Do Not Let Your Foundation Be Destroyed

Psalm 11:1-3

Psalm 11:1–3 ESV

In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain, 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; if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Introduction

In this life we will have trials and tribulations.

John 16:33 “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.””

These trials and tribulations are tools used by the enemy to distract us, keep us away from peace, and even to bring us to unbelief.

On the contrary these trials and tribulations are used by our Lord to refine us, bring out any impurities, test our faith in hopes that we would grow closer to Him and find even more peace.

What looks like an attack can easily be turned into a opportunity for the believer..... IF our perspective is changed.

Perspective. This is one of the tragic attributes we often times lack. Matthew 6:22-23 ““The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

What is He saying? He saying if you aren’t willing to see things how I see them, you will have a hard time in this life. He says when the eye is bad the WHOLE BODY will be FULL of darkness. BUT if your eye is HEALTHY your WHOLE BODY will be full of light.

Friends, I want to encourage you that we are all children of light indeed if we have truly tasted that the Lord is good. We as children of the Most High God shall never let darkness overtake us. We were called to overcome, situations do not have to define us rather HE should define us in every situation. We have a sure foundation that is Jesus Christ. He is the chief cornerstone that WE have not rejected, indeed He has came into our lives and given us victory over death, hell and the grave! That will be the heart of this message.

Trials and Temptations Will Come

Psalm 11:2 ESV

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;

See this: the wicked, that is every force of darkness has bent its bow, to shoot an arrow that is fitted and tailored to you a follower of Jesus Christ.

We need to understand this simple truth if we are going to stand on the foundation Christ has given us: Attacks will come.

Jhn 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Furthermore

1 John 5 19 “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”

Notice the Holy Scripture mentions two truths:

1. The world is a enemy of God and His people because satan is at work in the world.

2. We have been chosen by God, out of the world.

No longer should the world influence our behavior. No longer should it drag us down. No longer should we place our hope in it. Because according to Scripture nothing good will come from it

1 Peter 1:23 “since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;”

Friends the world indeed is perishing, but us who have been born again are imperishable. We shouldn’t let what is dying affect us who are living!

Praise be to God that He in His abundant mercy has chosen us out of such a evil place.

Praise be to Him who looked down on us in the midst of our sin and shame, and said I will give my life.

Praise be to Him who while we were neck deep in the evil of the world chose to come down from the glory’s of Heaven to sweat, to cry, and work with us, as well as to teach us, to heal us, and to save us.

He is our liberator! Jesus said in John 8:36 “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Friends we were bound! But He set us free!

The devil is a liar!

That slimy dog satan would have you to believe in the lie that your bound again and you have no hope. Your just a mess, nobody wants to help you, not even God.

What is he actually doing, that slimy dog is actually trying to destroy your foundation. He is trying to steal the truth that has set your heart free!

Notice what Psalm 11: 3 says

Psalm 11:3 ESV

if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

If our foundation is destroyed by these arrows of the enemy what can we do? The foundation is the support for the home. Without it the house would fall. It takes a long time to rebuild a house. But not in the kingdom of God. Jesus said he would in John 2:19 “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.””

Jesus is in the business of rebuilding spiritual houses! If He did it for Himself how much would would he do it for the one in which He died for?!

You do not have to wait weeks, months, years to get your life back with God, No He says “today is the day for salvation” 2 Cor 6:2

“All who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” Rom 10:13

Friends I want you to know that we have a solid foundation. Do not let the enemy steal your foundation.

How can we protect our foundation?

Everything has a seed or an origin. Nothing is born big except elephants. Our foundation has a seed to which it was laid, that being the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you had not heard the Gospel, Christ would have never built a foundation in you.

In order to understand ways to properly protect our foundation lets compare it to a seed:

For a seed to grow into something beautiful it must go through a few things. First it must be planted in a good position, and it must be watered or fertilized consistently. Without these things the roots will never grow deep or be strong. The roots are the plants foundation.

What I am saying? I’m saying the development of the seed of the Word of God is crucial to how strong your foundation will be. Jesus is our strong foundation but if we do not take heed to His message we will miss the growth of our foundation.

Matthew 13: 3-8 “And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

We have all heard this parable, but the truth of it should not be missed: Clearly from this parable we can see that the see of the Gospel must first be planted within us in the right manner. That is the wholeness of the Gospel must planted in our hearts.

As christians we were all born to bear fruit. It is in our God given DNA. Bearing fruit depends on how deep our roots are or in other terms the strength of the foundation we have.

