Jehova Shalom
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 2 viewsNotes
Transcript
Peace for Warfare
Peace for Warfare
There’s a stark contrast between what the Bible teaches about Peace and what the World thinks Peace is
Websters Definition of Peace:
The absence of war or other hostilities.
An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities.
Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations.
Public security and order.
The worlds definition of peace is found in the lack of conflict:
Lack of war
Lack of struggle
Lack of hardships
Peace Time:
might not currently be engaged in war
Temporarily feel better because you’re not currently going through something traumatic or tragic
Statistically speaking:
Depression is one of the most prevalent mental health conditions in the US and it is the leading cause of disability worldwide.
In 2020, an estimated 14.8 million U.S. adults aged 18 or older and 4.1 million U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 17 had at least one major depressive episode with severe impairment in the past year.
Sometimes people think of peace as being happy or not stressed out
Do what makes you happy?
You deserve to be happy?
What if drugs make you happy?
Happiness is temporal
Usually brought about by happenstance
Social Media Is trying to sell us what happiness or peace is supposed to look like:
Usually a facade
A snapshot of happiness momentarily
You show people were happy or have peace on the outside
when in reality we’re falling apart
Instagram vs. Reality
None of this is Peace
Having peace is not the absence of conflict or war, it’s not the absence of struggling
What Peace is the presence of the Holy One
The GOD OF PEACE Jehova Shalom
First mention:
24 So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
To understand what is happening here we have to back track to:
1 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years,
This was cyclical behavior of Isreal:
Rebelion
Discipline
Repentance
Deliverance
2 and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. 3 So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. 4 Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it.
Isreal has a big problem:
Because of sin and rebellion they facing trouble that God never intended for them to face
For 7 years they got their butts kicked annually
7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites, 8 that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage; 9 and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 Also I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not obeyed My voice.’ ”
25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
A lot of people have no conflict but no peace because they do what right in their own eyes
If we want peace we have to do things God’s way and not our way
Obedience:
A lot of time the lack of peace looks like disobedience
Jonah
We either be Discipline ourselves or be disciplined
Humble yourself or be humbled
Waring in our flesh and Sprit
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
Some of us don’t have peace because our spirit is constantly waring inside us:
I lived in this state for a while
It’s probably the most miserable you can be
Because you know better
21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
Your sprit is literally fighting for you physical life and you’re letting the flesh win
Let’s look here at Gideon
11 Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
13 Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
Mighty Man of Valor a term they used to describe David
2. Stop focusing inwardly
15 So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16 And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”
3. He didn’t take the problem away
Peace is not the absence of the fight, it’s knowing who is in your corner
He asks for a sign:
He gets meat together and bread
He lays them on a rock
He pours out broth as God (I believe Jesus) instructed
The Angel touches the meat and the fire consumes it
Gideon gets a cool pyrotechnic show:
He sees the sign he sees the Lord face to face
What changes in Gideon?
Did he get stronger? Taller? Did he give him the staff and say light these people on fire?
Nothing outwardly changes in Gideon
So what does?
23 Then the Lord said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.” 24 So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Jehovah Shalom the Lord is peace
He’s not coming to take away the problem
He’s coming to give you the courage to stand firm against it
33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
If God just removed all your problems you would be happy, but nothing about that brings you peace
Happiness is temporal but Peace is eternal
4. Peace is your birthright as a Christian
27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
5. Peace is a mindset
3 You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
The enemy wants your mind stayed on your lack
On your self-consciousness
on your fear
on you
There’s a war for you soul
A war for you mind (not infowars.com)
The War between the flesh and the Spirit is won and lost in your mind
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
Where do you go when you feel lonely?
Where do you go when you feel anxious?
Where do you go when you feel unworthy?
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
