Christ Church Leavenworth
Psalm 11
September 29, 2024
…
OT READING: Daniel 2:31-45
NT READING: 1 Corinthians 3:10-15
TITLE: Foundational Truth
READING OF THE TEXT
The sermon text this morning is Psalm 11 (repeat) …these are the words of God
[1] In the LORD I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
“Flee like a bird to your mountain,
[2] for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
[3] if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
[4] The LORD is in his holy temple;
the LORD’s throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
[5] The LORD tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
[6] Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
[7] For the LORD is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.
The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.
PRAYER
Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. You are the Rock that survives the storm. You are the firm foundation that endures the day of trouble. Show us how to persevere like You and teach us how to build on the foundation You have poured, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.
INTRODUCTION
Good morning! If you came here this morning hoping to hear the next exciting episode of the book of Judges, I’ve got some bad news for you. It is the 5th Sunday of the month, which means it’s a break week. So, you’ll have to wait until next week. So, today is like one of those ads between videos you’re watching, you know the ones they won’t let you skip. While we won’t officially be in the book of Judges this morning, we will be walking through a similar landscape. Our text today looks a lot like that world. In the book of Judges, the atmosphere is repeatedly described this way: “In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25). That world was dominated by the combination of universal uncertainty and local arrogance. No one knew what ought to be done, but everyone knew what they wanted to do. The time of the Judges was kind of like the Wild West. There were tumbleweeds, shoot outs, and rampant lawlessness punctuated by short periods where a sheriff would show up. No one had justice because everyone was his own judge. Because there was no king, there was no consensus. There was no rallying point. There was no father to point out a tree across the street where everyone should gather in case of a fire. As a result, the only rule was that anyone’s guess was as good as anyone’s else. And when everyone is his own ringmaster, the clowns can get pretty creepy.
While those days and that circus may have left town some time ago, another one has rolled in, put up its tent, and produced clowns that are somehow even creepier… but enough Wal-Mart. You can blame it on Halloween, but I don’t see the difference. Halloween hair is now a year around sort of thing. All that to say, history does not always repeat itself, but it does often rhyme. It has always been and will always be: Christ or chaos. It was true during the days of the Judges, it is true today, and it was true when David wrote Psalm 11. You will either honor God and His eternal commands or you will honor men and whatever happens to seem best to them at the moment. The book of Proverbs, however, warns us, that way always leads to death (Pr. 14:12, 16:25).
But we are Christians. We did not gather here this morning to give the Death Cult any more air time than they already get. We do not want to become missionaries for their bad news. Consider today’s text.
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
Christians take refuge in Christ. Yet many who head off to Christian churches on Sunday want to head for the hills come Monday. Instead of taking the good fight into the public square, they tuck their faith safely between their legs (vs. 1). And while they may be slow to believe in the power of the spiritual weapons of God, they are eager to believe in the power of the carnal weapons of the wicked. They also trust in the aim of the adversary. They say things like, “the children of light are easy targets in a dark world.” They wring their hands and repost things like, “Everything is falling apart!” (vs. 2-3) But this is not how Christians ought to think, and when tempted to do so, they should remind themselves that God sits on His throne. The foundations of His kingdom cannot crack. His throne is beyond anyone’s reach. Even tippy toes can’t touch it. Instead of being concerned with the condition of His foundation, we ought to be concerned with the condition of our own (vs. 4) He is, after all, the standard. We do not test His sturdiness, He tests ours. Put another way, God is a good teacher and He wants His people to pass the test. He is not a petty professor who makes Himself feel smart by making it hard to pass His class. He does not delight in giving out bad grades. But He is also not a softy who gives everyone an A for effort. He flunks students who give the wrong answers. (vs.5) Take Sodom and Gomorrah, for example. They were hoping that God would grade on a postmodern curve, but He graded their work according to the good ol’ fashioned, straight and narrow. They didn’t just flunk an exam, they were expelled from school. And while God may frown on the wicked, He smiles on the righteous. He likes writing smiley faces on good work. And those who complete their work according to His Word will one day see His smile face to face (vs.7).
PREVIEW
Our text this morning breaks down nicely into 3 sections: 1-3, 4-5, and 6-7 each with its own central theme: vs. 1-3 focusing on foundations, vs. 4-5 focusing on building, and vs. 6-7 focusing on condemnation
PSALM 11:1-3
Anyone can see that something is wrong with the world, but wisdom is needed to figure out what exactly that something is and what, if anything, can be done about it. It is easier to read the headlines and congratulate yourself for being upset about them than it is to read God’s Word and get to work. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be upset about what you see in your newsfeed, but to say that you must not let that be the end of it. What some explain as “trying to stay informed” is really just an excuse to indulge in panic porn. It is catastrophe click bait. “You won’t believe…” Uh, I bet already do… but I’ll click on it anyways. The point being, most get riled up, but few get to work.
