Cornerstone Church

Every now and then, a question pops up on viral social media posts: “Would you rather get $10 million now—or go back to being a kid, but with all the knowledge you’ve gained so far?” It’s amazing how many people would forgo the money for a chance to instead “...know then what I know now.” It just goes to show, you can’t put a price on wisdom—especially when it comes to some of the most difficult-to-navigate areas of life. And while we may not be able to go back into our past, we can seize God’s wisdom now to make life better in our present.

Anger. Bitterness. Hurt. You can’t live any amount of time without walking through these emotions. And these feelings? They don’t rise up out of nowhere…they’re responses to something that’s happened to us—or to be more precise, to someone that’s happened to us. But the choice is up to us: will we allow bitterness or forgiveness to rule in our lives?

Ephesians 4:31-32

Every now and then, a question pops up on viral social media posts: “Would you rather get $10 million now—or go back to being a kid, but with all the knowledge you’ve gained so far?” It’s amazing how many people would forgo the money for a chance to instead “...know then what I know now.” It just goes to show, you can’t put a price on wisdom—especially when it comes to some of the most difficult-to-navigate areas of life. And while we may not be able to go back into our past, we can seize God’s wisdom now to make life better in our present.

In today’s social media-dominated world, you can’t help but know what other people are up to. We seemingly know everything about everyone, making it unbelievably easy to fall into the trap of measuring our worth against others. But this comparison trap only leads to feelings of inadequacy and a striving for validation. There just has to be a better way, right?

2 Corinthians 10:12-17

Every now and then, a question pops up on viral social media posts: “Would you rather get $10 million now—or go back to being a kid, but with all the knowledge you’ve gained so far?” It’s amazing how many people would forgo the money for a chance to instead “...know then what I know now.” It just goes to show, you can’t put a price on wisdom—especially when it comes to some of the most difficult-to-navigate areas of life. And while we may not be able to go back into our past, we can seize God’s wisdom now to make life better in our present.

You don’t have to learn to get hurt. Life is going to take care of that lesson all by itself! And we’re not talking about skinned knees or broken bones—but the truly deep cuts and wounds of traumatic experiences. Trauma marks us…but it doesn’t have to define us. We can learn to process trauma, overcome its debilitating effects, and find lasting restoration for our souls.

2 Corinthians 1:2-7

Every now and then, a question pops up on viral social media posts: “Would you rather get $10 million now—or go back to being a kid, but with all the knowledge you’ve gained so far?” It’s amazing how many people would forgo the money for a chance to instead “...know then what I know now.” It just goes to show, you can’t put a price on wisdom—especially when it comes to some of the most difficult-to-navigate areas of life. And while we may not be able to go back into our past, we can seize God’s wisdom now to make life better in our present.

If you’re like most people, you’ve got a lot going on in your life—demands and relationships and responsibilities that constantly tug at your time and energy. And if you’re like most people, you wish you knew how to establish healthy limits...that you could say “No” when necessary. The good news? It’s never too late to initiate healthy boundaries in your life.

Luke 5:15-16

What if Jesus’ words were serious? “Those who lose their life will find it.” Everything in culture tempts us to hold too tightly to what psychologists have called our “Ego” – and in the process of holding tightly to our inner life, we miss out on a life more rich with meaning and purpose than we even knew awaited with us. Jesus said, “The way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Often, it’s the injuries and trauma we face that signifies the pathway to our transformation. So, most avoid the journey. This transformative pathway was always cast as “the wilderness” in epic Bible tales. Without the wilderness, leaders like Moses and Elijah would not have become who they were destined to be. It’s through the pathway of the wilderness that God reveals our true selves. In this two-part series, we’ll learn about that path and how walking it is one the scariest, most important things we can do as Jesus-followers. So, get ready to go “Into The Wild.”

When we break through the wall, the journey isn’t done. God must un-form the malformed parts of our soul; and often, that looks like disorientation and a word we are becoming more familiar with in American Christianity: deconstruction. What if what we think is the end of many people’s spiritual story is only the middle? But we must beware. We can get stuck in the fourth stage of spiritual formation: the wilderness. It’s not enough to get through the wall; we must travel through the wilderness to be fully formed people. This message will help us learn to traverse the scariest part of our faith formation without losing our faith.

