Our pastor Jamie is in Scotland. We have wonderful church planting work going on over there. And he's taken some other people from our area that's interested in pouring into that work to be engaged hopefully in the spread of the gospel over there in a wonderful, wonderful way. I'm Fred Lodge as my Jordan pastor emeritus here, and I get to preach today, and I'm excited about that. I got a little worried this morning.

I arrived on campus. I had everything except my watch. And I thought that could be dangerous for everybody. So I called Valeria. I said, bring it in just in case, you know, I might need it.

I go by calendar sometimes more than I do by time. Pastor has had us on a wonderful journey learning who God is through his name. See, God reveals himself in his holy word. And one of the ways he does that is through helping us understand his character through his names. And we have been just on this tremendous journey with this.

I've enjoyed it so much. And we sit, the ministerial staff sit with pastor on a weekly basis and we just praise God. We get sometimes so happy in there that, well, Caleb has had to come in there and quiet us down from time to time, I'll have to be honest with you. But just worshiping God and then out of that wonderful joint worship is what comes onto the floor here and what we get to do together. He's helped us to understand in these names of God how God relates to us and who he is to us.

Now, especially over the course of the last few weeks, Pastor has been showing not only is God showing his name by what he does for his people, but he's explaining to his people, look, I'm gonna work in you and through you, but I want you to be engaged in this process. And so the last two sermons, that's very much what he's been about. Like on sanctification, God is the one who sanctifies. Well, he does. It's his wonderful work of grace, but he wants us to work, walk in purity and in sanctification as well.

We've got a role to play in that. So I want to build on top of that wonderful foundation that he's already set with this next name of God. It's only found one time anywhere in the Bible, but the concept is, is throughout the Scriptures and it is Jehovah Shalom. Jehovah shalom. Say that with me.

Jehovah shalom. Turn in your Bible if you will, or on your device to judges there in the old testament. Chapter six. We're going to pick up with there in verse 11, in just a few moments when life's position is uncontrollable, we lose our peace. We've got it all planned out, know when we're going, when we're going to get there.

All of these things we got lined up and then it doesn't happen and we lose our peace. When people are unchangeable, it seems we lose our peace. We think if they just think the way we do and understand the way we do, make the decisions we do, we'd all be in good shape, right? When problems are unexplainable, we lose our peace. We naturally cry out to God, why?

Why now? Why me? And let me just explain something to you real quickly. That is a visceral gut question. And there's nothing wrong with the question, but you're never going to find a satisfying answer.

So at some point when you've wore out all of those whys, you gotta transition into what now. And then God can show you his grace and his power. When pain is unbearable, we lose our peace. Whether it's emotional pain or physical pain that tends to rob us. And when the past is unforgiven, we lose our peace.

We can't make peace with what's happened in the past. I don't think for a moment that every one of you who's come here today, everything is just wonderful and great and peaceful and calm in your life. I know better. I saw some of you trying to get your kids out of the car. It's not getting here is not half the good, is it?

You know, life is filled with peace thieves, things that will steal our peace, take our joy, take our comfort away. And this morning we're going to find out that peace is who God is. Notice how I said that? Not what he is or what he does. It's who he is.

Jehovah Shalom in our Bible's. In Judges, chapter six. Will you stand with me? And we're going to begin reading verse 11. Let me tell you what's been going on.

First, in the book of Judges, we have 12 cycles that go round and round and round and round again. It starts off with all being well and people are worshiping God the way they should. Then they fall away from God. They begin to worship idols. And then God allows calamity to happen.

And some of the ites to come in and torment them. The Hittites, the Hivites, Jebusites, the mosquito bites, whatever, they come in to just aggravate them. And finally they cry out to God for deliverance and when they do that, they repent before God, and he lifts them up and he raises up a deliverer, a strong judge that can send them right to the throne of God. And they come back to God in this wonderful way, and he gives revival and wonderful stuff to the land. And then they do it all over again and again and again.

It traces 12 different cycles like this in this little book. Seems like we're all in slow class. We're not learning very well, are we? So we're in the middle of one of those the ites this time is the Midianites, and they have overrun the land. They.

They have taken all of the crops, all of the wealth, all of the weapons, all of the farm tools. As a matter of fact, they have nothing hardly to deal with. And so here's where we pick up in verse 11. Now, the angel of the Lord. Let me explain some to you.

When you see that phrase, the angel of the Lord, this is God showing up in a human form. It's a christophany. It's a theophany. It's him. He's there now, an angel of the Lord.