Nehemiah wept over the headlines that reported the fallen walls of his homeland, but he didn’t simply assuage his disappointment by continuing to doomscroll for another two hours while sitting on his toilet. No, he got up and he made a plan to do something about it. And when he did, he didn’t have to start from scratch. He did not have to reinvent Jerusalem. He merely had to review the blueprints and build back what had been destroyed. The foundation was still there, it was the walls that required repair.
Our passage from Psalm 11 begins with an increasingly familiar lament, perhaps you’ve seen a post or two repurposing its sentiment, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Note that this lament does not originate with David. This is not something he was fond of saying, this is something others were saying to him. He is repeating back to them what he often hears from them. He saw the same dangers that they did, but he looked to God. He could see the storm in the sky, but He took refuge in his God. That confidence made others uncomfortable. HIs courage highlighted their cowardice. As a result, some of them began to sass back a bit saying, “But are you sure that God is safe?” Now at those words every ear of every child in this room should begin to tingle. “Is God safe?” You’ve all been to Narnia. You know how to answer that, right? “Safe? Of course He's not safe! But He is… good.”
And this is essentially how David responds to his questioners. When they worry that things are falling apart, he reminds them that everything isn’t. Sure, it is dangerous out there for other kingdoms, but not for God’s. His Kingdom has nothing to worry about. This was not David’s first time defending his faith.
1 Samuel 17:33-37
Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.” (in other words, “What can the righteous do? It’s a lost cause.”) But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”
Everyone said, “Goliath is too big to fight!” David said, “He’s too big to miss!”
Everyone said, “What can the righteous do?” He said, “What we’’ve always done!”
That is how David responded to the sob sisters of his day and we should take notes and do the same. Don’t forget that this is not Christendom’s first rodeo. Just like David faced Goliath with the confidence of a man who had killed bears with his bare hands, Christendom must now face the New World Order with the confidence of a Kingdom that has buried all of its enemies. When the little old ladies of both sexes take to social media to declare that the foundations are destroyed, point them back to the promises of God.
Isaiah 28:16
Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation.”
Ephesians 2:19-20
You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.
Christian, the Foundation is not destroyed. The next time you hear someone say, “If Jesus were alive today….” feel free to ignore the rest of what they’re about to say. (it’s usually just something about socialism anyway). Jesus IS alive. At this very moment, He sits at the right hand of the Father and from His throne He is actively destroying all of HIs enemies and interceding on behalf of all of His friends. He is the King and the increase of His Kingdom is without end. He is the Cornerstone.
The apostles and prophets complete the foundation. He is the Cornerstone and they are perfectly in line with His will. The Son of God and His Holy Scripture are the Rock upon which the church is built and the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. The gates of Hell are not, as a reminder, the offensive forces of evil pounding on the pearly gates, but rather they are the deadbolts of Hell doing their level best to keep Christendom out (Matt. 16:18). And their best will not be good enough. All of Satan’s strongholds will fall to Christian men. The strongman has been bound and the sons of God have been sent out to salvage all that they can (Matt 12:29).
So, yes, things out there really are shaking, but that pounding you hear is not the sound of the doors of the Kingdom being assaulted, it’s the sound of Christian men marching and Christian women and children dancing and stomping on what remains of the snakes. (Rom. 16:20).
Hebrews 12:28-29
Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
First of all, we should cheer up. Cheer up! If everything seems to be falling apart, rest assured one thing isn’t. The kingdom cannot be shaken and for that we should be glad. Until the Kingdom of Christ has fully come, an event we pray for here every week, other things will continue to shake. God will not stop beating the dust out of the rug. He will not stop separating the crud from the Kingdom. So, we really should stop hauling out our shocked faces every time we hear the rug getting whacked. We shouldn’t be like people who never get used to living near the airport. Look! Another one! Yeah, you live by an airport. What’d you expect?
Secondly, we should offer up acceptable worship. Do not pray against God’s designs. Do not ask God to stop refining the world or to stop short. Do not beg Him to quit before He’s actually done. That is a prayer asking for less love, not more and He won’t stand for it. “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!'” as Abraham Kuyper reminded us. The fire of God that consumes the wicked, refines the righteous. If you are in Christ, you are golden. You are precious to Him. And precious metal should not fear the fire. Yes, it’s hot, but it’s making you better. God is committed to loving us completely. And so… the world must shake. It is for the love of the rug that God continues to beat it up. The rug has nothing to fear, but it does have something to endure. The dust, on the other hand, should know that it’s time is short.
