200311 Midweek Sermon on Genesis 39:1-21 (Lent 2 Midweek) March 11, 2020 This past Sunday we heard Paul say, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I’d like to pull out two words from that quotation: faith and peace. Faith and peace go together. When we believe that we are justified before God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, then we have peace. We know that everything is going to be okay.Faith and peace going together is not just a Christian thing. It is something that is true for everybody. Believing in something means that you think that it will work. When you believe that it will work, then you have peace. For example, when a thunderstorm approaches, you have peace when you believe that your house can withstand the wind. If you faith in your walls continuing to stand diminishes, so does your peace. If you hear the tornado siren going off, you suddenly do not believe that your house can withstand the wind as capably as you did before. You have less peace and you run to someplace that offers you more peace of mind—the basement. But if you hear that freight train sound that comes before the arrival of the tornado, perhaps your faith is diminished even in your basement’s safety. What has happened to the peace? It’s gone.I think nearly every year I bring this up at the end of the church year and during advent. During those seasons of the church year we consider what the Bible says about the end of the world. The signs that the end is near are frightening because the things that used to be believed in as trustworthy start to fail. These things that are believed in are assumed to be so trustworthy that they are taken for granted. So when we take for granted that the earth won’t shake, and earthquakes come, then we are troubled. When the sea is supposed to stay within its banks, and it isn’t acting as it should, this would be frightening. Jesus says that even the heavenly bodies—the sun, moon, and stars—things that are renowned for their ability to be stable and predictable—will go strange and wobbly.Here we get down to something that is so fundamental to us as human beings. Faith and gods go together. Whatever things a person puts his or her trust in—that thing is the person’s god. If your faith is directed towards the true God, then your faith is true. If your faith is in other things, then you are more or less an idolater. This gets at what is so fundamental to us as human beings because after the fall into sin we have become hopelessly addicted to idolatry. This is certainly true of people who don’t know the true God, but it is also true for those who do know him. Alongside the true God, idols are propped up in the human heart. Think of the people of God in the Old Testament. These folks knew the true God. They had his Word. They had his ordinances and sacrifices. They even named their children very pious names that referred to God, his goodness, faithfulness and so on. Most of the names that we hear of in the Old Testament in some way refer to God. And yet they could never get rid of those high places. They were plagued by Baal and Asherah and Chemosh and a whole bunch of other things in which they put their trust. They never wanted to get rid of the true Lord God, but they also didn’t want to trust only in him. They wanted to cover their bases by worshipping other things too.We Christians are no different. The reason why we find the prospect of the end of the world frightening is because all the old gods beside the true God are failing. These things in which we put our trust prove to be untrustworthy—they can’t help us. They can’t save us. Only One can do that. This is why Jesus says that when you see all these frightening things taking place, lift up your heads and look up, for your redemption is drawing near. When the old sources of peace can’t give you peace because they are untrustworthy, then have peace in the Lord God who is trustworthy. He is about to usher in