“Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.”
{Romans 15:33}

Arrangement of words declare the glory of God. Words cannot be thrown in a blender for any sense to come of them. Although God’s Word is likened to food, we are not to make word shakes and smoothies with holy writ. Childs play with God’s words isn’t the call of the son and daughter of God, rather we are to be men and women of understanding. God is the Author of peace, not confusion. His word and its’ procession gives order to make sense and understanding. He has provided the “form of sound words”. He has intentionally and purposefully spoken and when He did those words “proceeded” out of His mouth. The “form of sound words” grants the “form of sound doctrine”.

First, consider the arrangement, “the God of peace”. Now consider the arrangement, “the peace of God”. The latter’s arrangement indicates “peace” that proceeds from God; however, in a sense leaves us begging the question, “can peace only be found from God?” “The peace of God”, glorious in its own, thrills the soul: God extends and offers peace for the soul. Such truth is praiseworthy. Yet, the latter doesn’t provide the finality of the former. The former, “the God of peace”, doesn’t leave us begging, but satisfied. God is the God of peace; therefore, where else can we go? To whom can we turn for such peace? Anyone, but God, would be to turn to a form of peace and an unfulfilling substitute. “The God of peace” grants not only that peace comes from God, but that He is the sole Author of it.

The Peace of God

The peace of God highlights peace details, whereas, the God of peace highlights its details with its author exalted in the mind. Both are essential. Both are in God’s Word. Both are to be understood. It isn’t until the last chapters of Romans before we come in contact with the expression, “the God of”. Yet, it isn’t until the last chapters of Romans that we learned about the details of peace. In the first fourteen chapters of Romans we are given penetrating particulars of peace.

---

---

Possessing “peace with God”, having the spiritual mind which is “life and peace” (even in suffering), knowing the world today is receiving “peace from God”, and gaining the instructions to “live peaceably with all men” summarizes the basic tenets of knowing the God of peace and having not only God with you, but the God of peace with you.

The God of Peace

By Romans chapter fifteen, the Spirit has taught us many things corresponding to the provision and supply that God is to us in Christ. He is “the God of patience and consolation” (:5), “the God of hope” (:13), and “the God of peace” (:33). These attributes are wholly God’s and He is to be understood as the source of their origin and ground of their fruit. We are to enjoy Him and His fulness. His benefits are loaded, an everlasting supply to strengthen and fortify us to do His will. Patience, consolation, hope, and peace are seemingly obsolete in the feel-good, self-seeking, prosperous Christianity that the whole of Christianity has seemingly turned to. Why do I need patience, when I can have everything now? Why do I need consolation, when nothing wrong will happen to me? Why do I need hope, when I have my best life now? Why do I need peace, when my Christianity follows the wisdom of the world? Oh, the package of these benefits are for those who really know who they are, who God has made them, the world in which they live, the promises they do and don’t have, and understand their spiritual sufficiency, and that the sufficiency that truly matters is fully and abundantly provided for. What a supply God has given for us to benefit from by faith! Patience, consolation, hope, and peace assist us in knowing the grandeur of all that God is and does. They shew forth godliness in the midst of lusts and pleasure.

The flesh and carnality, in its abundance in this world, has everything at its finger-tips. Patience? what is that? Companies are built around the impatience of our present society that wants their hearts desires NOW! Don’t go to the movies, just stream them on your tv. Don’t go to the store for products get them on your doorstep in a couple of hours. Going to the store this weekend, just click some buttons and get it in two days. Why do I need a newspaper when I have push notifications of my favorite news outlets not only locally, but abroad. These operations are built, in part, around man’s impatience to soothe our lusts. Surely, during a pandemic, if we had to lockdown people in their homes, this society wouldn’t be disturbed too much and such companies would profit. {Don’t be confused this was put in during the pandemic}. Yet, when these things are taken away, don’t function quickly enough our response reflects our impatience. Now think about your response if you really had to suffer, I mean torture suffer and you will begin to see that the God of peace is able to provide patience above all that we could ask or think of – there is the depth of His peace.

Lusts of the flesh also influence our comfort. We call our favorite foods “comfort-foods”. These we go to to calm our thoughts. Many of the foods may raise our blood pressure, but yet they calm. Why do they calm? Simply, the food is a distraction that brings delight to one or more of our senses. Yet, these attempts do not deal with symptoms to comfort, but perish with their using. We are never satisfied and never truly comforted by placing our satisfaction in them. Yet, God is the God of consolation and comfort. The glory of His consolation and comfort is revealed as we live in an inconsolable world, among the lusts of the flesh with the learning of His everlasting comfort. What is that which isn’t temporal thus wouldn’t perish with the using, but everlasting to console your disquieted spirit? I declare to you, the promise of eternal life without suffering, without pain. Those promises exacted upon our circumstances by faith is to not only know the comfort of God, but the God of consolation, the God of hope, the God of peace. He doesn’t simply distract you, then have you take something that actually harms you. No! He journey’s with you down the corridor of your thoughts and feelings to their tragic end without Him and says, “I have destroyed him that has the power of death”! He has us compare the weight of our stress, the insufficiency of our remedy, the full end of whatever I may be going through, and His power over sin and death to declare to your heart and mind that He is Lord over all, and the God of consolation. In truth, this is not all that His Word yields, for therein we find a sufficient and abounding supply of promises and provisions for our comfort which preeminently works in our inner man, exactly where our necessity needs to be met, and not our outer man.

Knowing the God of peace, consolation, hope, and patience is a process for the spiritually minded. Any peace we receive in this life is subservient to the God of peace and in many instances is a counterfeit. How glorious therefore in provision, by influence and power, and in knowledge is the God of peace to and for us!

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 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 4:4-9}

Look Up,

Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher