This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you to week three,
day one of our look through the book of Psalms. That means we're in Psalm 11
today. And like all the Psalms, you are once again getting the raw and honest
emotions of life in Psalm 11, and how to take those to God.

David's in trouble again, obviously, in this Psalm. We're not sure what the
trouble was, but it's obvious that people around him are telling him to run away
from this problem. Psalm 11, verse one says, "In the Lord I take refuge.

"How then can you say to me, "Flee like a bird to your mountain? " Flee like a
bird. They wanted him to run away, but David decided to stay at his post instead
of getting away from the problem.

There's this moment of choice that we all have in our lives between fear and
trust, between walking by sight or walking by faith. And in fear and walking by
sight, you always want to run away from a problem. Now, there are some problems
you should run away from, like a grizzly bear.

But most problems, we need to walk by faith and face that problem and see how
God wants to solve that problem. That's what David decided to do. And there's a
question as he decided to do that, to face the problem.

There's a question he faces that beats in a lot of our hearts, verses two and
three. For look, the wicked bend their bows. They set their arrows against the
strings to shoot them from the shadows at the upright in heart.

And then this question in verse three. When the foundations are being destroyed,
what can the righteous do? When the foundations are being destroyed, when you
look around you and you feel, where has the morality gone?

Where has the faith gone? Why is our country, our city, our family, our church
not living out the truth of Christ? What's happened to the foundations?

When God allows the foundations to be destroyed, what do we do as followers of
Christ? We rebuild the foundations. We don't just grumble about foundations that
have been destroyed.

In Christ is the foundation. We have the only way to rebuild the foundation. So
we rebuild the foundations.

There are two things in this Psalm that give you the strength to do that. And
rebuilding the foundations doesn't mean everyone's going to want them rebuilt, but
you can rebuild them for yourself. You can rebuild them for your family, for
your church.

You can rebuild them for whoever wants to stand on that foundation. You can't
force anyone to stand on a foundation, but you can in Christ always rebuild a
foundation. And there are two things that give you the strength to do that in
the rest of the Psalm.

Verse four is so powerful about this. Psalm 11 verse four says, the Lord is in
his holy temple. The Lord is on his heavenly throne.

He observes the sons of men. His eyes examine them. So here's what you do first.

You remember, God is in his heavenly temple. God is on the throne. It doesn't
matter what people do, what people say.

Doesn't matter what the vote was, what the vote wasn't, what the headlines are,
what's in the opinion columns. The Lord is still going to be on the throne. And
that's forever.

The paper is here today, gone tomorrow. The vote today will not last. But even
if it lasted for a thousand years, that's just a blip in time compared to
eternity.

And so we depend on the fact of the eternity of God. That's our foundation. And
that's the strength to rebuild the foundation.

And you recognize the truth that in the eternity of God, he will reward the
good, he will judge. He will judge those who are evil. Verse five says, the Lord
examines the righteous.

But the wicked and those who love violence, his soul hates. Now when we talk
about being righteous, our righteousness is found in Christ, not in ourselves.
So this is not about you and me being good and someone else being bad.

It's about all of us having the opportunity to depend on God, to depend on
Christ. And when you trust in him, the Lord examines the heart of the righteous
and sees Christ in that heart, and that changes everything. You see, when the
foundations are being shaken, one temptation is to focus on others and how bad
they are.

You'll never rebuild the foundations that way. So instead, focus on yourself and
how in need you are of the righteousness of God. Because then that reminds you
of how in need everyone else is.

So one of the keys to having the strength to rebuild foundations when they're
being torn down is to remember that God is on his throne. Nothing will ever fail
that. And then there is a second thing to remember that gives you strength when
the foundations seem to be crumbling.

It's at the end of the Psalm, in verse seven. For the Lord is righteous. He
loves justice.

Upright men will see his face. The upright will see his face. That's the second
truth that you hang onto that gives you strength.

And you live forward toward that day when you will see his face. You choose
every day how you're going to live your life. You can live backwards, you can live
sideways, or you can live forwards.

You can live backwards. You can live towards the hurts in your past and let
those impact everything about what's going on in your day. Now you need to deal
with those hurts in your past through forgiveness, through grace, through
offering and receiving forgiveness.

But once you've dealt with them, you don't live backwards. You don't live
towards those hurts. You could also choose to live sideways.

That's being caught up in the turmoil of the circumstances of today. And a lot
of people live sideways. They feel it every single day.

Where are you going to get the strength to rebuild the foundations? You do it by
living forwards. Towards that day when you will see his face.

Towards that day when you will enjoy his love for you. Because as you live
forwards, you remind yourself every day that what you're living in right now,
the foundations that seem to be crumbling, that's not going to last. You remind
yourself every day that what will last is his love for you.

In fact, that's the end of the story. And it's always good to look at the end of
the story when it seems like in the middle of the story things are falling
apart. The end of the story for you in Christ is that you will see his face.

Let's pray together. Our Father in prayer, we remind ourselves right now of
these truths. Even though everything around us might seem to be falling apart,
we remind ourselves today that you are on your throne.

You're in control. And though for a time people might feel that they're in
control, they're not. We don't last but a moment on this earth.

Even countries don't last in the time of your infinity but a moment. And so God,
we depend on the fact today that you're on your throne. And we depend on the
fact today that one day we will see your face.

We're going to stand in your presence and enjoy your love for all eternity. And
with that sense of joy, with that sense of confidence, we pray that you'd help
us to be the people who not just grumble about foundations that are crumbling
but the people who rebuild the foundations, starting in ourselves and in our
families and in our church and anywhere we can. We ask that you give us the
strength to do this today.

In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look together at Psalm 12, which asks
the question, who are you listening to?