Cornerstone West Los Angeles » Sermons

The LORD reveals Himself through the prophet Isaiah as the God who is victorious. No other god, no other person, no other thing will ultimately have HIs plan or purpose accomplished in the world, except for God. His victory now in our lives is not exactly the same as His ultimate victory when He will create a new heavens and a new earth, but His victory is real now, and will be secured and assured...

Judgment is an uncomfortable idea. Why would you ever want to listen to a sermon on judgment? In this sermon, we explore why we, in fact, ought to be deeply comforted and assured by God's judgment. God's perfect judgment brings about the justice that our souls crave in a rampantly unjust and unfair world. More than this, the more we come to understand God's perfect judgment, the more we come to co...

Isaiah's call to ministry teaches us the pattern of true spirituality. Isaiah is overwhelmed by God's holiness and then met with undeniable grace. After that, he commits his entire life to God's service. This same process happens not once but regularly for anyone who relates to God. Today we face the same question the nation of Israel faced in the times of Isaiah: will we distance ourselves from t...

Isaiah lived in a time of major social upheaval and personal struggle. In the midst of it all, he receives a vision of the LORD, and begins a ministry of telling everyone that the LORD is the central factor to everything in life. In the first chapter of the book, Isaiah teaches us about the LORD, his wayward people, and his plan to save them. At the center is the LORD's character, goodness, and lo...

Should I stay or should I go? When talking about living out the Great Commission, that seems to be the choice that is put before us. But what if “staying” is more about remaining faithful to the person and purpose of Jesus than it is about a location? What if the choice we think of between staying and going isn't a choice at all? Staying is what we do when we go, whether we go out into West LA or...

The great commission doesn't just require some of us to go to spread the gospel in new places. It also requires the rest of us to send those who go in a manner worthy of God and his gospel. Instead of seeing missionaries as“having missions covered” , we are to understand ourselves as fellow workers with them by the way we support them before they go, while they are gone, and when they return. Appl...

Before Jesus departed this earth, he gave His church her marching orders: to go and make disciples of all nations. But if the Bible calls us as Christ followers to be his witnesses in all the world - to be part of the Great Commission that one day will result in people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation worshiping Christ before his throne - we have to acknowledge that some will need to g...

God's heart for humanity extends to every single corner of the globe. He longs to see his glory spread and his salvation extended to every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. As his children, we get the privilege of participating with him in the spreading of his glory and the inviting into his salvation. The announcement of his hope is the greatest movement taking place on the face of the planet, a...

Christmas isn't just about God coming to earth, it's about the eternal Son of God becoming fully human. As fully human, Jesus experienced life on the earth in a way that means he can sympathize with us, be our example, and suffer for us so we might be forgiven. Understanding the doctrine of the incarnation brings real hope and joy to the Christmas season. Application Questions 1. Do you struggle m...

Celebrating Christmas is about more than thinking about Jesus towards the end of December. Christmas is about the doctrine of the incarnation: Jesus is fully God and fully man. It's this doctrine that inspires the greatest Christmas songs of hope and joy, because caught up in the incarnation is the great truth of the Christian faith that sustains us in our lives. Application Questions 1. Is the id...

The last section of Ecclesiastes summarizes the book as a whole and leaves us with parting words to reflect on. In the midst of a life that we can't control, the Preacher tells us to remember our Creator, the giver of all good gifts, and rejoice in what he gives us daily. When we put the book together, we find that this lifestyle is what it means to fear God: knowing his power, knowing his goodnes...

Life has too many decisions to know how to make them all perfectly right. But that doesn't stop us from trying. The problem is, when we analyze decisions and try to figure out the outcomes ahead of time, it leaves us paralyzed and often unable to actually make a decision. In our passage today we are reassured that the way to make good decisions is not to be able to control their outcome or even be...