1. We protect our foundation by developing the Word of God in our hearts.

To do this we must:

Allow the Word into our hearts. This is planting the seed, but not in any area. It must be in a good position in our hearts. This part mustn’t be taken lightly. Without proper implantation the seed will not grow.

This part involves doing what Romans 10:9 says and “confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, and believing in our heart that God raised Him from the dead.” Simply believe and confess that He is LORD that means that when you say this prayer you are telling God Almighty you are following Him, you are done being your own lord and living and doing what you want, you are submitting your will into His hands forever. This is where a lot of people get it wrong, they wonder from the faith very easily because at the planting of it, they did not understand what was required of them and they got up from their knees after confessing, and believing they are okay with God but went about doing whatever they wanted and when things in their life got sideways they had no root in themselves because it wasn’t planted with the full Gospel.

We must commit ourselves to trust Jesus as Lord. He will save to the uttermost friends, but He demands that we in Luke 9:23 “And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” This is why many stray away so fast, they built their foundation on shallow ground, they recieved half of the Gospel: Believe and receive, but they didn’t hear the part about Him being Lord.

I was a victim of this same thing. My whole life I believed the lie that I was okay with God, until God opened my eyes to His Word; He showed me how in James 2:17 that “faith without works is dead”, He showed me how in John 14:15 if I confessed to love Him I must keep His commandments, furthermore He showed me in Luke 9:62 that if I were to put my hand to the plow I can’t look back.

Friends God is so good, but in order to truly receive Him He must become Lord in your life. Why must you lay down everything for Him? Because He layed down everything for you, and His Kingdom is a eternal Kingdom and this world and all that is in it will be destroyed and rebuilt by His hands and if we are trusting and letting anything other than Him rule and lead our life it will not live through the fire that He is going to bring.

Does God expect us to be perfect. No. He knows that we will sin and fall short, that is why He gives us His grace, but friends we mustn’t turn that grace into an excuse to sin, but as a drive to be quick to repent. Eph 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” This passage is clear that by works alone we will not be saved, furthermore in the same chapter in v. 10 the Word says “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The grace that brought us to salvation also gave us and called us to walk in good works for God. It is our service to Him as being saved. It is evidence of our faith!

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect tomorrow, but He does require us to try our best everyday to walk in the Spirit that He gave us and live a life dedicated to His will and righteousness. By having this sure seed of the Gospel planted in our hearts, we will bear much fruit in our life for Him and no devil from hell will be able to destroy this foundation.

2. We must identify with who we now are in Christ.

Once the firm seed is planted we must now walk in the new identity that we have in Christ. This is so important. Our identity is the water to the lime in our foundation.

Friends when you recieved this Gospel into your heart, something was birthed on the inside of you: The Holy Spirit. Your old self has been crucified and your are a new person. 2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” You now have the Spirit of the Living God, the same Spirit that Christ had when He walked on the earth was birthed within you. Now when your Heavenly Father looks at you He doesn’t see your sin or nakedness, He sees you as a son and daughter. You have now been brought near to the Heavenly Father, you have been reconciled!

So now to walk in this new identity we must commit to these spiritual practices which are how we will consistently water and fertilize our spiritual roots:

1. We commit ourselves to Holy Scripture:

Friends if we are going to protect our foundation in Christ we must Learn what He has spoken to us. Look at how Satan tempted Jesus in the Wilderness: Matthew 4

He attacked His identity: Twice satan asked Jesus “if you are the Son of God” he tried to get Jesus to doubt who He was in God, and he will do the same to us and if we don’t commit ourselves to learning and practicing what God has spoken to us through His Word we will not have any defense.

We can’t allow the enemy to make us believe that we are something that clearly the Word of God says we are not.

Jesus used the Word to defend everyone of satan’s temptations. Every time satan tempted Jesus, Jesus stood by the Word’s of God they were His defense. Why did Jesus choose to tell us this story? Because He wants us to understand that satan is going to try and try to steal our foundation in Christ, but if we cling to the Word of then satan will have no defense. This is why Eph 6:11 tells us to “put on the whole armor of God so that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” and furthermore in v. 17 that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. The day indeed is evil friends but God has given us everything we need to be equipped to withstand. But it is in His word.

Peter tells us in 1 Pet 2:2 “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—”

Don’t you want to grow up into the salvation to which you were called. Long for the Word of God, treasure it in your heart, cling to it, read it, meditate on it, study it, memorize it, incline your ear to it, and most importantly practice it. By doing so you will as Psalm 1 says be “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” Furthermore you will be as Jesus promised in Matthew 7:24 “a wise man who built his house on a rock” What is he saying? You will have a solid foundation.

