Cornerstone Community Church, San Jose Ca

Finding a movie everyone in the family enjoys watching can be a challenge. Stereotypically, men like to watch action flicks and women like to watch romantic comedies, and that’s largely true in our family as well. But there are two types of movies Brenda and I tend to agree on. For one thing, we tend to prefer true stories over pure fiction. And here’s a second category of movie that we tend to agree on – we both like a movie where the bad guy gets what’s coming to him. One such movie that comes to mind is the 2002 Jennifer Lopez flick called “Enough.” It’s a story about a man who is cruel and abusive to his wife. And it isn’t long before we in the audience are thinking, “OK, that’s enough. It’s time for justice; it’s time for some payback.” And given that “Enough” is the title of the movie, you can guess what happens – the bad guy gets what’s coming to him.

“SURPRISED BY HOPE: A SURPRISING DESTINY” Surprised By Christmas December 29, 2013 Cornerstone Community Church It’s a very old song, but you’ve likely heard it at some time in your life no matter what your age. It was made popular by Frank Sinatra, and it went by the title of “High Hopes.” Here’s how the song goes, in part: Next time you’re found, with your chin on the ground There’s a lot to be learned, so look around Just what makes that little old ant Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant Anyone knows an ant, can’t Move a rubber tree plant But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes So any time you’re getting low Stead of letting go Just remember that ant Oops there goes another rubber tree plant I didn’t say it was a good song; I said it wa

Have you ever made an announcement that was so wonderful and so surprising that no one believed you? I moved to California from Minnesota, where I grew up, in March of 1979 at the age of 24. I spent a few months in San Diego and then I moved up here to San Jose and began working at a church in Willow Glen. I was single at the time, and frankly had not done so well in the girlfriend department, something my friends and family back in Minnesota had witnessed firsthand.

“SURPRISED BY GOD’S TIMING – A SURPRISING SCHEDULE” Surprised By Christmas December 15, 2013 Cornerstone Community Church The song says, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” In many ways, that’s true – Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. But more often than not, time is exactly what keeps Christmas from being as wonderful in reality as it is in our dreams. For some of us it’s the lack of time that’s the problem. Our schedule is simply too full, life is already too busy, and then we add Christmas on top of it all, and it just becomes overwhelming. How many of you have ever intended to send out Christmas cards but ended up not sending them because you ran out of time? Have you ever failed to get all the way through your Christmas shopping list because you just ran out of time? Christmas is a wonderful time of year, but it sure takes a lot of time – shopping, b

When it comes to surprises, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings. My family will tell you that generally I’m not a fan of being surprised. I tend to like surprises that I’m expecting. For example, when it comes to Christmas presents, I’ve been known to do everything except buy presents for my family to give to me. I will do the research on the items I want, I will find where the item is available, and I will give my family coupons so they can get the best deal when they buy me a present. And when they give me the present I’ve picked out for myself on Christmas morning – now that’s a wonderful surprise, because that’s exactly what I was expecting!

This morning we’re concluding our walk through our church’s Statement of Faith, our exploration of the core beliefs we share with our fellow church members and with believers around the world. The last section of our Statement of Faith is titled “The Last Things.” Last Sunday we talked about the first sentence in that section which says this: “We believe in the personal and visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth and the establishment of his kingdom.” And today we conclude with a look at the final sentence in our Statement of Faith, which reads like this: “We believe in the resurrection of the body, the final judgment, the eternal life of the believer, and the eternal punishment of the lost.”

If you go into a Christian bookstore you are likely to find a section of books that discuss our topic this morning – what does the Bible tell us is going to happen next? What in the world are we waiting for? And specifically, when is Jesus going to come back? It’s an important topic. It’s something Jesus himself had quite a lot to say about. But as we get started, let’s admit something. Let’s flatly acknowledge that for the last 2000 years we who follow Jesus have proven to be very bad at one thing in this regard, and that is the matter of predicting when Jesus is coming back.

One of the challenges of giving a message on church membership is that it can feel like the pastor is just trying to build his own little kingdom. People have become somewhat suspicious of pastors over the years, and somewhat cynical about organized religion. So let’s clarify something as we get started – the church is not my idea. It’s not the idea of any pastor or priest or denominational leader. The church is Jesus’ idea.

“BREAKING BAD: WHAT DO RELIGIONS SAY ABOUT SIN AND SALVATION?” What Do I Stand For? October 27, 2013 Cornerstone Community Church It’s over now – after five seasons, the last episode of “Breaking Bad” aired on September 29th. I didn’t watch any of the first four seasons, but as Season 5 opened I heard and read so much about this show that I felt compelled to check it out. Many TV critics have called it the best TV show of all time. There were articles about the show not just in the places you would expect, like “Entertainment Weekly,” but even the conservative Christian magazine “Christianity Today” did a major piece on the show. So, like many of you, I started watching; the TV folks tell us that twice as many people watched Season 5 as watched Season 4. Now I know many of you never watched this show, and don’t worry that I’m going to spend the whole morning talking about

“There are two things you should never talk about,” I was told as I was growing up: “Religion and politics.” And to show you how well I learned my lesson, there are two things I want to talk about this morning – religion and politics. Specifically I want to talk about what we believe as a church and as an affiliation of churches about our involvement in politics and the relationship between the church and the government. If you go to our website and click on the “What We Believe” tab, you will find a section called “Religious Liberty.” It begins with this statement: “We believe that every human being is responsible to God alone in all matters in the practice of faith.” And what that simply means is that we don’t believe the government should tell us how to live the Christian life. The government should not dictate religious beliefs or religious practices. I imagine you’re quite aware that it doesnȁ

How important is the issue of the reliability of the Scriptures? Can the Bible really be a source of truthful information? Can we know the Bible really is the Word of God? Did the Bible ever claim to be authoritative? If all of these questions are true, have the words contained in Scripture ever actually changed anyone? Can these words actually change me? If you have ever pondered these questions then this morning is for you because we are going to give you great justification for answering “yes” to all of these questions.

