September 8, 2025 • 36 mins
The cornerstone sets everything else in alignment. Without it, the entire structure becomes unstable. In our lives, Jesus stands as that cornerstone - the only foundation worthy of building upon.
Pastor J kicks off the new "Build" series by examining what it means to construct our lives as dwelling places for God. Through the compelling narrative of Solomon's temple, we discover how God has always desired to dwell among His people - first in physical structures, and now within us.
Drawing from Ephesians 2, we learn that believers are "being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." This revolutionary concept transforms our understanding of both worship and identity. No longer are we strangers to God's presence; we're citizens of heaven with full access to our King.
The blood moon serves as a powerful backdrop, reminding us that Christ will return for His church. This urgency calls us to build intentionally, ensuring our lives are aligned with the cornerstone. Like Solomon, who was chosen despite being born from scandal, our past doesn't determine our potential in God's kingdom.
Perhaps most profound is the revelation about the temple veil. When Christ died, that barrier was torn, symbolizing our direct access to God's presence. No longer do we need priests with bells and ropes to approach the Holy of Holies - Christ has made us the temple where God's Spirit dwells.
Whether you're building for the first time or reconstructing after life's storms, this message offers both the blueprint and the invitation.
Connect with a Life Group this semester to continue building alongside others who share your foundation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
AI Video (00:00):
Good morning and welcome to a special breaking
news report.
I'm Elijah Vance and I'mDeborah Sterling.
We're coming to you live withmomentous news from Jerusalem,
where King Solomon hasofficially completed the
magnificent temple.
This has been years in themaking, a monumental undertaking
that has reshaped the landscapeand the spiritual heart of our
nation.
Indeed, we go now live to ourreporter, sarah Jenkins, who is
(00:24):
on location, with more detailsand, we hope, an exclusive
interview, sarah.
Thank you, deborah and Elijah.
I'm live outside thebreathtaking new temple.
The air is electric withexcitement.
King Solomon has dedicated thissacred space to the Lord.
Your Majesty, what does thisday mean to you?
Thank you, sarah.
(00:44):
This day makes me reflect on myfather, david.
A flawed man, yes, but alwaysafter God's heart.
The Lord anointed David forgreat acts like to slay Goliath.
The Lord also anointed me tobuild his house.
That's a powerful legacy.
How does it feel to completesuch a divinely appointed task?
(01:05):
It is humbling, a privilege tohonor the Lord and fulfill the
vision passed down A trulyinspiring message.
Thank you for sharing thisprofound insight.
This is Sarah Jenkins.
Live from Jerusalem Back to youin the studio.
Jason Brown (01:22):
Well, good morning .
Hey, we're so glad we had thisopportunity to worship together
at Cornerstone.
Godbless you.
If you're a guest of ours,welcome home.
We're starting a new seriestoday.
It's called Build and we'retalking about what it means for
us to build our life on Christ.
If we haven't met, my name isJay.
It's a blessing to be able tolead this congregation with
(01:44):
Celeste and be a part of such anamazing community of faith.
Our focus today is a dwellingplace for God, and so we talk
about this idea of a dwellingplace for God.
We're going to jump off withsomething that's kind of
interesting and hit theheadlines recently, which is
actually the blood moon that'shappening tonight.
How many people know there's ablood moon happening tonight?
Did you guys see it?
(02:05):
It's been on the news, it'sbeen different places.
It's interesting, it's a veryunique piece that happens every
so often and it's one of thosethings that it starts to ring
alarm bells in some differentcircles where you know they're
talking about the end of theworld draweth nigh, and the
reason they're saying that isbecause they're looking to
scripture.
We talked about it in thisseries this summer, with Minor
Prophets looking to Joel andJoel says this, the sun shall be
(02:34):
turned to darkness and the moonto blood, before the great and
awesome day of the Lord comes.
Friends, that's the marker thatwe're seeing is these things
like the blood moon, things likeearthquakes, things like storms
, and all these different piecesthat are pointing to scripture,
the truth that we know from thegospel, that we see it in our
very midst, as it happens in thesky above us, and what's
interesting about that is thatit really points us to the other
(02:56):
side of our faith, that we'rethose that believe that Christ
came and lived embodied as a man, and that he took on the sin of
the world, living innocently,and became the sacrifice for all
people.
But that also means is that heis coming, returning as a king
for his church, and so what wedo in placing our faith in him
is seeing that these markers aresigns of the times that are
(03:19):
happening, and so we need to bethose that are ready for what
God wants to do.
It says that no person knowsthe time, the day or the hour.
So if I told you it was thismorning at XYZ time, that's a
time that he would be like no,we're going to pass, we'll push
it till tomorrow, but the thingis none of us know.
I would want it to happenbefore the end of this service.
Somebody say amen to that.
Lord, come, have your church,bring, have your church, bring
(03:41):
yourself to your church.
And we say, come, lord Jesus,return here.
And we see the imagery of thingslike the four horsemen of the
apocalypse.
It's something that we hearabout and becomes kind of scary.
It's imagery that we seesymbolic of what's happening in
end times in the book ofRevelation.
And as we look at thosedifferent pieces and characters,
each one of them brings about adifferent thing that's gonna
(04:02):
happen or is happening at theend of time.
