Cornerstone West Los Angeles » Sermons

Application Questions 1. How do you typically handle your guilt over doing something you shouldn't have? How do you think, feel, or act? 2. When you do confess and repent (to God and others), why do you do it? If you don't confess and repent, why not? 3. Why do you think it's true that the person who is forgiven much loves much? How have you seen that at work in your own life? 4. What practical wa...

Application Questions 1. Do you relate to God more as an employee or a friend? Why do you think that is? 2. Do you feel like you are abiding in Christ or abiding somewhere else? What does that do to your attitudes, emotions, and relationship with others? 3. How would meditating on God's Word help you draw closer to God and enjoy his friendship? 4. Are your prayers honest and open? What are some wa...

Application Questions 1. How well do you listen to God through his Word? 2. How could you take steps to regularly remember who is talking when you spend time in the Bible? 3. How would recognizing how God is talking help you listen to him? What practical ways could you pay closer attention to the actual words God has spoken in his Word? 4. Is your heart regularly ready to respond when you are list...

Application Questions 1. Do you feel like there is a purpose for your life? How does that impact the way you live? 2. What is your purpose in life? (What gets you out of bed in the morning?) Where does that purpose come from? 3. Which do you prioritize more in your own life: being a disciple (your personal life with God), walking with other disciples (close Christian community), or inviting new di...

Application Questions: 1. How has the resurrection changed the past? (read: 1 Corinthians 15:17-19) How does the truth of the resurrection provide an anchor to your faith? 2. How has the resurrection changed your future? (read: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) How does the promise of a future resurrection give you hope and peace? 3. How does the resurrection change your present? (read: Romans 6:5-11) How...

Application Questions 1. Recall some of the ways that the Old Testament looked forward to and anticipated the cross. 2. How has the cross changed everything in your life? How is it the pinnacle of the story of your life? 3. What areas in your life have yet to be transformed by the cross? How could regularly meditating on the story of the cross help to facilitate that needed transformation? 4. What...

Application Questions: 1. What part of your life (money, time, energy, effort, energy, etc.) is Jesus looking at you, saying "I need that"? 2. Are there trials in your life that are unexpected for you? How can you actively seek to trust God's Kingship over you in the midst of that trial? 3. In what ways do you care more about the benefits of Christ than Christ Himself? 4. How should you respond to...

Application Questions 1. What is a prophet, and how is Jesus a prophet? 2. How does Jesus the prophet expose truth from pretense? 3. What in your life do you see a need for God's Word to ​expose?​ 4. How does Jesus the prophet displace all other prophets? 5. What in your life do you listen to as a prophet that needs to be displaced?

Application Questions 1. What parts of your life do you feel like you hold back from Jesus? Why do you think that is? What do you think he would do with them? 2. Do you lean into or lean away from the idea that you are a sinner in your daily life? What are some attitudes, actions, or relationships where you see that at work? 3. Do you believe that God celebrates over you because of Jesus? What evi...

Application Questions Reflecting on all the centuries that the people of God were pining in sin and error, what do you think it was like for the Messiah, the Savior to finally come? What does following the humble example of Christ look like practically in your life? What would it practically mean for you to make the following three resolutions for 2016: 1. To love others sacrificially 2. To delive...

The last chapter of the Old Testament story shows us God bringing his people out of exile, just as he promised. But while the people lived in their historic land again, their hearts were still elsewhere. The Old Testament ends with the people needing their hearts to come home, and in Jesus we find the one who can bring all of us all the way back home to God. Application Questions: 1. If "home is w...

During the time of the exile God, through the prophets, got more explicit than he had ever been before about what he had planned for his people. It was this time that God promised he would establish a New Covenant with his people, a New Covenant that would fulfill and supersede the old covenants, a New Covenant that would be the climax of all history. This is the covenant that we live under, throu...

The people of God were taken into exile not only for judgment, but also so that God could free them from their idolatry of the kingdom and set their hearts back on the true King. But for us, instead of sending us into exile to save us, Jesus was exiled on our behalf, so that we might be brought back to God by grace. In response to this grace, we are now called to live​ as​ exiles in a world that d...

The period of the United and Divided Kingdom in Israel is both the Golden Age of the Kingdom of Israel and the most devastating. Under David and Solomon the Kingdom experiences great peace and security, great provision and prosperity, and a distinct presence of the LORD, and yet when they turn their eyes from Him and lose sight of eternity these promises begin unravelling, leaving God's people lon...

The Old Testament takes time to reflect in the wisdom literature, five books in the very center of the Bible. Instead of telling more history, these wisdom books examine how to live life well in light of what God has done in history. As we look through three of the wisdom books, we find the importance of wisdom to give our lives meaning, the center of wisdom in the fear of the Lord, and how to cul...

Israel asks God for a king, but Samuel warns them that while a king defeats your enemies, he also has absolute authority over you. God then promises to King David that an eternal King is going to come, and we too must ask ourselves- are we ready for King Jesus to defeat our enemies AND have all authority over our lives? Application Questions 1. How does Hannah's prayer in 1 Sam. 2:10 reflect a tra...

The book of Judges gives us a long-range historical perspective that is difficult to find anywhere else. It provides realism about life and human nature apart from God. The people of Israel's rebellion continues in a downward spiral that is both shocking and tragic. However, through it all, God is weaving his redemptive story, and story that highlights his patience, grace, goodness, and power to r...

The book of Joshua shows God's people receiving the gift of a land to call their own. Originally settled by Abraham, after 400 years God delivers Abraham's family back home. While there are difficult issues to deal with in the conquest of Canaan, the book of Joshua shows us a God who keeps his promises—and points us to a Jesus that brings us a better gift of salvation, rest, and changed life. Appl...

Deuteronomy sums up the first five books of the Bible on the edge of the promised land, with God renewing his promises to a people that so far have been stubborn and sinful. Before the go into the promised land, Moses gives them a long sermon on what it means to be in a covenant relationship with God. Deeper, wider, and broader than any other relationship we can know as humans, God's covenant draw...

In the book of Numbers the people of God set out to enter the promised land but were derailed repeatedly by their own sin and idolatry. Each instance of the people's sin was followed by a consequence given by God. While the sin and consequences were ever present in the lives of God's people, so was God himself. The generation that left Egypt may have lost the privilege of entering the Promised Lan...

Now that God's people are set free from slavery, God must show them what it's like to have a relationship with Him. But how can a holy and perfect God have a relationship with sinful people? Leviticus shows us what that relationship looks like, both for the people of Israel and for us today: our need for a substitute, our need for forgiveness, and ultimately our need for God Himself. Application Q...

The book of Exodus continues the story of Genesis, following Abraham’s descendants into Egypt where they are delivered from slavery with God’s own power. God reveals more of himself as he rescues his people. We see God’s ultimate deliverance in Jesus, who brings a new exodus from slavery to sin and death. When Jesus is our deliverer, we find true freedom. Application Questions: 1. Why is it powerf...

Genesis is an origin story, explaining where our universe and our species come from. It tells us why we are the way we are, and what we are meant to be. Surveying the book of Genesis shows us what it means to be human, and accounts for how complicated our hearts and our world really are. But more than anything, Genesis shows us the beginning of the plan of God to pursue us through promises that ar...

Jesus calls Christians to an upside down kind of life in how we treat other people. The world lives by law, and the law always leads to judgment. But in Christ we live by the gospel, and in the gospel we can see one another, and ourselves, through God's eyes. Application Questions: 1. What does judging look like in your life? 2. How do you see the world living by "the law"? 3. Why is it so counter...