Pastor Wilson put it this way, “This current crisis is happening to the secular order. The wheels are coming off of Pharaoh’s chariots, not ours. Our secular sages and pundits have all collectively lost their minds. And this has happened to them, not because they valued civic freedom so much, but rather because they sought to make godlessness the foundation of our civic freedoms.”
Insanity is not a long term strategy and anything that can’t go on forever… won’t. The myth of secular neutrality cannot hold a society together. It is a false foundation. If you build on it, your walls will come down and the foundation will be destroyed along with it. The one who builds their house on sand will watch their entire project wash away, including the sand on which it was built. Those “foundations” can be and will be utterly demolished. But for now the weeds grow alongside the wheat and the worry is that uprooting the one will disrupt the other. Jesus pointed this out in Matthew 13:29. But He did not say this because the plan was for the wheat and weeds to learn how to coexist indefinitely like the silly bumper sticker suggests. No, He said this to warn us about the danger of impatience and the damage that revolution does when it refused to wait for the reformation that God is working. For now, there may be weeds, but God still calls it a wheat field. The world is not a weed patch. This is not God’s Vietnam. We are not a lost cause. The world is a wheat field and God is committed to increasing its yield.
So don’t take the bait. Don’t get impatient. But the opposite temptation is also possible. One can get so used to living with the weeds and intermingling with their roots that we worry about what will happen once they’re gone. Instead of being impatient for their removal, we can become overly content with their presence or worse, worried about what we’ll do when they’re gone.
Proverbs 3:25-26
Do not be afraid of sudden terror
or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes,
for the Lord will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being caught.
This seems odd, right? Why would the righteous be afraid of the ruin of the wicked? Isn’t that what we’re praying for? Isn’t that a good thing? But Solomon here confirms this paradox by reminding the righteous that it’s not the end of the world when the worldly come to their end. There are some Christian parents who would be distraught if the government schools ever were closed. There are “pro-lifers” who would be disappointed if all abortion was actually abolished.
Don’t be that guy. Tolerance can become acceptance if you’re not careful. One of the side effects of sin is getting used to it. So, be careful. Keep your eyes on the Kingdom and don’t set up shop in Vanity Fair because it’s close enough. Sure, it’s better than the City of Destruction, but it’s not as good as the Celestial City. Don’t allow yourself to settle for anything less than the kingdom. The Lord will not allow anything worthwhile to fall through the cracks. So, don’t abandon hope. God will not let the wicked so ruin the world that all that’s left for the meek to inherit is a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Luke 12:32
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Why does He say, “Fear not!” Because it’s going to get scary at times. So, when anxiety starts sermonizing, stop listening. Do not let fear finish its sermon. Jesus gives you permission to stand up and walk out on it. When you hear about some proposed legislation or an analysts’ predictions of future prices of a particular product, are you tempted to freak out? I know I am sometimes. It is scary. But we don’t have to be afraid. We can hear the Word of the Lord and “Fear not!” We need the Word of God to stiffen our spine sometimes because without it we feel like spaghetti. You will be afraid sometimes, and when you are, believe in Jesus and tell the fear to pound sand. As Elisabeth Ellot once said, “Sometimes...fear does not subside and...one must choose to do it afraid.”
The world is watching our reaction to their shenanigans. They press our buttons and wait to see what we will do. If we freak out, they label that button accordingly and push it when they want something. If you keep a level head, however, that frustrates them. The more they push that button, the angrier they get that it’s not working. As N.D. Wilson often says, “The one losing his temper is losing the argument.” Learn to fight, laugh, and feast and live like a black coffee Calvinist as KJ exhorted us to do a few weeks. You can simultaneously confront the sins of this world without compromise AND have confidence that the Kingdom of Christ is here and coming on more and more. You don’t have to pretend that everything is going well and you don’t have to despair that it’s all going to hell.
God is a good dad who takes pleasure in giving His kids the kingdom. He isn’t begrudgingly giving it over. He isn’t in an RV spending His children’s inheritance. He is carefully, faithfully preparing His kingdom. When you find yourself tempted to worry after spending too much time on your phone … remember what Christ did, is doing, and has promised to do and fear not… His Kingdom is coming.
That said, it is not advancing like a rocket ship that goes straight up, it is more like a mountain ascent where you sometimes must climb down a particular valley in order to keep climbing up the mountain. If a rocketship does not go straight up, something has gone wrong. But if you think of the kingdom in this way, it is easy to paint yourself into a corner when you read the headlines. “Well that certainly isn’t up, so maybe the kingdom isn’t coming?” This is why you must understand onward and upward to be like a mountain climb.