The one that we see with Jesusis him returning as a triumphant
king, the holy king of heaventhat's returning to have no one
stand in front of him, amen.
And it becomes kind of scary.
People are like oh man, the fourhorsemen.
I'm kind of scared.
I'm not.
The reason I'm not is becausethat's my king and I belong to
(04:24):
him.
I'm actually excited.
I'm like Lord Jesus, show up,I'm ready.
Man, like you know, eastern skyhere we go, let's go after it.
And the reason we're excitedabout that is because it's our
faith is that he will return forhis church and he will be the
rightful and only true king ofthe world to rule in peace.
And so that's what we believe,for we wanna be those that are
(04:44):
ready to live our day with him,every day that he will return.
Today, be ready and beintentional in how we're living
our life after God.
You say amen to that.
We're not called to live infear.
We're called to be those thatare living according to his
purposes, according to the wordof God, and that means live
(05:05):
ready and build your life inChrist.
You know, we talk about oftenusing this imagery of Jesus
walking with his disciples, andwe do that because that's how we
see ourselves as people thatare on a journey with Christ.
None of us have finished, noneof us have arrived.
We're all following after himwhere he's leading us to go.
We see ourselves like thedisciples, in that way that we
(05:26):
want to be more like Jesus, andso that's why, collectively,
we're those that love God andmake disciples and reach the
world, and that's who we are andthat's our mission.
Collectively, as a community offaith, we do that through things
like life groups, and today isa unique thing in that we're
starting a new semester of lifegroups today.
So it's an opportunity to signup, get involved, and you really
(05:50):
can.
You can connect with peoplearound you, you can grow in your
faith in God and you also canserve using your talents and
abilities.
And we encourage you to do so,to be intentional.
During this fall semester, allof us are too busy.
To add one more thing we're toobusy, but what we make priority
in our life, we're not too busyfor how many people know what
(06:12):
I'm talking about?
Somehow we still can bingewatch our favorite show, and so
that just kind of proves thatthere's margin in there if we
wanna make room for something.
So let me encourage you to getinvolved, be intentional.
Join a life group.
It'll be a blessing to you Iknow it is to me and let it be
something that ministers to youto come and to get involved and
to be with other brothers andsisters in the faith.
(06:34):
And I'll tell you thissometimes they'll be like well,
I don't know if I really needthat.
Well, maybe somebody needs youin their group to be someone
that's a new friend.
Did you know?
We have guests that come allthe time.
We're so very thankful.
If you're a guest of ours,welcome home.
We're glad you're with us, butwe have guests all the time and
what we want to do is be able tobe a friend to them and make a
connection with a new friend,because what happens is we want
(06:55):
to be open to a new personcoming so that they can belong
with us.
Amen, that's what we're calledto do.
So let me encourage you join alife group.
Let it be a blessing to you Ifyou have your Bible, your tablet
, your phone.
Today we're looking to Ephesians2, and we'll be jumping off
there.
In the scripture.
Scripture says in Ephesians 2,22,.
In him, you are also beingbuilt together into a dwelling
(07:17):
place for God by the Spirit.
Lord, we pray over your wordtoday, thanking you for making
it alive, thanking you forsparking it in our hearts.
Lord, making it rhema, and wepray, lord, it would challenge
us to be more like your image.
We pray this in the name ofJesus Christ, amen.
So we're talking about this ideaof build a dwelling place for
(07:42):
God, and this idea of dwellingplace for God is something that
we see throughout scripture.
We see it in the tabernacle, wesee it in the temple, we see it
in the New Testament, but tyingback to what Pastor Celeste
said last week, how many peoplewere blessed by the season
sermon from last week.
What a blessing, you know.
It challenged my heart andthinking about the season that
we're in and what God is sayingto us Ecclesiastes, where Pastor
(08:04):
Celeste talked about in chapterthree, verse one.
It says for everything there isa season and for every matter
under heaven.
It gives examples.
It says a time to be born and atime to die, a time to plant
and a time to pluck up what isplanted, a time to kill and a
time to heal, a time to breakdown and a time to build up.
(08:28):
Today we're talking about thatvery thing, about a season of
building your life upon Christ.
We can see in Matthew 21, thenamesake of our church.
We shared this a few weeks agoat our 39th year, our
anniversary of the church ofCornerstone.
39 years, praise the Lord.
Matthew 21, verse 42, saysJesus said to them have you
(08:50):
never read the scriptures?
The stone that the buildersrejected has become the
cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing and itis marvelous in our eyes.
Friends, the idea of cornerstoneis that it's the setting piece
in which we put everything elsearound.
A cornerstone physically is theone that they would lay first
(09:11):
upon the foundation to make surethat everything in the building
was shored up and correct thatit was going to be laid out in
the precise way.
It was from that cornerstonethat everything else is built.
That's why, later in Acts, youwould see them referencing that
very piece of scripture.
It says this this Jesus is thestone that was rejected by you,
(09:33):
the builders, which has becomethe cornerstone.
See, friends, jesus is thecornerstone for us.
There is no one else.
He fulfills it completely anduniquely, alone in himself.
He is the one that we can buildour life on for eternity.
It's from him that we can buildour life up and can trust that.
(09:54):
He is a sure foundation.