This week was a Unity Sunday service, so the sermon audio is in both English and Spanish. After explaining that life is a vapor, the Preacher teaches us what wisdom looks like as a human being who isn't in control. He shows us that wisdom is extremely valuable, but easily overlooked. To prove the point, he spends an entire chapter detailing the different aspects of foolishness: its destructive nat...

In one of his last sustained meditations on death, the Preacher forces us to deal with the reality of our own death: its certainty, its evil, its finality. And he does it to point us to the kind of joyful life that stops pretending we can be God and starts enjoying the gifts of God right in front of us. As the great humiliator, death reminds us that we are human and dependent on God for things we...

Jesus exemplifies for us as Christians exactly what wisdom looks like in real life. This sermon explores how Jesus embodied the wisdom that Ecclesiastes teaches- wisdom in humility, patience, and vindication. Application Questions 1. How does Jesus embody the Wisdom of the Book of Ecclesiastes? 2. What would it look like in your life to embrace Christ's wisdom of humility? 3. How can you grow in y...

Our quest to understand life is often frustrated by the fact that we simply don't have the capacity to understand all that God is doing and why. He is in control, he is working things according to his perfect plan, but why doesn't it seem to make sense to us sometimes? In our complex passage today the Preacher of Ecclesiastes identifies the real problems in life and reminds us of the few fundament...

The Preacher wants us to face up to the uncomfortable realities of life: death, grief, suffering, and more. And in order to help us do that, he highlights the ways we often try to avoid uncomfortable realities, turning instead to distractions. But living life avoiding reality has costs that we need to understand. And facing up to reality has benefits that we don't often realize. Ultimately, the re...

Money will not and cannot satisfy your soul. In this world many believe that financial and career success will bring soul satisfaction, but the Preacher shows us the emptiness of putting our hope in money and wealth. Application Questions 1. Which of money's lies does your heart find most compelling? 2. What are the ways that you seek to satisfy your soul in money, wealth, or possessions? 3. How c...

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes identifies two realities of life in a fallen world that undermine the pursuit of“gain” under the sun: Death and Injustice. These twin evils show us our weakness and the extent to which the world is fallen and broken. All of this points us to the fact that we need to be rescued, and that one day God is going to bring life where there is death, and bring justice where th...

The Preacher tells us that there is a time for everything, but we rarely think of time that way. We like to think of time as something we control by filling the minutes with whatever we'd like. Instead, the Preacher shows us that we can't control the times and seasons we go through in life. The only one with any real control is God. But we can find joy when we embrace God's control, knowing that h...

The Preacher is at the end of his tour of failed attempts to control life as a human being. We can't know enough to shape our lives, and we can't experience enough to shape our lives. Now, he shows us that we can't achieve enough to shape our lives. The various things we are working on day to day and week to week don't provide a soul-level satisfaction for us. Only God though Jesus Christ can put...

After having evaluated the wisdom of the world, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes next searches out earthly pleasure as a possible source of joy and fulfillment. Unsurprisingly, he also finds pleasure lacking the ability to truly satisfy. He tests entertainment, alcohol, work, possessions, and sex and finds that they are all fleeting and“vanity.” None of them truly last or satisfy. However, each one ca...

It's generally assumed that the more you know, the more you can control the things that happen in your life. The idea is that if you get the right knowledge and know the right techniques, you can shape your life into what you want it to be. But the Preacher in Ecclesiastes shows us that this is playing pretend: as human beings, we don't have access to enough knowledge to get control over life or c...

Ecclesiastes asks hard questions to show us what life is really like—and to show us the way to have joy in it all. It opens with an explanation of how fleeting and uncontrollable life really is. While we might pretend we know how to make things happen in the world, the truth is that outcomes are out of our control. Instead of coping by trying to make life obey our will, or by trying to find meanin...

God calls us to worship Him, but what does that mean? The psalmist tells us in Psalm 84 that worship is about what is going on in our hearts towards God. Do you find your home, your comfort, in His presence? That is worship. Do you find your strength in His power? That is worship. Do you find your satisfaction in Him and Him alone? That is worship. Application Questions 1. What would it look like...