“Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” (Philippians 4:9, KJV)
When I worked in field service engineering, customers would often call me to visit their printing plants to troubleshoot and resolve critical problems on their machinery. Many of the machines they would want me to work on and their subsystems were new to me. This mean that I had no idea what made them tick, that is how they operated. Most of the time the problems involved complex electrical interfaces. Some of the problems involved robotic controls, CNC positioning systems, programmable controls, machine drives, and etcetera.
When you go into a factory where the manufacturing equipment is not working there is a lot of tension in the air. The reason is that the plant is losing money for every minute the machinery is not running. Honesty, when I went into a plant to work on a system of which I had no experience, there was quite a bit of tension. I had little peace. However, after studying the systems and understanding them, by God’s grace I could effectively troubleshoot the equipment and get things running. When I made subsequent visits to work on these same systems again, I did not have the apprehension that I had before. It is because I had learned the equipment and what to do to affect the proper repairs. Peace came with knowledge and the proper application of that knowledge.
Here, Paul makes a similar point in the spiritual dimension. However, in this case the lesson and peace available is much deeper. He stated, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” There is a possibility to experience a peace that transcends the human experience. It is the peace of God. Paul told the Philippians that if they would take the things he had taught them, the things of God, and do them that they would experience God’s peace.
The peace of God is that peace that brings tranquility to the soul. It is a confident peace. It is supernatural. The natural person, that is the unsaved person, has no possibility to experience such a level of peace because they have no relationship with God who alone can provide such peace.
The point is this. If we want true peace, the starting point is to have a relationship with the Lord our God through faith in Jesus Christ. Yet more than the starting point is needed. After saving faith peace is available by walking in the righteous ways of God as presented in His word, the Bible. Thus, we must be saved and be obedient disciples. When we fulfill these requirements, we will find true peace. It is a peace that is not dependent on the circumstances of life. It is a peace that comes only through our abiding relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to His word.
Renewing the Heart 