He is the one that we can setour feet on.
Friends, there are lots ofother things that are taught,
and all of those things are goodideas by people, but Jesus
alone stands in eternity, and sothat's why we can put our life
in Jesus Christ.
I can tell you this that we cantry all the different ways to
come to Jesus, but it's only byhis sacrifice for us, his grace
(10:18):
for us, the extension of what hehas done for us that we're in
relationship with him.
It's nothing we can do.
We can't earn enough, we can'tgive enough, we can't do enough
good works.
It's not possible.
It says in scripture that weare as filthy rags before a holy
God, and so we're called to bethose that live our life in
(10:39):
Jesus Christ, accepting whathe's done on our behalf, by
faith, the currency of thekingdom, and living and walking
according to his statutes.
Now, last week, pastor Celestewas talking about David and I
got a picture of David.
This is a statue in Florence.
This is the only part of thestatue I can show you, and if
you know the statue, you knowwhy.
But we've been there, had achance to see the statue and
(11:01):
it's pretty amazing.
It's awesome and it kind ofdoes give a depiction of who he
was, because he was this roughand rugged, you know, courageous
, shepherd out in the field, andas a young man, you know.
Pastor Sless talked about how hewasn't even considered by his
father, jesse, to be one of theones that would be named king.
(11:22):
All his older brothers got alook and he was just out there
with the smelly sheep, and soit's the thing that God was
doing in his heart that it saysin scripture how he was
worshiping.
He was out there with the Lord.
He was being a good shepherd.
He was courageous.
He fought the lion, he foughtthe bear.
He ran them off from the sheepto keep the sheep safe.
He knew what it meant to be agood shepherd.
He was an icon, a symbol ofwhat would be Jesus later as the
(11:44):
good shepherd for all of us.
And so David becomes this onethat's anointed to be king,
takes the place of Saul.
Saul looked good.
He was tall, it said.
He was good looking andhandsome.
He looked like the politicianthey wanted.
He was the king they clamoredfor.
And what they found out is thathe wasn't the one in alignment
with God's heart as soon as hegot in the position, don't we?
(12:09):
And so he started believing hisown press.
And so God was like no, you'renot after my heart, I will bring
one that is after my heart.
And so that's what he broughtin David.
And David does all these things.
He fights Goliath.
He fights these battles againstthe Philistines and all the
people on every side.
He goes to war.
He's a warrior.
(12:29):
He's a worshiper.
He's a statesman.
He's a warrior.
He's a worshiper.
He's a statesman, he's allthese things, but he's also a
man and he makes a mistake,because he should have been out
doing kingly things and makes amistake and ends up having an
affair with a married woman andtakes her into himself.
She's found out she's pregnant,her husband is fighting in his
(12:49):
army and David's army at thefront.
He tries to cover it up and itdoesn't work out and eventually
he orchestrates the man's murderto cover up his mistake and it
was a compounding effort of allthe things that had happened in
making errors.
And eventually she's there andit finds out that the baby's
(13:09):
gonna pass and he wails and heasks the Lord for this son from
this one, this wife that hestole away from someone else,
that the Lord would have mercy.
But the child dies and whathappens after that is that he
brings her in and Bathshebabecomes his wife and they have
another son and that son's nameis Solomon.
(13:30):
Solomon was born of scandal.
He was a son of scandal.
He was one that the otherbrothers looked at and they were
like who is this?
And how many people know thatyour history, your background,
does not mean that's what yourfuture will hold, that in Christ
we become a new creation.
It says he makes us a newcreation.
He's the one that cleans us offand sets us up and breaks the
(13:51):
chains off of our past and getsus out of the rut into a future.
That it is his calling.
He did the same with Solomon,but the challenge was to David.
David wanted to.
He had brought the ark up andbrought it into the city.
He was excited about this ideaof making a permanent house for
the Lord.
So long they had had thetabernacle, while in the
(14:13):
wilderness and as they came intothe promised land.
But now we wanted to make ahouse for the Lord, a temple.
1 Kings 8, it says this in verse19,.
Nevertheless, you shall notbuild the house, the Lord
speaking to David, but your son,who shall be born to you, shall
build the house for my name.
See, david's hands were bloody.
(14:35):
As for war, he wasn't the oneto build the house.
That needed to be someone else.
And so the Lord tasks his son,solomon, the son of scandal, to
be the one anointed to be theking.
And so David, the warrior, theworshiper, the one with the
heart after God.
He doesn't get to fulfill thatpeace, but his son does, and so
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it's just that he challenges hisson to do so In another piece
of scripture.
You see the overlaying parts ofscripture in the Old Testament
telling the story of the kingsin 2 Samuel 7.
It says he shall build a housefor my name and I will establish
the throne of his kingdomforever.
And what we know historicallyis that the kingdom of Israel
(15:18):
falls apart and Judah breaks offand there's all sorts of
infighting and wars and thingsthat happen.
But the lineage goes all theway down and eventually comes in
the personhood of Jesus Christ.
And so this promise that's sethere, that was told to David, is
also reinforced to his son,solomon, saying listen, the one
(15:39):
that will follow you theforetelling of the Messiah, he
will be the king forever and hewill be an honest and good king.
