Summary
A Life of Peace
Proverbs 10:24-25 sets two figures side by side: "What the wicked dread will come upon them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are established forever." Reading these words honestly forces a question—who are we in them? We want to be the righteous, but the storms in our lives, the broken relationships, the bills, the diagnoses, the floods that ravage whole communities, can make us suspect we belong with the wicked.
The Lutheran answer is both sobering and freeing: we are simultaneously sinner and saint. By nature we are born in the image of fallen Adam, inheriting his sin. By grace we are reborn in the Spirit and recreated in the image of God. This struggle is the ordinary Christian life this side of heaven, and it is precisely into this struggle that God speaks His call—"it is to peace that God has called you" 1 Corinthians 7:15.
Scripture shows what happens when the wicked—those acting apart from God—try to seize their own security. After the flood, God told Noah's family to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Instead, fearing the very scattering God had commanded, their descendants built a tower at Babel to make a name for themselves Genesis 11:1-9. What they dreaded came upon them anyway: the Lord scattered them. Centuries later the same fearful logic appeared in the Jewish leaders who, terrified of losing position and people to Jesus of Nazareth, handed Him over to crucifixion. They thought they had won when He breathed His last. Three days later, what the wicked dread came upon them—the tomb was empty, and Christ reigned.
This is why the desire of the righteous is granted. The desire of the righteous is not a wishlist of comforts but the prayer Jesus taught: "Thy will be done." God's will does not always match what we want, and we will not grasp its full breadth in this life, but it is good and perfect, and it wills for you a life of peace. When we instead build our own towers—trusting ourselves, glorifying ourselves, taking matters into our own hands—we find ourselves at war with the very will that intends our peace.
Peace, then, is not the absence of storms but a foundation beneath them. Jesus Christ, true God and true man, lived the righteous life we cannot live and went to the cross to bear the wrath our sin deserved. On the night before that storm of all storms, He said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" John 14:27. His resurrection establishes the righteous forever. Life storms last for a moment; life in the Lord is for eternity.
So when the tempests come—and they will—remember that you are not asked to manufacture peace by building higher towers. The peace to which God calls you has already been paid for at the cross, sealed in the Holy Spirit, and delivered into your open hands in the body and blood of Christ. Built on Him, your life is established forever "A Life of Peace" 7-13-25.
Video citations
- "A Life of Peace" 7-13-25 — If you would please open your Bibles to Proverbs 10, Proverbs 10. This is in the Old Testament. If you're using a Pue edition of the Bible, you can find this on page 556, Proverbs 10, verses 24 and…