were being used for precisely the reason for which they were made. There would be no peace for a screwdriver being vainly used to try to hammer nails.
We were made by God for a specific purpose. We were made to do the will of God. And the first cardinal rule of usefulness is to submit our lives to God through Jesus Christ, and having done that, to seek Him for His will to be done in our lives. When men and women live sinful and selfish lives, expending huge amounts of effort to make money and be famous, and showing zero regard for what their Creator has in mind for them, they are not going to have peace. For the Christian, this is our passion: to accomplish God’s will, the purpose for which He drew us unto Jesus. We may not do it perfectly; we may have our failures and fumbles, but we are always determined to press on to “lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of us.”
But ultimately, the greatest sense of peace is what we find in Romans 5, where the Bible says
“Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Not peace because there is no conflict now. Not peace because we just came into some money or we got a better job, but peace with God because we know we’re forgiven, justified, children of God through Jesus, and all is well.
