Cornerstone West Los Angeles » Sermons

People with disabilities are often overlooked, but they are a valuable part of God’s kingdom. Learning more about those with disabilities teaches us how to be more welcoming, and gives us a vision for a community that truly serves one another. Application Questions: 1. How have you or someone close to you experienced disability?  2. God creates, works through, and reveals his glory through people...

The church is more than just a building: it's a community, a God-ordained assembly where we are to be reminded of and refreshed by his goodness. We gather to enjoy and share the welcome of God with one another that we might be better equipped to share it with others. Application Questions: 1. What does church mean to you? 2. In what ways can you work to see church as more of a community and a fami...

As we reflect on the welcome of God, and the peace we have because we have been welcomed in, Jesus turns our attention toward being a welcoming presence in our city. Just as Jesus was sent from the Father, now we have been sent for a purpose and with a mission. Application Questions 1. If Jesus welcomed in the disciples after they had abandoned him, what does that teach you about his welcome of yo...

To understand how we are to be missionally hospitable to others we must understand and enjoy the hospitality of God. In His love God redeems us from bondage to slavery, and more so adopts us into His family. In Christ your identity is His child, and He invites you to savor your inheritance. Application Questions: 1. What does it look like to find your security in your identity in Christ? 2. How ou...

The gospel is God’s hospitality to us, and once you see it you’ll find it throughout scripture. Ephesians 1 is an expansive look at the way God welcomes us through Christ by the Holy Spirit. Once we see that we’ve received God’s welcome, and learn how to enjoy it, we’ll find ourselves ready to extend it to others. Application Questions: 1. Have you ever thought of God’s love in terms of hospitalit...

We begin the year with a new sermon series exploring the calling of our church in our city.  Why does God have us here? How does he want us to live here as his children? How is this unique moment a key opportunity for the church? As ones who have been welcomed into God's family, he has placed us in this city to reflect his welcome through lives of missional hospitality. Application Questions: 1. A...

King David is known as the man after God's own heart. His relationship with and trust in God is often held up as the goal for all of God's people to strive for, but in this psalm we see David pleading for God to deliver him from spiritual darkness. David shows us how to be honest, reach out to God, and request deliverance from God through desperate prayer.

The story of Jesus' life continues after Christmas in powerful and surprising ways. As a young child, his family flees an oppressive government, he lives as a refugee, and ends up growing up in a small, obscure town. Not quite the origin story we might expect for the hero of the world. But it's exactly the story God has been pointing toward and foreshadowing throughout all of human history. Applic...

The darkness of death is the natural culmination and pinnacle of the darkness of sin and suffering.  It is an overbearing weight.  But the coming of the true light in the person and work of Jesus rescues us from this burden and frees us from death's grip, to give back the life we were meant to have. Application Questions: 1. What are some ways you avoid thinking about death? 2. How does meditating...

The darkness of suffering is real, complex, and something we all struggle to deal with. Advent points us away from our attempts to cope with suffering on our own to Jesus Christ, the true light, who overcomes the darkness. While our suffering is still real and deeply painful, Jesus walks with us as one who suffered for us.  Application Questions: 1. How do you try to cope with suffering by control...

Advent is a time of reflection on our need for the light of Christ in the darkness of sin, but we have a difficulty in understanding our hearts. We often try to utilize artificial light to help us navigate the darkness of the world and our heart, but it cannot take us out of the darkness. This sermon is about how dark our sin really is in each of us, and how precious it is that true light has come...

Advent is a time of reflection on our need for the light of Christ in a dark world, but we don’t always feel that need in our bones. We need to meditate on the brightness of the Light and the depth of the darkness to move Advent from our heads to our hearts to our lives. This sermon looks at the beginning of John’s gospel to get a sense of the brightness of the Light of Christ, and what it means t...

God has been so good to us in so many ways that it is not that hard to be thankful to Him for our families, our jobs, our children, our careers, our health, etc. We also are thankful for things that we own, like our cars, homes, computers, cell phones, etc. It is good to cultivate a thankful heart for all those things we have received from Him. But what about our great salvation that He has given...

Jesus concludes his sermon with a stark illustration about the eternal implications of where we put our faith. The bless-ed life that Jesus has been describing isn't just about fulfillment and joy in this life, but is the basis for eternal human flourishing as well. In Jesus we find the fulfillment of our humanity both in this life and in the life to come. Application Questions: 1. Have you put yo...

As a fruit tree, the world will know us by our fruit. Our actions and responses to the things around us is an indicator of our heart. If we continually produce bad fruit, we need God to transform our hearts, and if we are producing good fruit, we need God to maintain it. Application Questions: 1. Why do believers need to examine their hearts? 2. What is the fruit believers need to be producing? (G...

The call to love our enemies is one of the most difficult and paradoxical commands in Scripture. It neither makes sense nor comes natural to us. But when we look to Jesus, and understand the true nature of love, we find ourselves more appreciative of the love that we've received and are better able to extend that love to others - even our enemies. Application Questions: 1. What is your honest reac...

As our Savior and Creator, Jesus is concerned with even more than our trust and our obedience, he has created us to flourish.  But he has designed us to flourish in ways that are very different than what flourishing looks like on the surface.  In fact, they're often the very opposite.  In his most famous teaching Jesus pulls back the curtain and reveals that we've been seeing our entire world upsi...

John concludes the letter of 1st John by reminding us of the truths that assure our hearts: Jesus protects us from the evil one, we are from God, and we know Him who is true. These truths give us confidence to follow Christ in the midst of a fallen world, keeping ourselves from idols by abiding in Jesus. Application Questions 1. Why is it so important that in Christ we have a new nature? 2. How do...

When we talk to God we can know that he hears us and that he will answer us.  And when we ask for his kingdom to come and transform our hearts, we can know that he will do it.  Therefore, when we pray for one another we can do so expecting God to produce the redemption we desire.  Prayer is the Christian's superpower. Application Questions: 1. In what way might God be drawing you deeper into your...

Application Questions: 1. What is prayer, and why is it an essential spiritual discipline? 2. If God has answered your greatest need (you being separated from Him), what are some of the reasons that keep you from bringing your other concerns and needs to Him? 3. What does it mean to ask anything according to His will (1 John 5:14)?

Like the lame beggar, we all have needs that often go unmet, and we are far off from where we feel we ought and want to be.  But Jesus offers far more than we could ever ask or imagine, and setting our minds and hearts on him profoundly changes us in a way that we can revel in and invite the world to enjoy as well. Application Questions 1. What are some of the things in life you think you need but...

The message of the gospel has been validated by the testimony of God - the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. As Christians we carry that testimony in us, and in us it produces eternal life. Application Questions: 1. How do the water, blood, and Spirit testify to the person and work of Jesus Christ? 2. If you reject God's testimony you reject God Himself - why is this so crucial...

In response to the gospel we are called to two actions: believe in God, and love God. Trusting in the message of the gospel is what it means to believe in God, and loving God above all else is what it means to love Him. Though the world may try to undermine our belief, and draw us away from Christ with false loves, in Him we have victory over the world.

As John continues his meditation on the power of love, he invites us to think deeply about the abiding nature of God's love.  What does it mean that God's love abides in us?  What does it mean that we abide in Him?  And how does this abiding love give us the confidence and the selflessness that every soul ultimately longs for? Application Questions: How does the abiding nature of love change how y...

God is love.  He defines and perfectly demonstrates love.  And while God's love was demonstrated most radically through the cross, the cross did not mark the end of the pouring out of God's love.  His love pours out uniquely in each generation and is being poured out uniquely today. Application Questions: How can you take time this week to meditate on the reality of God's trinitarian love? How can...