That's just a regular old angel. The angel of the Lord God show up and God's talking, just so you'll know that. Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree, which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon. There's our man right there. Gideon threshed.

Tweet in the winepress. Now that's weird. We'll talk about that in just a minute. To hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.

And anybody who knows him laughs, okay? And Gideon said to him, o my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why, there you go. Why then has all these things happened to us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, did not the Lord bring us out from Egypt, but now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of Midianites. And 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? Now, when you. When somebody sends you, you go in their power, their authority, okay? So he said to him, o my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest of Manasseh, and I am the least of my father's House.

More excuses. And the Lord said to him, surely I will be with you. If you don't mind marking your Bible. Underline that right there. I will be with you.

I'm not saying you do something by yourself. I'm coming. And you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. Then he said to him, now, if now, Lord, I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign. This guy gets hung up on signs, okay?

Show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. Do not depart from here. I pray until I come to you and bring you my offering and set it before you. And he said, I will wait until you come back. So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and an unleavened bread from an ephah of flour.

And the meat he put in a basket. And he put broth in a pot. And he brought them all out to him, who sat under the terebinth tree and presented them. And the angel of the Lord said to him, take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on the rock and then pour out the broth on top of all of it. And he did so.

Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of his staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened blood, and pow. Fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared out of his sight. Now, Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, alas, Lord God, for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

What's he doing here? He knows he's about to die. Nobody stands in the front of Deity unchanged. He knows he's about to die. So look here.

Then the Lord said to him, not the angel of the Lord. It said, the Lord. See those? All capital letters there? That's the.

That's the personal name of Yahweh. Then the Lord said to him, peace be with you. Do not fear. You shall not die. So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is Peace.

Let's pray. Holy Spirit, this is your word that you have hovered over. You have protected for thousands of years. And yet it's living. It's not black ink on white paper.

Bring it off the page and attach it to our heart. Cause we are a troubled people. We live in a troubled world. We live in a troubled nation. We have troubled families.

We have troubled relationships. We have trouble in the depths of our own hearts. And we desperately need the God who is Peace. And so, in the name of the Prince of Peace, we pray. Amen.

Be seated, please.

Gideon is not the hero type, okay? Not in the least. He said, I'm. I'm the least of the. Our clan is the least of all of them, and our family is the least.

I'm the youngest. And. And, you know, he was frightened, he was worried, he was anxious because of all the things that were going on and happening, and it deeply, deeply troubled him. And when God finds him, it's interesting where God finds him. It says, he's thrashing wheat in a winepress.

Now, we don't understand a lot about how agriculture went on like that, so you need to understand this. Let me unpack it for you. When wheat or any of the grain was ready to be harvested, it was cut down low with the scythe, you know, like that. And then the heads were chopped off from the stalks. The stalks were thrown over to the side, and then all of the heads of grain was put down on a flat rock, and then it was beat out with a flail.

You know, you just beat it and beat it and beat it and beat it, and that cracks all of the wheat or the barley or whatever it is. Then it was taken in a big basket called a winnowing basket, and it was up on top of a hill, and they would throw it up in the air. The breeze come by and would blow away the husks, the chaff. The seeds would fall back down in the basket. They would throw it up and down, up and down, until they just had seeds, grain left, and then they would put it into a bag, and then they'd do it again.

Well, the land was crawling with marauders, with the Midianites, and they were thieves and they were murderers. So it's not a real good idea to be thrashing wheat on top of the hill where they can see you. So nobody was doing that.

But Gideon had to feed his family, and he still had some wheat left. So he went to the winepress. Now, this is different. This is dug into a rock, okay, like a bowl in a rock. And then there's a hole out of that that would go down to another rock, a vat.

And they would walk all over the grapes and squish all the juice out and everything, and it would run down the hole and in there, and that's where they would have the wine. Well, the top was not being used for wine, so that's where he was threshing out the wheat. Good luck catching A breeze in there to throw it up in the air and separate from the chaff. Why was he doing that? He was scared.

He was afraid. He was worried. He was anxious, and he was helpless. Nothing he could do about it. Sounds like where some of us are today, right?

And so this is where God sees him. And God calls him Mighty man of Valor. Okay? And, I mean, it really is laughable. But you see, God saw something in this wimp that he didn't see in himself.

You'll find that later on in the New Testament when he calls a man named Simon. And Simon is a name that means like a reed, just. Just wheezing and breathe, you know, that was. That was Simon. But he said, no, I'm going to make you rock solid.