First Chronicles picks up withthis story here and says, as
they start talking to Solomon,he called for Solomon, his son,
and charged him to build a housefor the Lord, the God of Israel
(16:00):
.
Now, solomon, as we think ofhim, he's somebody who you know
as he comes to that place.
It says that he came and theLord connected with him and the
Lord asked him what do you want?
You have a heart after me.
What do you want?
He could have asked for riches.
For riches, he could ask forthe death of his enemies.
He could ask for power.
He instead asked for wisdom tolead the people of God, and as
(16:20):
he does, then he gets the wisdomfrom the Lord.
The Lord imparts that wisdom tohim and all the other things
are added.
He has the wealth, he has thepower, he has the strategy, but
it all came from his wisdom.
That came from God.
You see here the depiction ofone of the queens coming to find
out about his wisdom, and sohis own self.
He says in 1 Kings 5, and so Iintend to build a house for the
(16:41):
name of the Lord, my God.
As the Lord said to David, myfather, your son, who I will set
in your throne in your place,shall build the house for my
name, shall build the house formy name.
So Solomon sets about to doexactly what the Lord had him to
do and he goes and he findsthose in Lebanon to send the
cedars and he brings about thepeople that are gonna work on it
(17:04):
and be anointed to do the hardwork of building the temple,
each one of it very specific, asdirected by the Lord.
Just like the tabernacle soldthe temple as well, each and
every little part.
In modern day Israel today youwould see it like this where
there's the Dome of the Rock, amosque that sits on the Temple
Mount instead of the temple.
Both the first and secondtemples have been destroyed and
(17:24):
those stones cast down.
But even modern day Jews, asthey go to worship in the place
where the temple would be, theonly thing remaining is the wall
that would be on the base ofwhere the Temple Mount was.
It's known as the Wailing Wall,and that's where Jews will go
and pray, because it's themdrawing near to where the
presence of God had been satamongst the people of God and
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the Holy of Holies and the Arkof the Covenant.
You can see a depiction of ithere.
It's in Israel.
It's a little model of what itwould have looked like in that
day and it kind of depicts whatthat would look like, each piece
of the temple being a partwhere you would walk through,
and each one of that signifyingpart of the sacrifice is
signifying the process ofdrawing near to the presence of
(18:07):
God.
Think about that.
We have a God who wants to bein the midst of his people, and
so he makes a way for a holy Godto be in the midst of a sinful
people by creating this templeand a separation of a veil to
keep his presence from them.
But it was something where healso would be able to be
(18:27):
approached, to be worshiped andto have sacrifices, and so they
brought in these artists andthey started to work with the
wood and work with the differentpieces of gold.
It says they inlaid the wholeinside of the temple.
You could see the artistry here.
There's a depiction of what itwould look like, room after room
, gilded in gold, giving gloryto God.
(18:48):
They gave their best.
It was the best woods and itwas the best of their gold, the
best that they had to worshipthe Lord.
It was all intentional.
Each detail was shown and eachone of it depicted, all the way
back to the imagery of thegarden, even the menorah
representing the tree of lifeand the different pieces that
(19:08):
would be lit before the Lord.
It went back to a time wherepeople Adam and Eve walked with
God in the garden and they werewith him in his presence.
But us, as people, we made asin against God and it broke his
heart and the sin inside of usas people separated us away from
him and from his presence, andso they were blocked from
(19:29):
entering the garden again.
So this temple actually makes away for people to come and to
approach the living God againand have community with him, to
be intentional each and everystep of this, each and every
process as they would go forward.
You know it was amazing.
Yesterday we hosted an eventhere at the church and it was an
(19:52):
opportunity for a bunch ofchurches to come together and
learn about reaching theircommunity and what it would mean
to try to step up to the nextplace.
We had some church coaches andother things happening.
We had 21 churches representedhere at the church and it was
awesome.
They came from all differentparts of Arizona, all the way up
in the Navajo Res, down at thesouthern border, all the way
(20:13):
over from the east and westsides of the state.
They all drove in to beintentional with their team, to
hear and to learn what was goingon, and I love that.
I love that our team was ableto host them and to serve them
and to be a blessing, while weourselves were receiving as well
, getting challenged on mindsetsand thought processes of how we
can do better to reach thosearound us.
(20:33):
And how many people know that?
There's two things you can knowabout pastors.
One, they are caffeinated, verycaffeinated.
We went through lots of coffee.
And two, many of them are fullgospel.
You guys know what I'm saying.
And so we ran out of sandwichesat a full gospel preachers
meeting, and so we, our team,jumped through hoops, man, and
(20:54):
they went and knocked it out anddid a bunch more sandwiches and
everybody was very gracious,everybody got a sandwich and
there was extra to spare.
But, man, it was one of thosethings where you have to have an
intentionality to say I'm notjust gonna sit back because I
got my sandwich, but I'm gonnajump in and make sure that
everybody gets fed.
How many people know what I'mtalking about?
You have to have a heart forothers and I want to say thanks
to our team.
Can we have a hand for our teamthat served all these churches?
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Man, thank you guys, you are ablessing.
It's that intentionality, it'sliving our heart with not just
what's in it for me, but how canI be a blessing?