Exodus 15:22-18:27

What if Jesus’ words were serious? “Those who lose their life will find it.” Everything in culture tempts us to hold too tightly to what psychologists have called our “Ego” – and in the process of holding tightly to our inner life, we miss out on a life more rich with meaning and purpose than we even knew awaited with us. Jesus said, “The way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Often, it’s the injuries and trauma we face that signifies the pathway to our transformation. So, most avoid the journey. This transformative pathway was always cast as “the wilderness” in epic Bible tales. Without the wilderness, leaders like Moses and Elijah would not have become who they were destined to be. It’s through the pathway of the wilderness that God reveals our true selves. In this two-part series, we’ll learn about that path and how walking it is one the scariest, most important things we can do as Jesus-followers. So, get ready to go “Into The Wild.”

When we break through the wall, the journey isn’t done. God must un-form the malformed parts of our soul; and often, that looks like disorientation and a word we are becoming more familiar with in American Christianity: deconstruction. What if what we think is the end of many people’s spiritual story is only the middle? But we must beware. We can get stuck in the fourth stage of spiritual formation: the wilderness. It’s not enough to get through the wall; we must travel through the wilderness to be fully formed people. This message will help us learn to traverse the scariest part of our faith formation without losing our faith. 

Exodus 15:22-18:27

What if Jesus’ words were serious? “Those who lose their life will find it.” Everything in culture tempts us to hold too tightly to what psychologists have called our “Ego” – and in the process of holding tightly to our inner life, we miss out on a life more rich with meaning and purpose than we even knew awaited with us. Jesus said, “The way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Often, it’s the injuries and trauma we face that signifies the pathway to our transformation. So, most avoid the journey. This transformative pathway was always cast as “the wilderness” in epic Bible tales. Without the wilderness, leaders like Moses and Elijah would not have become who they were destined to be. It’s through the pathway of the wilderness that God reveals our true selves. In this two-part series, we’ll learn about that path and how walking it is one the scariest, most important things we can do as Jesus-followers. So, get ready to go “Into The Wild.”

Many people in the American Church are taught to have a biblical worldview and how to practice what they have been taught…but what happens when we hit the proverbial wall in our spiritual life? Often what we learned in earlier stages of faith formation doesn’t work anymore once we hit the wall, so we do one of two things: get stuck or start the journey all over again. In this sermon, we will learn why the wall is a natural part of our faith formation, and how to make it through instead of being stuck or starting over.

Matthew 16:24-26, Matthew 7:13-14

One of the wildest books in Scripture is the Book of Daniel. Inside its 12 chapters, we get a taste of almost every genre the Bible has to offer—prophecy, history, poetic discourse—it’s all there. And while it was written over 2,500 years ago, it deals with issues and situations that are as timely today as they were in the days of the Babylonian Empire. God still has something to speak to us through the dreams, the lions, and the fire in the Book of Daniel.

It’s easy to have a faith that works when everything is going right. It’s a bit more difficult to have a faith that works in the midst of the worst moments—faith even when it looks like God isn’t going to come through how we hoped He would. Daniel’s friends knew about that kind of faith—and we can learn from their example how to cultivate our own “Even If” Faith.

Daniel 3:1-7 & 13-28

One of the wildest books in Scripture is the Book of Daniel. Inside its 12 chapters, we get a taste of almost every genre the Bible has to offer—prophecy, history, poetic discourse—it’s all there. And while it was written over 2,500 years ago, it deals with issues and situations that are as timely today as they were in the days of the Babylonian Empire. God still has something to speak to us through the dreams, the lions, and the fire in the Book of Daniel.

It’s easy to view Jesus’ sacrifice as something that simply frees us from the consequences of sin in the future, when we die. But Jesus taught that what he did on the Cross actually freed us from the control of sin in the present! We don’t have to be stuck in our old patterns of life. And in the account of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, we find exactly how we can break free.

Daniel 6:6-24

One of the wildest books in Scripture is the Book of Daniel. Inside its 12 chapters, we get a taste of almost every genre the Bible has to offer—prophecy, history, poetic discourse—it’s all there. And while it was written over 2,500 years ago, it deals with issues and situations that are as timely today as they were in the days of the Babylonian Empire. God still has something to speak to us through the dreams, the lions, and the fire in the Book of Daniel.

Many of us are haunted by our past. It seems like we can’t help but dwell on our life before Jesus—our sins, our regrets, our mistakes. But we’re never going to live out the present and the future God has in mind if we can’t get past our past. And as we look at the defining moment in the life of King Nebuchadnezzar, we get an answer for how we can move on.

Daniel 4:1-9, 19-25 & 28-37