Because God saw something in him. Simon didn't see it himself. He sees something in you that you don't see in yourself. You're worried, you're anxious. You're ate up with all the things that are happening to you and all the way around you and everything.

And you think there's no way out. And you're worried to death about what is going to happen. You have no peace. And I want you to hear the voice of God today when he says what he says to Gideon, peace to you. He wants to speak peace into where you are right now.

So God presented himself to Gideon this way. The angel of the Lord presented himself to him. And right away, Gideon comes up with all the things that are wrong. You know, why this? Why did you bring us out of Egypt?

And now we're having all these trouble with the Midianites and such as that. Like he didn't know. All right? This wasn't the first time this had happened. Like I said, this was a cycle, and it's not cycle number one.

He'd already lived through a great deal of this. So here, God's going to send him forth and he says, you know, I can't. I can't do. Can't be me. I'm weak.

I'm a wimp. I can't handle this. I'm the least of all this stuff. And then God says this. I will be with you.

Hold on to that. Hold on to that.

Jamie's not going to preach on my favorite name for God. I'm hurt. I'll get over it. The name that he has manifested with me and with my family over and over again is Emmanuel. God with us.

But it's embedded in every one of his other names. And he says it here, you know, for me to be peace I've got to be with you. And I'm not sending you out to do something on your own. I will be with you. It'll be the power of my might and not yours.

And so, Hazel, he's got to test it out, be sure everything's all right. And this guy really is who he says he is. And so he does the offering thing, and poof, it's all burnt up. And then he's scared again because, oh, goodness, I've been in the presence of the Almighty. Now he's going to slap me with a lightning bolt or whatever.

And that's when God reveals himself as peace and speaks peace into this troubled heart.

Anybody else other than me here need a good dose of that today?

But the God who is peace is right here today, and he's wanting to manifest his presence, reveal himself to you through his name, and manifest peace in the midst of what's going on with you. Well, Pastor, I got a question, if you don't mind me asking. If God is a God of peace and he wants me to have peace, why am I living in turmoil? Why has all this bad stuff happened? Well, your name is Gideon, and I understand.

Let me explain something to you. And this is not just from this passage. This is throughout the word of God.

God is peace, and he wants you to experience him as peace. But there are things that will steal your peace. There are things that will keep you from having God's peace in your life. And that's what I want to address this morning. There are three things that.

That are peace thieves. And I think if we'll realize what it is that's blocking us from the source of peace, from the person of peace, then we can have the peace he wants us to have. So here in your notes. First one is this. The first one is disobedience will steal your peace.

Disobedience will steal your peace.

When the scriptures unfold, we find it from the very beginning with Adam and Eve, God had a great and wonderful plan for their lives, and everything was provided for them. They were working with God to care for the wonderful of creation. God told them, here's the way I want you to do it. There's only one thing I'm telling you that you can't do. The one thing you cannot do is you can't eat of the fruit of the tree of life.

That one's forbidden. You're not allowed to have that one. Everything else is yours. Have at it. Do whatever you want to.

I'm here with you, met with them in the cool of the day, walk with them every day. God's presence just alive and right there with them. But there is something deep in the heart of man that says, you know, I really don't care what you say. I want to do what I want to do. I want to have what I want to have when I want to have it.

And I don't want anybody telling me no or you can't, or that's wrong. Now, what I've just described is the Bible's definition of sin. Sin is the attitude of our heart that defies God. That says, I understand what God has said in his Word. I know what the preacher's preaching all this.

I understand all that. I ain't a gonna do it. I want what I want.

And that attitude is what leads to sins. The things that erupt from that kind of attitude in our lives. And the scripture tells us that our sin has separated us from God. There is a canyon between holy God and Fred Lodge that cannot be bridged in anything that I can do about this. My sins have separated me from God.

My disobedience has alienated me from God. And the scripture tells us, Paul, especially in Romans and also in Ephesians, that it has put enmity between me and God. That literally, what that means is I am God's enemy. And I see him as my enemy because he's not letting me have what I want when I want it. Anybody else want to admit to being there?

And so the Bible says, this sin has put enmity between us and God. Well, I'll do some good things. I'll give some money to the church and some other benevolent things and so on and so forth, and I'll be able to bridge this gap. Nope, don't work. Don't work.

Hey, I can get my act together. Don't you worry. I can get my act together. These things that have. I had habits and such as that.

I can quit all that anytime I want to. I can straighten my life up. There's another good lie. Been there and done that, tried it and didn't work. Nothing I can build on this side of this chasm will reach to holy God.

Nothing.

