Day 2: Peace with John Mark Comer

Last year, 43% of Americans reported feeling more anxious than the previous year. Almost 20% of Americans were diagnosed with clinical anxiety disorder. Nearly half of Americans are on some form of medication for mental health, mostly for anxiety and depression. And of course, all these numbers ratchet up the younger you are for 20-somethings and in particular for Gen Z.

But God’s desire for us is not anxiety, but peace. Look with me at Colossians chapter 3 verse 15:

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace."

The opening line is “let …” It is a command, but it is passive. It's a command less to do something and more to let something be done to you.

“Let the peace of Christ …”

Not just peace, but the peace of Christ. Paul is not just saying — Hey, everybody, just relax. He's not referring to a generic peace that is available to all people in those fleeting moments where the stars align with the right mood and the right circumstance and the right setting, but to a very specific peace: the peace of Christ.

It's a peace that we see in the person of Jesus in story after story. When the storm is raging and he's asleep on the boat. When he's being crucified and obscenities are being thrown into his face, and he's saying, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they are doing.”

And it's the peace of mind that we receive through the salvation of Christ when we know in the depth of our being that we are saved, our sins are forgiven, and there is no more shame. We are safe and secure in his love.

“Let the peace of Christ rule …”

We are to let this peace of Christ rule. Paul uses a unique word here that isn't the traditional word for rule. In Greek, it's bravruo, a word used when a judge in an ancient court would issue a ruling. It was also used in the Olympic Games when an umpire would rule and say in-bounds or out-of-bounds, winner or loser, foul or no foul. To let the peace of God rule means to let it decide or direct your heart in the word used by Paul.

“Since, as members of one body, you were called to peace.”

There's a shift here that's lost in the English translation from singular to plural. That phrase, “your hearts,” is singular. But in “you were called to peace,” that's a plural “you.”

Paul is writing to a community. And in context, he's writing about how we become a community of love, how we get along, how we live in harmony and not in tension with each other. And that begins, in Paul's mind, with each of us letting the peace of Christ drive out all fear and letting it rule.

But the thing is, when you read the New Testament, it becomes very clear that whatever Jesus and Paul and the others mean by peace is not what I think of by peace.

Jesus was beaten and stripped naked, and killed. Paul was arrested time and again and thrown in prison and stoned and left for dead and beaten up and tortured and shipwrecked, and in the end, they cut off his head. Not a very peaceful life, but par for the course for all of the early Christian leaders.

We think of peace as the absence of conflict. An end to all evil and injustice. And one day, this kind of world will come to pass at Jesus' final return to rule as the king of kings and lord of lords. And the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Prince of Peace.

But the peace that Jesus is offering us now is what the biblical writers call a sign and a foretaste of the future world right in the middle of the chaos of the present one. That outer state is mostly yet to come. But the internal state is available now through Jesus.

Now, how do we do this?

Let me just offer you two very simple observations from Paul's command of the Colossians.

One, peace comes when we just spend time with the God of peace.

When I lived in Oregon, I had a spiritual director. I don't really remember anything that we talked about (other than one conversation that was life-changing). What I most remember is that I would almost always go into those conversations feeling anxious. And as I would just sit and visit with him prayerfully, I would literally just feel my central nervous system calm. He was so calm. He was not in a hurry. He was pervaded by peacefulness. And by the end, I would walk out of that chapel feeling profoundly at peace, just by being, just by breathing the air around him.

That's just, I think, a sliver of what it's like to breathe the air, so to speak, around God. Prayer is the non-negotiable pathway to peace. It is the first and most important step that we can and must take to carve out time every single day, just to sit quietly before the God of peace.

Secondly, peace comes when we surrender to the God of peace.

The command is to “let the peace of Christ rule.” Another way to say that is to surrender, yield to the direction of the peace of Christ. So much of our anxiety is because we are grasping for control rather than learning to surrender.

I have come to believe that living from the peace of Christ is one of the most important tasks of my apprenticeship to Jesus. I fail at this every single day. It may take 50 more years, but I know this is the path.

Today, as Jesus said, you will face trouble. I really pray it's minor and not major. But you will certainly face troubles.

In those moments, remember Jesus' words: “Do not let your heart be troubled” and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.