This week we’re jumping back into our series called “What Do I Stand For?” We’re trying to get a grip on those truths that all Christians believe are essential, the truths that distinguish what we believe as Christians from other religions and other world views. So far our focus is on what we believe about God. In our first week we talked about our belief in the existence of a personal, infinite, just and loving God, and in particular why we believe that such a God exists. In week two we tackled the Trinity, our belief that there is one God who exists in three persons – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In week three we focused on who Jesus is, and in particular we studied not what other people said about Jesus but what Jesus said about himself, and in specific Jesus’ claim to be God in the flesh.

WE STAND FOR LIFE CHANGE

“JESUS: SUPERSTAR, SUPERHERO OR SON OF GOD?” What Do I Stand For? September 22, 2013 Cornerstone Community Church Every few years a new book comes out purporting to reveal who Jesus really was and is. The latest such book is called “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” by Reza Aslan. Aslan has been on quite a number of news shows promoting his book – Fox News, CNN and even The Daily Show on Comedy Central, which is where I first saw him. And in that interview Aslan explained to a cheering audience that it’s crucial that we separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith. In other words, Aslan contends that the New Testament writers get Jesus all wrong. Jesus is not, as Christians claim, God in the flesh. Rather, the Jesus of history was a member of a political movement called the Zealots who was intent on overthrowing the Romans and who got himself killed for just that reason. Interestingly, although the book is

In 2007 William Paul Young wrote a New York Times bestseller called “The Shack.” Many Christians loved the book, and many thought it was heretical. The main controversy of the book was its portrayal of the Trinity, which is one of the essential doctrines of our Christian faith. If you ask me, “What do we stand for as a church? What are our core beliefs?” I would tell you, “This is one of them – we believe in the Trinity. We believe there is one God who exists as three persons.” Here’s the somewhat technical statement of what we believe from our Statement of Faith: “We believe that there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons; that these are equal in divine nature, and that they execute distinct but harmonious offices in the work of creation, providence and redemption.” I will do my best to make sense out of that this morning. But let me emphasize something I said last week – we didn’t just mak

It’s the most basic of questions, a question I suspect every person on the planet has asked at one time or another – is there a God? And the corollary question of course is this – if there is a God, what is he like? According to Gallup, over 90% of Americans believe in God. World religions are divided on the matter. Hinduism believes there are over 30 million gods; Buddhists tell us there is no god. Mormons believe in God, but what they mean by God is very different for what I mean by God. According to Mormon doctrine, the goal of mankind is to become a god. Mormonism teaches that the God of this world, Elohim, was once a man just like you and me, and that over time he became God. Mormonism also teaches that you and I can become gods ourselves, if we faithfully follow Mormon teachings. Here is Mormon theology in a nutshell on the doctrine of God, in the words of Mormon prophet Lorenzo Snow: “As man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become.”

One of the responsibilities of all parents is to help their kids build healthy daily habits. Certain habits kids are resistant to, which I can understand, but other habits, to my way of thinking, shouldn’t be all that tough. For example, many years ago when our kids were in the potty-training stage, we would often try to help them by reminding them when to go to the bathroom. The morning seemed a particularly good time to remind them of this event. But all three of my kids would on occasion make the following comment to me when I reminded them during breakfast time to go to the bathroom: “But I already went yesterday.” So even though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I had to teach my kids this lesson, I had to explain to each of my three children that going to the bathroom is something you do every day. “I know it’s inconvenient and a waste of precious time that could be spent in front of the television watching cartoons, guys, but that’s ju

One of the truths of the universe we learn from sports is that you only get so many chances. In basketball each player is given a certain number of fouls before they foul out of the game – five at most levels and six fouls in professional basketball. Sometimes basketball players will foul another player intentionally to keep that player from scoring an easy basket, and sometimes they will get a foul purely by accident. But in basketball, it doesn’t matter whether you fouled another intentionally or by accident. In pro basketball you get six fouls, and then you’re out of chances.

One of the parts of life that makes life fun is mystery. Most of us love a good mystery. We love watching mystery shows on TV; there’s nothing quite so compelling as a good mystery novel. Like some of you, I read a number of John Grisham’s novels, many of which were turned into movies – novels like “The Pelican Brief,” “The Client,” “The Firm,” and “The Runaway Jury.” Those books, of course, all deal with one of the great mysteries of life: If God is good and God is all-powerful, then why are there lawyers? Grisham’s books never answer that mystery, but if you hang in there until the end, you eventually discover the solution to the mystery. But it’s not just the solution that makes reading a mystery fun; it’s the mystery itself. In fact, nothing ruins a good mystery like discovering the solution while you are still in the middle of the mystery. That is part of the problem with the previews, bot

Here’s something our family learned years ago from our family vacations – if Disneyland in California is the “happiest place on earth,” then Disney World in Florida is the “sweatiest place on earth.” We’ve only been to Disney World once, but our family will never forget the experience. Yes, we had fun, but the one memory that has lingered with us is how hot and muggy the place was. The heat index while we were in Disney World one June day was 118 … at 10:00 a.m! We would start to sweat just thinking about going outside. We would sweat while we were still in the pool. Along with the huge crowds, the heat made our trip one and only trip to Disney World something less than magical, at least for me and for Brenda. But I had to hand it to our kids. Oh, they noticed the heat, and they didn’t like the long lines to get a two minute ride on Dumbo any better than we did. But for our kids, and especially for Kelsey, who was just short of