But the word of God tells me this, that God so loved Fred Lodge that he gave his only begotten son that if Fred Lodge would believe in him, then he would have eternal life. God erected a cross and hung his son on it, laid it across the chasm to hit to the other side.

When I confess my sins, he is faithful and just to forgive me of my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. That's 1 John 1:9. I can walk the cross of Christ, the life of Christ and the blood of Christ cleanses me from all of my sin. And I have peace with God not because I've earned it, but because Christ has earned it. Disobedience keeps you from having peace when you have not come to the part in your life, that place that you've confessed that you're a sinner, in need of God's grace, that you can't do life the way it was meant to be done, that you failed over and over and over again.

And you confess that to God and dare to believe that Jesus Christ was holy enough and righteous enough and powerful enough to take your sins upon himself and take all of the punishment that's due you. He took it on himself, buried in a grave three days, stone cold graveyard dead. And by the power of Holy Spirit, he was raised to new life. And that new life, that Christ life, is what's called Zoe Iones, eternal life, the life of God that flows into the heart of any one of us, that yields ourselves to Him. That's the gospel, that's the good news.

And some of you today, this is the step you need to take. It's your disobedience, your sin. You have rebelled against God all this time and you've never come to that place in your life that you want to just surrender your life, say God, I've been trying it. I've been messing up over and over again. I have no peace.

I'm living in torment. I want to be saved. I want you to come into my heart and cleanse me and forgive me, be the boss, the redeemer, the king in my life. And the instant you do that, you will have peace with God. Peace with God.

The first thing that separates us from having the peace God wants us to have and realizing him as the God of peace is disobedience that we haven't dealt with. Number two is distress. Distress. Write that down in your note. Well, what's distress?

How's that different from disobedience? Well, distress is aimed at those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ, that we know him and the power of his shed blood, that he has forgiven us and cleansed us. But we haven't given up the old way of life. We haven't walked away from the things that had us in bondage. We're just as much shackled and in bondage as we ever were and wonder why our prayers fall to the floor and we open the Bible and don't get anything out of it.

We wonder why I don't have any peace because I'm not letting go of the one thing that keeps me separated from peace.

We're our own worst enemy when it comes to this. Habits hang ups, things that we go to for comfort and we find ourselves bereft of peace. There are things that some of you today are still practicing, which are the very things that cost Jesus Christ his blood. But you're still practicing the same things that he had to die for. And you wonder why you're not at peace with him.

You wonder why you don't find the sweetness of fellowship with him.

We hold on to things it's time to let go of.

Jesus says, peace I give to you. My peace I bestow upon you. Not peace like the world gives, but my peace I give to you. What are distressed, sometimes it's caused by us holding on to things we need to let go of. Sometimes distress is caused though by we're just ate up with worry, we're ate up with anxiety, we're paralyzed by fear.

What if, what if, what if, what if, what if? And it absolutely can paralyze us. A study was done by Imar Dahan some time ago and he said of all the things people are so worried about, so anxious about, that literally are crippling their lives and robbing them of a sense of Joy and peace, 85% of it are things they have no control over, 13% are things that likely can never ever happen, and only 2% are even possibilities.

And yet we're sacrificing our peace and intimacy with God on the altar of worry and anxiety and fear. The word of God says, I do not ever give a spirit of fear, rather of peace and a clear mind. That's what the word of God says. Jesus wants to give peace. But is there any sin in your life or is there a worry that you've just not given over to him?

I want you to know this morning you can bring whatever this is to God. You can put it at the altar. And you say, God, this has been robbing me of my peace. It has been eating me alive. I'm sick and tired of it.

I know you are peace personified. I need that peace in my life. I'm tired of being so absolutely miserable. I prayed for the sweet couple after the first service for their eldest son. He's an adult.

He grew up and fell in love with Jesus as a young boy. Grew up and something happened to Him. They don't even know what it is. Something happened to him and he's rebelled. He's rebelled against God and everything good and holy.

He's just living in a bond. Watch life. And in tears, we cried out for Holy Spirit to move in that young man's life. Let me tell you the most dangerous prayer I've ever prayed. And a man named George Wood taught me to pray it.

God, do to my child whatever you have to in order to do through him, whatever you want to. Be careful when you pray that prayer.

But that's the way we have to treat those we love. Sometimes when they're absolutely tied in things that Christ has already set them free from, but they keep putting the shackles right back on.

You know, you just can't spend an hour looking at porn and then open your Bible and expect to have a good time of praise. Go ahead. Okay. You can't spend an hour stewing about that person who hurt you and how you'll never forgive them and then open up your Bible and expect to find intimacy with Christ. These are peace thieves that you can control.