They internalize this walk withGod, this presence of Lord, and
we go back to the scripturethat we started with today in
Ephesians 2, and it starts topick up with this very idea of
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being intentional In verse 19,.
It says so then you are nolonger strangers and aliens, but
you are now fellow citizenswith the saints and members of
the household of God In verse20,.
Built on the foundation of theapostles and prophets, christ
Jesus himself being thecornerstone in whom the whole
(22:00):
structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in
the Lord.
In verse 22,.
In him, you are being builttogether into a dwelling place
for God by the Spirit.
Friends, I love this piece.
What an amazing thing, as Paulwrites to Ephesus and the church
(22:21):
that's there, challenging themto understand the very thing
that we learned this summerabout how each one of those
voices of the prophets waspointing the people to return
back to God.
It says to repent, to turnaround and go back to God.
What an amazing thing.
And so that's an alignment thatwe see how they are the ones
that are helping lay thefoundation.
It's from Jesus that everythingis set.
(22:45):
It calls us to be, that we arecitizens, that we belong to him.
I can tell you, since we livedas expats around the world.
You know we had done that forover 10 years in different
places and trying to jumpthrough those hoops.
As you read it, it says thatwe're no longer strangers or
aliens, we're no longerforeigners.
We now are citizens.
(23:06):
And being those people, man,I've had to do the bureaucracy
of trying to get your paperworkdone in Europe.
It was crazy the chaos of Cairoand the Egyptian system.
It's not even digitized, it'sall paperwork and piles and
trying to keep my money in mypockets when the Mexican police
had other ideas for it.
As we lived abroad, we knewthat we didn't belong, we didn't
(23:30):
have, we weren't citizens there, we were guests there.
We were guests there.
We were foreigners there.
But see the Lord, he calls uscitizens of heaven.
He calls us those that belongto him.
And what's amazing is thataround the world and we've been
in like 70 countries around theworld when you go through the
airport, most of the time theline for the foreigners is
(23:51):
always the long line.
They have like one person sortof working and there's a really
long line of foreigners and thenthere's like five people
working for the citizens and soyou get to speed through and I'm
always like does anybody have aspare passport, can I borrow it
?
You know what I mean.
Like try to get out of the line, man, and we come back this
summer and we get back intoMiami, coming back from outside
of the States.
Then I'm pumped up.
(24:12):
I'm like here we go, citizenline, baby, we're going to go
through.
I'm in America, you know people, you know feet on the floor.
We're back and they're likecool, get in line.
It was a super long line.
It went all the way down thecorridor.
People thought this wasn't theiragain.
They were not happy.
(24:32):
They're trying to, you know,act like they knew somebody in
line.
Anybody do that.
You got to stop doing that.
They're like trying to oh hello, friend.
Oh hello, are you my cousin?
Can I step here Trying to slidein?
We're like in the back.
It was one of those thingswhere it's like man, if you're a
citizen and you have special,special responsibilities, you
(24:54):
also have special things thatyou can do because you belong
there.
And that's what he calls us foras citizens of heaven belonging
to him.
In scripture we move forward inEphesians 2, verse 20 and 21,
built on the foundation of theapostles and prophets, with
Christ Jesus being thecornerstone.
We talk about the foundationand how it's so important that,
(25:15):
as we set our lives, we do socorrectly.
It's only built in Jesus Christ, it's only built on the
direction to return to God andthe instruction we hear from the
word.
That's why we spend our time inthe word.
It washes over us and itinstructs us, it corrects us as
we pray, it makes it alive andit starts to challenge us.
Even the same piece ofscripture you read the week
(25:36):
before can challenge you in anew way as the Lord moves it in
your heart, and so it becomesthis foundation by which you
build your life.
If you ever built anything andyou have the wrong foundation,
things can be bad quickly.
Anybody ever experienced that.
We've seen that as we've beenacross the world in different
places, and you know we havecertain regulations here in
North America and Europe.
(25:56):
But if you get outside of thoseplaces, you know an earthquake
happens or something happens andthe foundation of these places
just fall apart and suddenlythose things that now are
becoming a shelter become chaosaround them, and it's so sad.
We had the same thing happen inEgypt there, and it's so sad.
We had the same thing happen inEgypt.
(26:17):
There was a hard rain and oneof the skyscrapers just fell and
hit the skyscraper across thestreet because the foundation of
the building was doneincorrectly.
The building itself held shape.
It hit the other one across thestreet but everything
underneath it was broken.
And so what's interesting aboutthat is we think about building
our life.
We think about the plans andhow we would put something
together as we're trying toconstruct something.
If we're doing this physically,then we would have all the
plans laid out, we would map itaccordingly, double check and,
(26:39):
you know, measure twice, cutonce.
All those things that we learnthat we would be as intentional
with our spiritual life to bethose that are coming to the
Lord and say, lord, I build mylife on you and your principles,
on what you say, not just goodideas from some concept online I
saw on TikTok but, lord, whatthe word of God says to my life,
that I would build it.
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That has eternal value.
Ephesians 2, verse 22,.
As we continue forward, it saysthis in him, you are also being
built together into a dwellingplace for God by the Spirit.
A dwelling place for God.
See, that very temple thatSolomon built.
(27:21):
There was what we called.
It was the veil that wasbetween the holy of holies and
the outer places, and that thingwas the thing that protected
the people of God from theholiness of God.