Postmillennial eschtatology does not require every single thing every single where to be getting better. It is not a pair of rose colored glasses the reformed are forced to wear. Postmillennial eschatology is not simply calling the glass half full instead of calling it half empty. It is saying that God has promised to fill the cup with the knowledge of the Lord the same way that He has filled the ocean with water. Returning to our mountains climbing analogy, postmillennialism makes sense of the downs without losing sight of the summit. You do not have to pretend that sliding down a slope is really floating up a hill, but you also don’t have to act like everything is going down hill just because something is going downhill at this particular moment. Sometimes going down a hill is the only way to get up the mountain.
All that to say, put your faith in the foundation of God. Do not believe the empty threats of our enemies more than the robust promises of God. Remember what He showed Daniel: “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever.” (Daniel 2:44) Whatever you may see out there or on your phone, see this in God’s Word and choose to believe it. It is your foundation.
#2 THE CORNERSTONE IS THE STANDARD (PSALM 11:4-5)
Christ is not just what everything else is built upon, He is the standard by which everything else is built. He is the cornerstone. The cornerstone of a structure establishes every other angle as either in line or off kilter. The cornerstone is laid down first and everything else is laid down with respect to it. If an angle is not in concert with the Cornerstone, that angle is out of compliance. The Cornerstone, in other words, is the original Chuck Norris joke: He didn’t call the wrong number, you answered the wrong phone. There is no fault in the Cornerstone. It is the measurement by which everything is measured. Right angles are only right if they square up with His righteousness.
So, do not read the world into the Word. Do not let breaking news break your confidence in the Good News. You cannot begin with the headlines before you consider your Head. If you do, you will read into the Word what you see out in the world. If you look around before you look up to God or down to His Word, you will feel unsettled. It’s like that thing where you’re sitting at a stop light when you start to wonder if you’re rolling. Have you ever done that? You cannot tell if it is the car next to you or if it’s you, but someone is definitely moving and you need to know like RIGHT NOW! What you need in that moment is a fixed standard. Your car and the car next to yours are both moveable. Either one of you could be moving. What you need is something that could not be. So, you look to a street light, a stop sign or a tree or something that you know for sure isn’t moving. That way, you can get your bearings. You compare your position to it and if that holds, it is the other car that is moving. However,, if you are getting closer or further away from the fixed object, you are the one rolling into the intersection.
God is a Rock which does not move. Christ is a Cornerstone that holds true when everything else feels like it is moving around.
Hebrews 6:18-19
Hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.
If you know the Word, you will understand the world… and you will know who is moving and which direction. You won’t feel like you’re slipping when things are moving all around you. When the waves get wild, the anchor is sure and steadfast.
So, do not fall for the propaganda of fallen men. Do not become a missionary of their empty threats or a consumer of their panic porn. Do not spread their wicked leaven. Do not allow your soul to doomscroll like one of David’s naysaying friends. Don’t believe the bad guys’ promises to harm you more than you believe the goodness of God’s promises to deliver you according to the fixed standard of His Word.
#3 THE CORNERSTONE CRUSHES HIS ENEMIES (PSALM 11:6-7)
David makes a clear allusion here to Sodom and Gomorrah. Why bring them into this? Well, before they were famous for being the first dumpster fire, they were famous for being prosperous. The intersection of Sodom and Gomorrah was a strategic location. It was an important land with access to lots of natural resources. That is why Lot ended up there in the first place. When Abraham gave him the choice, he picked the land that looked good. On a recent camping trip with some fathers and sons, Mr. Craig gave us some tips on how to find a good camp site: access to water, the slope of the land, the presence of downed trees, among others were all cited as factors one should consider. For all these reasons Lot picked the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. One of things we didn’t cover on our camping trip is one that Lot overlooked: that is thinking through who you go camping with and who you share your tent with. Maybe when they’re a bit older, Matt? After all, 1 Cor 15:33 reminds us that bad company corrupts good character. So, be careful where you pitch your tent. And be careful saying that. If you know, you know. The land of Sodom and Gomorrah was good, but its residents were not. It was overrun with wickedness. The land’s natural resources attracted those with unnatural desires, sort of like Portland. This goes to show that even when the wicked call good things “evil” and evil things “good,” they still know the difference. They didn’t gather in the desert and call it Oceans of Fun, they flocked to the green places and called it home. Locusts don’t swarm empty fields, they fly to the green places. By the time we get to Genesis 18, the wicked had so saturated the land that they had a landslide super majority in their state legislature. You could not find ten people in the entire land who opposed their programs. When angels came to town, every man in the city showed up to “welcome” them to town (let the reader understand). And yet, even with all of that going for them, in a moment they fell. Their wickedness seemed to be unstoppable… until God stopped it. In a moment, they went from pride parades to powder. And that is why David brings them up here and why Peter brings it up in his second letter.
