Gospel Light Baptist Church

Sermon Series · Psalms of Degrees

What Are You Trusting In? A Question Worth Sitting With

When your anchor is wrong, anxiety is guaranteed. When it's right, peace is possible.

Psalm 125 & Romans 8  ·  Pastor Justin Cooper

Bear Bryant, the legendary football coach, once went duck hunting with a friend. He raised his shotgun, fired, and missed — the duck flew off untouched. Bear Bryant watched it go and said coolly, "You just witnessed a miracle. Right there flies a dead duck."

That's confidence. Unshaken, almost unreasonable confidence in the outcome before the outcome arrives.

Now contrast that with Peter, stepping out of the boat. Peter had the faith to get out there — nobody else did — and he walked on water. Until he looked at the waves. The moment his eyes moved from Jesus to the storm around him, he started to sink. Same Peter. Same water. Different focus.

Most of us live somewhere between Bear Bryant's bravado and Peter's panic. We start the day with faith, and somewhere between breakfast and bedtime, the waves catch our attention. We shift from trusting God to problem-solving on our own. And anxiety fills the gap.

The Real Question

In What Are You Trusting?

Psalm 125 cuts right to it: "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed." The condition isn't "they that have their act together." It's simply: those who trust in the Lord.

But here's the uncomfortable follow-up. If trusting in the Lord produces that kind of stability, what does trusting in everything else produce?

Think about what we actually anchor to day-to-day — the stock market, a diagnosis, a politician, our own strength and plans. And when those things tremble, we tremble with them. We were anchored to something that was never built to hold us.

This isn't a judgment — it's a diagnosis. We're not anxious because the world is uncertain. We're anxious because we're trusting in things that were always uncertain, and we expected them to be stable.

Romans 8

The Unbeatable Case for Confidence

Paul makes the argument in Romans 8 with the energy of a lawyer who knows he's already won. He opens with a rhetorical question — "If God be for us, who can be against us?" — and then doesn't wait for an answer, because the answer is obvious. Nobody. There is no one, no power, no force in heaven or earth that outranks your God.

He covers everything — then adds "any other creature" at the end, just in case you thought of something he missed. The conclusion is airtight: there is nothing that can separate you from God's love. Nothing.

And then he says it: in all these things — not despite them, not after them, but in them — we are more than conquerors. The storm doesn't have to stop for you to have peace. Your security doesn't come from your circumstances. It comes from the One who holds your circumstances in His hands.

A Simple Shift

That Changes Everything

The pilgrim in Psalm 125 wasn't ascending to Jerusalem because life was easy. He was singing on the way up — through hills and valleys, through uncertainty and exhaustion — because his trust was placed in something the hills couldn't shake.

That's available to you right now. Not when things settle down. Not when you have more answers. Right now, today, in the middle of whatever is making you anxious.

You don't need more faith. You need faith in the right place. Not in a military or a politician or a pocketbook or a physician — but in a God who has never once failed the person who trusted Him.

—   —   —

So here's the question worth sitting with today: What are you actually trusting in? Not what you say you're trusting in — but where does your peace actually come from? Where does your anxiety actually go when it needs somewhere to land?

If the answer is anywhere other than God, the invitation is simple. Shift the anchor. Trust in the Lord. And watch what that single move does to everything else.

Gospel Light Baptist Church

Psalms of Degrees Series  ·  Psalm 125