Anyone who would approach theholiness of God.
They would fall dead becausetheir sin inside their life
would cause them to be dead inthe presence of a holy God.
So, as those who would go in tomake preparation the priests
(27:43):
they would go about this wholeset of rituals and cleaning and
making sure they had done alltheir, the forgiveness and
getting all of the differentpieces of worship before the
Lord.
And as they went in to the Holyof Holies the one time to make
that time of year, they had tobe rigged up just to make sure
that they were good to go in.
Do you guys know this?
So they had bells on the bottomof their clothes.
(28:04):
They had like a rope tiedaround their leg.
Why?
Because if they had not done itright, if they really weren't
holy in their heart as they wentinto the holies of holies, the
holy presence of God wouldstrike them dead.
Yes, they're the high priest oryes, they're the chosen priest
for the time, but guess what,that didn't matter.
The holiness of God supersedesany of these things.
So you're like Bobby, bobby, youokay in there.
(28:27):
Give us a jingle, bobby.
You know what I mean.
Like whoever it was, it waslike jingle, jingle, jingle.
It's like you stop hearing thejingle as you start pulling the
rope.
You still in there.
What's going on, man, could youimagine if you were the one on
deck in case Bobby didn't makeit?
You know you were priest numbertwo.
That would be scary, man.
It's like Bobby, you know theypull him out by his foot.
(28:47):
You're like okay, here we go.
You can imagine as Christ goesto the cross.
It says as he gave up hisspirit.
It says the veil in the templewas torn into, and what that
means is that the very thingseparating the presence of God
from the people of God wasfulfilled and that Jesus had
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become the sacrifice for allpeople, for all time, taking on
the sin of the world on himself.
And as he died, sin died and hepaid for those things.
And as he did so, it opened upthe opportunity for the Spirit
of God to rest on the people ofGod.
And in Acts 2, as we see thatthe early church is anointed by
the Holy Spirit of God, the veryrepresentation of what was in
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the Holy of Holies, the flameand the fire.
Those things appear upon thechurch, as now we are the temple
of God and the Holy Spirit ofGod is with you.
The church, what a powerfulthing to be.
The dwelling of the Most HighGod as he walks with us Citizens
, the dwelling of the most highand friends.
(29:55):
There's a piece of scripturethat we see in Psalm 138.
It talks to us about thatprocess.
It says the Lord will fulfillhis purpose for me.
Your steadfast love, o Lord,endures forever.
O Lord endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of yourhands.
See, god wants to do somethingin and through your life.
(30:18):
He wants to direct you and moldyou and guide you into his
image.
He wants to use you for hispurposes.
And if you're here under thesound of my voice and he's
someone that he's not done withyour story and he has something
for you to do still so, let meencourage you in this, that you
would be intentional in yourlife after God, to build your
(30:39):
life on Jesus Christ, foreverything else is not enough.
Friends, today we have anopportunity to respond to his
love for us, to his message forus, and maybe you're here and
you have never made a decisionto follow Jesus.
Today's your opportunity to doso.
Each one of us has to answerthat question of have we
(31:00):
embraced Jesus?
For us, the symbol of the crossis one of power.
It's one of power because it'sa symbol where Jesus went and he
gave up his life for you andfor me.
He went and took all of our sinand all of our mistakes and all
of our brokenness and he tookit to the cross and he paid for
the sin of the world, all of mysin, all of yours.
(31:21):
He paid for it once and for all, for all people.
And so it's by our belief inhim and saying Jesus, I believe
you are who you say you are Lord, I place my faith and my trust
in you today that we are maderighteous.
In the scripture, paul writesto the church at Rome.
He says it like this because ifyou confess with your mouth
(31:42):
that Jesus is Lord and believein your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will besaved.
For with the heart, onebelieves and is justified.
With the mouth, one confessesand is saved.
Friends, today is your day.
It's your day to say yes toJesus, to invite him into your
(32:03):
heart and life, to start a newrelationship with him.
I'm going to encourage you thatyou would search your heart
today, life to start a newrelationship with him.
I'm going to encourage you thatyou would search your heart
today.
Maybe you're here and you'venever made that decision before.
Today is your opportunity.
Maybe you have made a decisionin the past but you haven't been
living for God.
It's your opportunity torecommit your heart and life to
him.
(32:24):
If you're here in the room, ifyou'd stand to your feet where
you're at, bow your heads.
If you're here in the room, ifyou'd stand to your feet where
you're at, bow your heads.
If you're online, take a momentand pause whatever you're doing
for what God wants to do in ourlives right now, in this moment
, as Christians are prayingfriends, we already had people
this morning make thatcommitment to Jesus to invite
him into their heart and life.
People making decisions to besaved by grace through Jesus
(32:47):
Christ.
Today is your opportunity to dothe same, as heads are bowed
here in the room.
If that was you and you'd say,pastor, I just want to be
included in that prayer.
Today, I want to make thatdecision to follow Jesus for the
first time or for anopportunity to recommit my heart
to him.
If that's you, if you justraise your hand right where
you're at and you say that's thedecision I want to make today,
to invite him into my heart andlife.
Thank you Jesus.
Thank you Jesus, as people aremaking decisions today.