2. We commit ourselves to a life of Prayer and connection.

Prayer is how we stay connected to our Heavenly Father.

- Dr. Jerry Falwell once said “Nothing of eternal significance happens apart from prayer” Indeed Dr. Falwell was speaking the truth. After all the actual act of us coming to Christ for the first time is through prayer. Since everything we now do in this new body of in Christ has eternal implications, that would mean we can do nothing for God that will be meaningful or impactful without prayer.

- Our prayer life will be what keeps us linked to our heavenly Father.

- This is because prayer is simply communication with God. If we want to know God more, if we want Him to lead our life, if we want Him to speak to our hearts, or do anything that He commands us to do, we must practice communication with Him.

- As a firefighter communication with my team is essential to our survival on the fire ground, without it we could get hurt or even killed. In the same context this is how important our prayer life is to our spiritual lives.

- Jesus is our supreme model of what it takes to live a life of prayer and why we should do it. From the life of Jesus we learn that prayer:

Prayer keeps us in the will of God.

Luke 6:12-13 “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles:”

Before Jesus chose his 12 apostles He prayed and received direction from God. Because of prayer Jesus had the hope of knowing He was making a decision in God’s will.

As a christian every big decision we make can have eternal consequences, that could possibly move us in a direction away from God and His will. Before we make them we should inquire of God on what to do.

2. Prayer is how we receive from God:

By coming to God in prayer we are speaking to Him and He is speaking to us. We ask and we receive from Him through it. If we never pray we will not receive things we may need from Him. James 4:2 “ You do not have, because you do not ask.”

3. Prayer is an act of humility and sacrifice that leads us closer to Him:

Mark 1:35 “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”

James 4:8 “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

By setting a specific time and place for us to meet with God everyday, we are placing Him as a priority and denying ourselves for Him. By doing this God sees it as an act of humility and submission to Him, which He will reward with His presence and voice. Prayer is one of the supreme ways we draw near to God.

How does prayer protect our foundation? Simply put without it we can’t come to know the Father, we can’t learn from Him, and we can’t listen or obey what He wants us to do. Without knowing, learning, and obeying God, our foundation will crumble.

All of these things: being in the will of God, receiving from God, and drawing near to God are all crucial to keeping our spiritual roots strong.

Jesus says “behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Rev 3:20 God wants and desires to speak with you and you with Him. This is why being a Christian is a relationship and not a religion.

Can you open the door and invite God into your home, your life, your marriage, your job, or anything without talking to Him?

No my friends, I challenge you if you haven’t established a solid prayer routine please do and see the presence of God come in and change everything.

Conclusion:

We have learned that the day is evil and in this life we will have trials and temptations, but God hasn’t left us unprepared, He has given us His Holy Word as sure foundation for us to stand on.

We have learned that having a proper revelation of who Jesus is and what He has commanded us to do is crucial in walking on His true foundation. Jesus saves every single sinner that would come to Him, He will not reject anyone that would come but let Him first count the cost(Luke 14:33): full submission or nothing at all. This is not a half way Gospel, this is the full Gospel. The Lord hath said “easy is the road to destruction, but hard is the way to life.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

We learned that our walking in our new identity in Christ is stronger than anything that would come against us. By doing this our foundation will be untouched and held together.

We learned how Holy Scripture and prayer water and fertilize our spiritual roots and bring us deeper and stronger in our Lord Jesus Christ. By committing to these our foundation will stay strong.

By applying these truths of God’s Word we can start to look at trials and tribulations not as attacks, but rather opportunities, in other words we will allow God to change our perspective and give us a life filled with His abiding peace and Joy.

The world will change indeed it does everyday, things will get worse as we draw near to the Day of the Lord, but God’s Word never changes it is forever solid, forever faithful, forever promising, forever trustworthy. The question is where do you stand on this foundation?

Indeed we have learned today my friends, the question is what will we choose to do with this knowledge?

Will we deny it and face eternal consequence.....

Will consider it, but never act on it.......

Or will we take it deep in our hearts and commit practicing it?

Is your foundation truly in God? If so do not let satan convince you of any other truth!

Are you on the fence?

Have you been living under only half of the Gospel?

Or have you never received Christ as your foundation in this life or the life to come?

Whatever your condition, friends Jesus has the answer would you come to Him today, would you leave everything behind you and receive the free gift of freedom found in Him?

Are you tired of being tossed by the winds and waves of life and you need a solid foundation? If so come today right now and receive. Jesus is only but a prayer away.

If you need to come you come, and do not let anyone or anything stop you.