Rejoice, and the Peace of God

These four verses are among the most underlined in the Bible. "Be anxious for nothing" (4:6) and "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding" (4:7) are quoted everywhere, often detached from anything around them. But they did not float into the letter alone. They follow "stand firm thus in the Lord" (4:1, L22), and they begin with "Rejoice in the Lord always" (4:4). The order matters. The peace of 4:7 is the inheritance of a people who have already planted their feet, reconciled their fractures, and tuned their joy to the Lord. Read it there, and it becomes a promise instead of a pressure.

1. Rejoice in the Lord, always, and again

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice" (4:4). Paul will not let the command stand naked. It is rejoice in the Lord, not rejoice always in the abstract, and that makes all the difference. As Murray put it on 3:1, "All our happiness is in Christ, about Christ, from Christ, and for Christ" (L16). The joy has an address: the Lord. And because the Lord does not change, the joy can be always.

Rogers loved the distinction here: "Happiness depends upon what happens... But joy is like a thermostat. Happiness is like a thermometer. Joy controls conditions. Happiness registers conditions." If your joy is in your health, your job, your circumstances, it rises and falls with them. If your joy is in the Lord, you can set the thermostat in a prison cell, because "they have locked me in, but they can't lock Jesus out" (Rogers, "Turning Your Prison into a Palace," on 4:4-7, 11). That is why Paul doubles the command, "again I will say, rejoice" (4:4): once for emphasis, twice against the cynicism that whispers "you don't know my situation." Paul wrote it from a Roman prison.

2. The Lord is at hand

Then a quiet anchor tucked into verse 5: "Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand" (4:5). The word "reasonableness" (sometimes translated gentleness or, older, "moderation") is the sweet, yielding spirit of a person whose joy is secure; Rogers renders it "sweet reasonableness" (Rogers, "Turning Your Prison into a Palace," on 4:4-7, 11). The anxious person is harsh; the person whose joy is in the Lord can afford to be gentle.

And then the reason: "The Lord is at hand" (4:5). Rogers insists this is not a reference to the Second Coming (though that too is near); it means "Jesus is right here with me. The Lord is right at my hands. I mean, He is here! I'm not alone in this prison cell." This is the first of Murray's three cures for anxiety: the presence of the Lord, "right beside us, no farther away than our hand" (Murray, "Christ's Calming Castle," on 4:1-7). Anxiety thrives on the felt absence of God; verse 5 guts that lie before verse 6 even begins.

3. Don't be anxious; pray about everything

Now the famous command, and notice it is negative then positive: "do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (4:6). Paul never says "don't worry" and leaves you there. He replaces. The way not to be anxious is to pray. Worry about nothing; pray about everything.

Rogers, in a sermon devoted entirely to these verses, traced the anatomy of worry in the Greek: the word for "anxious" literally means "to be pulled apart" (Rogers, "Five Steps to Mental Health," on 4:4-9, 11). Fear pulls one way, hope pulls the other, and the worrier is torn. The cure is not to feel less but to redirect the energy: "Worry about nothing; pray about everything." And Rogers is emphatic that this is not pop psychology: "Prayer is not just some exercise to take our mind off our problems... prayer brings God into that situation." Then the line that makes 4:6 livable: "If it's a concern to you, it's a concern to God" (Rogers, "Turning Your Prison into a Palace," on 4:4-7, 11). Nothing is "too small" to bring; "can you think of anything that's big to God?"

Notice the three layers of prayer Paul stacks in one verse: prayer (the contemplation of God, getting quiet before him), supplication (specific asking, "God, I need this"), and thanksgiving ("Lord, thank you for who you are and what you have already done"). Rogers draws out the thanksgiving layer: "If worry is the opposite of faith, thanksgiving is the expression of faith. Thanksgiving is the highest expression of faith" (Rogers, "Turning Your Prison into a Palace," on 4:4-7, 11). You do not ask for more while ignoring what he has already done; gratitude is the grammar of trust.

4. A peace that guards you

Then the promise, and it is bigger than "calm feelings": "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (4:7). Murray's equation is worth memorizing: "The presence of God plus prayer to God results in the peace of God" (Murray, "Christ's Calming Castle," on 4:1-7). Verse 5 (presence) plus verse 6 (prayer) equals verse 7 (peace).

Notice the verb: the peace will guard you. You do not keep this peace; this peace keeps you. Rogers, who was an easy phrase-maker, gets this exactly right: the word guard "means 'to surround,' as soldiers would surround a fortress... God puts His peace soldiers all the way around you so that none of these things can get to you" (Rogers, "Turning Your Prison into a Palace," on 4:4-7, 11). Paul wrote this while being guarded by Roman soldiers. He looked at them and laughed: you think you are guarding me, but the peace of God is the real garrison. And the peace "surpasses all understanding" (4:7): it does not make logical sense for a man on death row to be at peace, and yet here he is, writing the calmest letter in the New Testament. Bible peace, Rogers says, "is not the subtraction of problems from life; it is the addition of power to meet those problems."

The famous peace passage is done, and it is no longer detached. But Paul is not finished with the mind. Next comes one of the most practical paragraphs in Scripture: "whatever is true... think about these things" (4:8). The God who guards our hearts also wants what we feed our minds. That is where we go.