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Thank you, lord.
Thank you Lord.
Thank you Lord.
Friends online as well, that'syou.
Praise the Lord.
I'm gonna ask if everyone would,if they would pray this prayer
out loud after me.
Lord, thank you for loving me.
Thank you for sending Jesus.
(33:30):
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
I believe he rose again.
Forgive me of my sins.
I surrender my life to you.
In Christ's name.
I pray Amen, amen.
(33:51):
Friends, we rejoice that youmake a decision to follow Jesus
today.
Those that raised your handspowerful, amazing.
Hey, if that was you, connectwith us.
We have people in the back.
We want to be able to putmaterials into your hands so you
can live this life successfullyafter God.
If you're online, message us.
We don't want you to do thislife alone.
Prince, today we have thisopportunity, as we play this
last song and we come to thisaltar, to make a place with God
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and to draw near to him, to askhim for more of his impartation,
for more of his spirit, formore of his grace and wisdom, to
live this life after him, to beintentional in building our
life in the way of God and notour own concept, to come for him
, for healing, for insight, foranything that we need, because
he is our source.
Lord, we thank you so much andwe pray.
(34:35):
Lord, just giving you all thepraise and all the glory today.
Lord, thank you for openingthis word to us and to our
hearts.
Lord, thank you for giving usthe example of David and Solomon
, lord and Lord, their obedienceto you, Lord, and the details
of being intentional andfollowing after God and what it
means to build the house of theLord, to be the dwelling of the
Most High God and live for you.
(34:56):
Lord, that you empower us, lord, to be a good example of what
that means.
Lord, to shine, lord, with thebrightness of the gospel message
to those around us.
Lord, as we come to this altar,we do so with hearts after you,
to draw near to you for animpartation, lord, for wisdom,
for direction, for healing.
We pray in the name of JesusChrist Amen.
Hey, just a reminder for you incase you didn't know.
(35:17):
We're having a Mercy House Gala.
That's coming out the firstweek of October and we're
celebrating over 30 years ofMercy House, which is our
community outreach center that'shere in Avondale.
It's a blessing to be able tofundraise to that event.
Let me encourage you to buytickets.
Make it a date night, bringsome friends along with you.
You get to hear about theministry of Mercy House and its
(35:38):
opportunity for us to help raisefunds for the operations of the
ministry.
Celeste Brown (35:42):
And life group signups are today.
So as you head out, you'll seea QR code.
Scan it, view it, see whatthere is, ask questions, find
out what group fits for you andsign up for something.
It is going to be an amazingseason.
Jason Brown (35:55):
Before we go, we are to pray this blessing over
us.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord, make his face toshine upon you and be gracious
to you.
Lord, lift up his countenanceupon you and give you peace.
Lord, I pray a blessing uponyour church, your people.
(36:17):
Lord, you empower us by yourspirit to live your love out to
those around us.
Pray all this in the powerfulname that is Jesus Christ.
Amen, amen, know this we loveyou very much here at
Cornerstone.
God bless you.
Good morning and welcome to a special breaking
news report.
I'm Elijah Vance and I'mDeborah Sterling.
We're coming to you live withmomentous news from Jerusalem,
where King Solomon hasofficially completed the
magnificent temple.
This has been years in themaking, a monumental undertaking
that has reshaped the landscapeand the spiritual heart of our
nation.
Indeed, we go now live to ourreporter, sarah Jenkins, who is
(00:24):
on location, with more detailsand, we hope, an exclusive
interview, sarah.
Thank you, deborah and Elijah.
I'm live outside thebreathtaking new temple.
The air is electric withexcitement.
King Solomon has dedicated thissacred space to the Lord.
Your Majesty, what does thisday mean to you?
Thank you, sarah.
(00:44):
This day makes me reflect on myfather, david.
A flawed man, yes, but alwaysafter God's heart.
The Lord anointed David forgreat acts like to slay Goliath.
The Lord also anointed me tobuild his house.
That's a powerful legacy.
How does it feel to completesuch a divinely appointed task?
(01:05):
It is humbling, a privilege tohonor the Lord and fulfill the
vision passed down A trulyinspiring message.
Thank you for sharing thisprofound insight.
This is Sarah Jenkins.
Live from Jerusalem Back to youin the studio.
Jason Brown (01:22):
Well, good morning .
Hey, we're so glad we had thisopportunity to worship together
at Cornerstone.
Godbless you.
If you're a guest of ours,welcome home.
We're starting a new seriestoday.
It's called Build and we'retalking about what it means for
us to build our life on Christ.
If we haven't met, my name isJay.
It's a blessing to be able tolead this congregation with
(01:44):
Celeste and be a part of such anamazing community of faith.
Our focus today is a dwellingplace for God, and so we talk
about this idea of a dwellingplace for God.
We're going to jump off withsomething that's kind of
interesting and hit theheadlines recently, which is
actually the blood moon that'shappening tonight.
How many people know there's ablood moon happening tonight?
Did you guys see it?
(02:05):
It's been on the news, it'sbeen different places.
It's interesting, it's a veryunique piece that happens every
so often and it's one of thosethings that it starts to ring
alarm bells in some differentcircles where you know they're
talking about the end of theworld draweth nigh, and the
reason they're saying that isbecause they're looking to
scripture.
