FOTS 2: Peace—Ecclesiastes 1: 1-11; Philippians 4: 1-3, 6-7
I was watching a video someone sent me the other day. There was a lady with a strong accent talking about the power of words. She said basically that if you are insulted in another language, you don’t know it. Even if they start screaming at you in another language, you may only laugh at the silliness of someone hollering words you don’t understand and which mean nothing to you. That is because we give words their power in our perceptions, our understandings, and our processing. The lady wrapped it up by saying, whatever words of insult, anger, and cruelty are hurled at you, don’t give them power in your life, and you will have peace.
As we continue our series on the fruits of the spirit from Galatians 3:23, we come today to this fruit of peace—so desired, yet just simply out of reach so many times. How do we live at peace in our own minds and bodies as well as peace with others? The scriptures for today tell us some of the ways we can have peace within ourselves and peace outside of ourselves.
We must work to find peace within ourselves. The Epistle lesson from Philippians contains one of the greatest statements on peace found anywhere in the Bible. We are first told to not worry about anything and instead pray about everything. There are so many things which can rob us of our peace each day: fear, worry and doubt, anger and stress, all of these things chip away at the peace we have within ourselves. We try to find our peace in life and circumstances around us—if it’s an easy day, if things go the right way, if stress would leave me alone, if people weren’t so people-y, it might be a better day, and I’ll finally have peace.
Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. Philippians tells us to give thanks, ask for what we need, and trust that we will then have God’s peace which exceeds everything we can understand. That peace is found guarding our hearts and minds. It doesn’t guard life, circumstances, or the troubles around us—it guards our hearts and minds. Marvin Gaye and Pinterest said, “If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” God’s peace is found within us, and it is our choice each day whether we will live in this peace which guards our hearts and minds from living in Christ Jesus. It is a tough process, but it offers guaranteed results every time.
Paul pushes in Philippians for people to find peace within and live at peace with others. He writes specifically to two people in the church to settle their dispute. In essence, he’s writing the polite version of “everybody sit down and hush up.” He appeals to Euodia and Syntyche to settle their disagreement. He also asks others in the church to work toward this resolution with them. Paul wants them to live in peace and at peace.
Good people can find themselves in the midst of a dispute. Disagreement is not a mark of someone who is bad. Both of these women were prominent preachers of the Gospel in Philippi. Paul lists their accomplishments: true partners to him, hard workers, and workers with him in telling the Good News. They have even apparently lived at peace in the past. But now they found themselves embroiled in a dispute, and if Paul is addressing this, it is safe to assume that their disagreement was affecting the life and health of the church they helped to lead.
Grudges, disagreements, and unresolved anger enter your life and soul like a burglar breaks into a house, and they steal all of your peace in life. To the person you hold that anger and grudge against, it means nothing. It’s like hearing insults in a foreign language. The only peace stolen by a grudges and anger is your own. That’s why Paul is warning Euodia and Syntyche. They have hearts for the gospel, but hearts also filled with disagreements and disputes will soon become cold and bitter, a place where no peace can be found.
Instead of a grudge, what we seek is justice. In many of the protests from the 1960s to the present, those marching would say, “No justice, no peace,” and there is a strong kernel of truth in this. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes cries that everything is meaningless, and history repeats itself. He is, as we would say in older generations, what is known as blasé. In more modern philosophy, we might call him existential. Both find a root in the Teacher having no love or enjoyment in life because of his disinterest and unease about all things. His phrase that history repeats itself has echoed down the centuries and in many instances proven itself true.
The word “justice” is used 328 times in the Bible. By comparison, the word “grace” is used 138 times. Our God is a God of justice, and through justice being done, we can find peace. We must find peace within, but we must also work to make a world where there is peace around us as well. Where we see things which are unjust, cruel, and harmful to others or God’s work, we must speak words of peace and advocate for what is right and just. Peace will never be found in the world in which we live if there are still people who feel like they have been treated unjustly, unfairly, and un-Christian-ly.
Paul understood this clearly in his writing to Philippi. He told them that God’s peace would guard their hearts and minds as they live in Christ Jesus. He didn’t stop at just the guarding of minds—it came with the push that this peace goes with them as they live in Christ. If we work for true justice and peace in this world, then we will be able to undo the predictions of the Teacher who said everything is meaningless and history (specifically a history of contentiousness and injustice) repeats itself.
Peace, then, is found in two places—within us as we work on our faith, and around us as we work for God’s justice in the world. We don’t know the outcome of the quarrel between Euodia and Syntyche. Paul never follows up. But I can guarantee that an unresolved grudge and dispute ruined their faith and destroyed the ministry of that church at Philippi. We must work in ourselves to not let words and acts of unkindness rob us of our own peace. And as we live in peace within, we must work peace in our world. We hear the words in “Just As I Am,” which say, “Fighting and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come. I come.” May we come to Christ and know his peace today.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/542183720591029