Satan is using them and rubbing your nose in it, but you can control that. Disobedience robs us of our peace. Distress robs us of our peace. Let me hasten to this last one. Discord.

Discord robs us of our peace. Discord. Brother Fred, what do you mean by that? Relationships that are broken between you and somebody else that need to be dealt with. The scripture says Jesus himself says in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is the kingdom of God that God calls us from time to time.

It's time to make peace. Now listen. Hear me very carefully. I am a person who have been soul wounded. I know what abuse is like.

I know what neglect is like. I know what hatred is like. I know what rage is like. I know all of that. I was a living capacitor for these things.

So I'm not talking out of theory.

Some of you need to bring this to the altar and let God show you what the next step needs to be and get up and go do it. As a matter of fact, Jesus actually said that's what you're supposed to do. He said, if you're here for worship and you come and you bring your gift to the altar and you lay it on the altar, whatever it is. And while you're there worshiping and praying and singing my praises and bringing an offering to me, you suddenly realize there's somebody that you're at odds with. What does the Bible say?

Get up, leave the gift right where it is and go do what you know I need you to do to bring peace back. Peace in a family or peace in a workplace. Peace in a country.

A peace where there's political unrest and violence like we haven't seen since the 60s and 70s and it wasn't really as bad then as it is now.

Peace. Peace where there is no peace. Jesus wants to speak into this.

I'm not saying that what that person did to you was okay. That'll never be right. I'm not saying that violation did not hurt. It will always hurt.

But you're carrying that and it's robbing you of freedom. You're as imprisoned as if I locked you up in a jail. But the key is letting God be your peace. I don't have it within me, Brother Fred. I can't forgive that person.

Hallelujah. You're right where God wants you to be.

Because, see, it was Jesus Christ who hung on the cross, dying, looking at the ones who put him there and said, father, forgive them. They have no idea what they're doing. You need that kind of power. You need that kind of grace. You need that kind of forgiveness that cannot flow through you.

You're too wounded and you're too hurt. But the God of peace abiding within you can do what you can never do yourself. It's about time to start doing business with God. Let me tell you what we're going to do today. In just a few minutes, I'm going to lead us really into three separate prayers.

The band will gather and they'll begin to play. But here's what's going to be happening. I want to lead you in a prayer for those who are living in disobedience. And you need to find peace with God and how to confess your sins and how to do that. You can come forward and kneel and do it.

You can do it right where you are. But it's time to do business with God. Then I'm going to lead a prayer for those that are living in distress. They know the power of God to release them, but they put the shackles right back on all over again. Then I want to lead in a prayer for those who are living in discord, with brokenness in relationships.

That Holy Spirit is not whispering in your ear today. He's screaming, do something about it.

Time to do business with God. Bow your heads, please. Holy Spirit, we want to worship you in spirit and truth. I come today not with my words, but your Words not in my power, but your power. And not for my glory, but for yours.

May the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and redeemer. Father, as we worship you right now, there are some who need to have peace of God in their hearts. And, Lord, give them permission, if they want to, to get up even now and come to the altar and just come to you and say, God, I confess to you I am a sinner in need of your forgiveness, in need of your cleansing, in need of peace.

I dare to believe that Jesus died to take my sins upon him and rose again so that I could have the life of God flowing through me. I need you, God of peace.

Others have experienced that peace, but they're still living shackled, imprisoned by things that you've already shed your blood to set them free from, but they just won't give it up.

But right now, Holy Spirit, you're offering something so precious, you're offering a remedy to this pain that won't stop, this emptiness that won't go away. So may they pray to you and say, lord, forgive me for despising the blood of your covenant. I want to put this rebellion under your blood. I want to leave it at this altar. I want you to be sovereign Lord over all of my life.

Others right now need to pray with me because there's brokenness in their lives and in their homes.

They already have a name and a face because, Holy Spirit, you've done that. I can't do that. But you did that. And they just say, lord, I don't know. I can't do this.

I can't do this on my own. But brother Fred has said today that the power of the God of peace within me can enable me to release these people from the debt they owe me. Not that it's okay, but I don't want to carry this anymore. Lord, you tell me in your word that as much as it abides within us to live at peace with all men. But we can only do that as your peace is powerful in our lives.

So, Holy Spirit, as Caleb and our team begins to sing in just a moment, Holy Spirit, will you beckon those who need to come and respond in faith to what you've had to say today. In the name of the Prince of Peace, do we pray. Amen. We stand.