Bible Study The Peace That Passes All Understanding.

[Tenchi]

Philippians 4:6-7 (NASB)
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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I can't think of a time in my life where so many of the people in my social sphere are laboring under a generalized condition of fear. And the fear in most cases is debilitating, requiring medication and even hospitalization, in a couple of instances. What's worse, there is a growing number of Christians who are taking Paxil or Lorazipam - and even stronger chemicals - to "steady their nerves." It's not that these believers have had a bad medical report, or have lost someone precious to them in a terrible accident, or have endured a mugging or rape. No, they've just got this hovering cloud of anxiety, fixed to nothing in particular, that stifles their joy and contentment while provoking them to panic attacks, insomnia, and confusion. Drugs suppress this "fog of fear" but mess with the believer's brain chemistry, creating long-term dependency without ever resolving the cause of their fear. Certainly, these unhappy children of God have no experience of the "peace that passes all understanding."

Why not? How can these believers be so fearful when God Almighty, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, resides within them?

1 Corinthians 3:16 (NASB)
16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 6:19 (NASB)
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

1 John 4:13 (NASB)
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

John 14:16-17 (NASB)
16 "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

Romans 8:9-11 (NASB)
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Well, so what? The Holy Spirit dwells in the anxious born-again believer. Okay. If his presence within them made any real difference to their condition, they wouldn't be so anxious they need drugs to cope, right?

Nonetheless, whatever their experience may be, to His children, God says in His word that the Spirit is a powerful counter to fear:

2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)
7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Romans 8:15 (NASB)
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

John 14:26-27 (NASB)
26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
27 "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

Romans 15:13 (NASB)
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5:22 (NASB)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...

So, what's wrong, then? If the born-again believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit and in him they possess peace, inner stability, love and power, why are they caught so deeply in a generalized state of anxiety that they need to take drugs to navigate their days with any equilibrium?

God offers a number of reasons:

1.) Sin.

Hebrews 10:26-27 (NASB)
26 For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment...

Proverbs 28:1 (NASB)
1 The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, But the righteous are bold as a lion.

Proverbs 10:24 (NASB)
24 What the wicked fears will come upon him...

Genesis 3:10 (NASB)
10 He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid...

Isaiah 13:6-8 (NASB)
6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man's heart will melt.
8 They will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame.

When a child of God rebels against their Heavenly Father, seeking their own will and way over His, fear is, among other things, the result. How can they rest easy and confident in their Maker when they have, by their sinful disobedience to Him, set themselves against Him? They know their Holy Creator is just and pure (1 John 1:5) and cannot wink at their sin. And He falls silent when His children refuse to heed the convicting voice of His Spirit, and ignores their prayers:

Psalm 66:18 (NASB)
18 If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;

Isaiah 59:2 (NASB)
2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

1 Peter 3:10-12 (NASB)
10 For, "The one who desires life, to love and see good days, must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.
11 "He must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.
12 "For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears attend to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."


2.) Our eyes are upon the World and the Wicked.

Psalm 18:4 (NASB)
4 The cords of death encompassed me, And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me.

Psalm 140:1-4 (NASB)
1 Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men; Preserve me from violent men
2 Who devise evil things in their hearts; They continually stir up wars.
3 They sharpen their tongues as a serpent; Poison of a viper is under their lips. Selah.
4 Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; Preserve me from violent men Who have purposed to trip up my feet.

Proverbs 24:19-20 (NASB)
19 Do not fret because of evildoers Or be envious of the wicked;
20 For there will be no future for the evil man; The lamp of the wicked will be put out.

When the deeds of evil people crowd the attention of the born-again person, inevitably, God is crowded out. The child of God is called to focus on Christ, on the Truth of God's word, not upon CNN, or Fox News, or Netflix. There is nothing for the believer in the world of the wicked played out before them in the popular media. And, in fact, by occupying themselves with the things of the World, investing their time, energy and money in the myriad godless distractions of it and unconsciously adopting its values and philosophies, believers make of themselves spiritual adulterers and adulteresses and enemies of God. For the Christian person, in particular, this state of affairs will always birth a generalized anxiety that only grows more acute over time.

James 4:4 (NASB)
4 You adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

1 John 2:15-16 (NASB)
15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

Fearful Christians are usually focused upon themselves, the World and the wicked, not upon Christ. But he alone is the Prince of Peace and only in him can one find the "peace that passes all understanding" (Philippians 4:9) And so, the born-again believer is commanded:

Hebrews 12:2-3 (NASB)
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB)
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Philippians 4:8 (NASB)
8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NASB)
28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."



Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

3.) The child of God doesn't properly understand who God is.

Usually, fearful Christians have adopted a view of God that is contorted and small, that makes of Him a cartoon of who He actually is. This happens as a consequence of taking on the World's ideas about Him, or of enduring difficult circumstances with a childish view of God, and/or as a consequence of neglecting to make the effort to understand as fully as possible the revelation of God provided to us all in His word, the Bible. Job is a great example of one who was operating under a too-small conception of God. Although he had endured suffering with remarkable equanimity, when God finally answered Job, it was to explain to him a better view of who He was. Seeing God more accurately, more fully, Job responded:

Job 42:1-6 (NASB)
1 Then Job answered the LORD and said,
2 "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
3 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."
4 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.'
5 "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You;
6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."

Fear in a born-again believer is many times a testament to a shrunken view of God. It is not in a feeling, or altered circumstances that the Christian finds the "peace that passes all understanding" but in the power, wonder, love and faithfulness of their Lord, Savior and God. As they know Him, as they see Him clearly, they can't help but come to rest in Him who is sovereign over all things and discover that He is their Peace, not a feeling of calm, or living in untroubled circumstances. For this reason, then, it is crucial that every born-again child of God knows well the revelation of God given in Scripture.

Psalm 27:1 (NASB)
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?

Proverbs 3:25-26 (NASB)
25 Do not be afraid of sudden fear Nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes;
26 For the LORD will be your confidence And will keep your foot from being caught.

Psalm 56:11 (NASB)
11 In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?
read will be given him, His water will be sure.

Psalm 112:7 (NASB)
7 He will not fear evil tidings; His heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.

Isaiah 26:3-4 (NASB)
3 "The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in You.
4 "Trust in the LORD forever, For in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock.

The fearful Christian will plead with God for a changed situation, hoping for peace and rest, not in God, but in the situation He can create for them; the fearful Christian will plead with God for an inner feeling of calm though they stand in sinful defiance of Him in many areas of their living; the fearful Christian will plead with God for help when their fear spikes acutely and they grow desperate to be free of it, but they call out to a God they don't really know, that they've pushed to the margins of their life and neglected. As a result, these anxiety-ridden believers find their fears unrelieved and growing, the God they hoped would aid them apparently unable to do so. If only they understood that God is Himself the "peace that passes all understanding" and that to have such peace fill their life is to have Him fill their life. But such filling means that He is actually God in their life, not a mere accessory to their existence, the vital Hub around which all their living revolves. Only those who go low before Him, submitting themselves to Him as a "living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1), a "vessel sanctified and prepared for His use" (2 Timothy 2:21), will He lift up into the abundant life of peace, love and joy that He is.

1 Peter 5:6-7 (NASB)
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

Psalm 46:1-2 (NASB)
1 God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear...

 

[for_his_glory]

2Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Fear only comes by the strongholds of the flesh, but we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit and to be walking according to the Spirit that leads us while living in a sinful world. Fear causes anxiety, depression and leads to all sorts of health issues. We are to have faith and trust in God who helps us in our times of need.

Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.