2 Peter 2:6
By turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes He condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.
In our days, it seems like that Sodomites have again gained some sway, if not in actual numbers, at least in representation and influence. They march proudly down the streets and even lay claim to the entire month of June. But as bad as that may be, and it really is bad, it is not as bad now as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. In those days, lonely Lot and his family were the only ones without a rainbow patterned profile picture. So, if God was able to overthrow that sanctuary city for sin, He can certainly throw down this one… And He will.
Matthew 21:44
The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.
Jesus here identifies Himself as the stone that Daniel saw, a stone which was cut without human hands, a stone that became a kingdom and brought every other kingdom to its end.
You can fall down at Jesus’ feet as a friend or you can be crushed under His feet as a foe, but you can’t avoid a confrontation with Him. Everything and everyone inevitably collides with the Cornerstone. If you throw yourself down at His feet, you will be broken, but you will be put back together and saved. If you don’t come along quietly, His kingdom will still come and those holding out will be smashed to bits.
GENERAL APPLICATION
So, how should we then live? This is all good in theory, but what should you do with this foundational truth? Getting the foundation right is a first priority, but it’s not the only priority. You can have a nice foundation and no house. We don’t want a nice, sturdy, barren slab of concrete. We want to build.
1 Corinthians 3:12-13
If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
The reason some things are falling apart is because they are built out of bad materials. Gold is not afraid of fire. Gold only gets better. The only thing that gets burned off is the impurity. But gold spray paint doesn’t make wood fireproof. It might actually make it more flammable. So, pay attention to how you build. If your world is crumbling around you, it may be because you built your life on bad materials and the fire is merely revealing that.
The day of trouble reveals what kind of work has been done. In Jesus’ parable about the two houses, the foundations were being tested. The house built on the Rock remained while the house built on sand washed away. Here, Paul applies the pressure directly to the structures built upon the foundation. In Paul’s parable, the difference is not the foundation, for there is only one of those; the difference is the materials and the quality of the construction.
Combining Christ and Paul’s teaching together, we should conclude two truths: (1) we can only build on His Word and (2) we must build according to His Word.
So, GET TO WORK! If things have broken down, repair them. If you have tolerated the presence of termites for far too long, exterminate them. Judgment begins with the house of God. (1 Peter 4:17) But we of all people must not settle merely for a clean, vacant space. As Christ warned, don’t clean the place up only to make it more attractive for demons. So, yes, fix things up, but fill them up as well. Be grateful for a shelter that doesn’t shake and fill it up with gratitude.
Don’t despise the day of small beginning and attend to your own bricks. Nehemiah made the men build their portion of the wall. If everyone takes responsibility for the portion of the wall assigned to them without getting jealous of how easy someone else’s stretch of wall appears to be or envious of how much wall someone else has been entrusted to manage, everything will get done. Be content to build your portion of the wall. You can only do what you can, but only you can do what you must do. The whole project will be hindered if we are more concerned with our brother’s beeswax instead of minding our own hives.
If you have been given the task of putting up cultural scaffolding, work hard to make it sturdy so that the main structure can be more easily built, but don’t act like everything is falling apart when the scaffolding comes down. Do not get so invested in it that you forget about the actual building. Some things serve their purpose by being disassembled when they’re done. If you treat scaffolding like the structure, you can find yourself weeping over its destruction while others are gazing at the cathedral being completed behind it.
Do not be one of the things that are shaken. It is easy to look around and read that nonsense back into the Bible and much harder to read your Bible before you look around. But if you do, you will stand firm and the evil day won’t rock your world because it won’t depend on how you feel about the news cycle, but on what you know about the Good News. What you read in the Word should stir you to do something about what you see in the world. Christians ought to be a photo-negative of James Bond's favorite drink — that is to say, stirred, not shaken.
Lastly, If your foundations really are being destroyed, you need a better foundation. You need a foundation which cannot be destroyed. The wrath of God will not allow false foundations to remain standing, but the grace of God is destroying them now, while there’s still time, so that you might set your life on Him as your foundation.
It is Christ or chaos. Chaos will be condemned, but the Kingdom of Christ will stand forever.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, thank You for pouring a firm foundation for us in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Your Son. Give us grace and grit as we work to build upon the foundation of Your Word that Your Name may be glorified, that our souls may be sanctified, and that our world may be saved. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray.