We talked about it in thisseries this summer, with Minor
Prophets looking to Joel andJoel says this, the sun shall be
(02:34):
turned to darkness and the moonto blood, before the great and
awesome day of the Lord comes.
Friends, that's the marker thatwe're seeing is these things
like the blood moon, things likeearthquakes, things like storms
, and all these different piecesthat are pointing to scripture,
the truth that we know from thegospel, that we see it in our
very midst, as it happens in thesky above us, and what's
interesting about that is thatit really points us to the other
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side of our faith, that we'rethose that believe that Christ
came and lived embodied as a man, and that he took on the sin of
the world, living innocently,and became the sacrifice for all
people.
But that also means is that heis coming, returning as a king
for his church, and so what wedo in placing our faith in him
is seeing that these markers aresigns of the times that are
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happening, and so we need to bethose that are ready for what
God wants to do.
It says that no person knowsthe time, the day or the hour.
So if I told you it was thismorning at XYZ time, that's a
time that he would be like no,we're going to pass, we'll push
it till tomorrow, but the thingis none of us know.
I would want it to happenbefore the end of this service.
Somebody say amen to that.
Lord, come, have your church,bring, have your church, bring
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yourself to your church.
And we say, come, lord Jesus,return here.
And we see the imagery of thingslike the four horsemen of the
apocalypse.
It's something that we hearabout and becomes kind of scary.
It's imagery that we seesymbolic of what's happening in
end times in the book ofRevelation.
And as we look at thosedifferent pieces and characters,
each one of them brings about adifferent thing that's gonna
(04:02):
happen or is happening at theend of time.
The one that we see with Jesusis him returning as a triumphant
king, the holy king of heaventhat's returning to have no one
stand in front of him, amen.
And it becomes kind of scary.
People are like oh man, the fourhorsemen.
I'm kind of scared.
I'm not.
The reason I'm not is becausethat's my king and I belong to
(04:24):
him.
I'm actually excited.
I'm like Lord Jesus, show up,I'm ready.
Man, like you know, eastern skyhere we go, let's go after it.
And the reason we're excitedabout that is because it's our
faith is that he will return forhis church and he will be the
rightful and only true king ofthe world to rule in peace.
And so that's what we believe,for we wanna be those that are
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ready to live our day with him,every day that he will return.
Today, be ready and beintentional in how we're living
our life after God.
You say amen to that.
We're not called to live infear.
We're called to be those thatare living according to his
purposes, according to the wordof God, and that means live
(05:05):
ready and build your life inChrist.
You know, we talk about oftenusing this imagery of Jesus
walking with his disciples, andwe do that because that's how we
see ourselves as people thatare on a journey with Christ.
None of us have finished, noneof us have arrived.
We're all following after himwhere he's leading us to go.
We see ourselves like thedisciples, in that way that we
(05:26):
want to be more like Jesus, andso that's why, collectively,
we're those that love God andmake disciples and reach the
world, and that's who we are andthat's our mission.
Collectively, as a community offaith, we do that through things
like life groups, and today isa unique thing in that we're
starting a new semester of lifegroups today.
So it's an opportunity to signup, get involved, and you really
(05:50):
can.
You can connect with peoplearound you, you can grow in your
faith in God and you also canserve using your talents and
abilities.
And we encourage you to do so,to be intentional.
During this fall semester, allof us are too busy.
To add one more thing we're toobusy, but what we make priority
in our life, we're not too busyfor how many people know what
(06:12):
I'm talking about?
Somehow we still can bingewatch our favorite show, and so
that just kind of proves thatthere's margin in there if we
wanna make room for something.
So let me encourage you to getinvolved, be intentional.
Join a life group.
It'll be a blessing to you Iknow it is to me and let it be
something that ministers to youto come and to get involved and
to be with other brothers andsisters in the faith.
(06:34):
And I'll tell you thissometimes they'll be like well,
I don't know if I really needthat.
Well, maybe somebody needs youin their group to be someone
that's a new friend.
Did you know?
We have guests that come allthe time.
We're so very thankful.
If you're a guest of ours,welcome home.
We're glad you're with us, butwe have guests all the time and
what we want to do is be able tobe a friend to them and make a
connection with a new friend,because what happens is we want
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to be open to a new personcoming so that they can belong
with us.
Amen, that's what we're calledto do.
So let me encourage you join alife group.
Let it be a blessing to you Ifyou have your Bible, your tablet
, your phone.
Today we're looking to Ephesians2, and we'll be jumping off
there.
In the scripture.
Scripture says in Ephesians 2,22,.
In him, you are also beingbuilt together into a dwelling
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place for God by the Spirit.
Lord, we pray over your wordtoday, thanking you for making
it alive, thanking you forsparking it in our hearts.
Lord, making it rhema, and wepray, lord, it would challenge
us to be more like your image.
We pray this in the name ofJesus Christ, amen.
So we're talking about this ideaof build a dwelling place for
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God, and this idea of dwellingplace for God is something that
we see throughout scripture.
We see it in the tabernacle, wesee it in the temple, we see it
in the New Testament, but tyingback to what Pastor Celeste
said last week, how many peoplewere blessed by the season
sermon from last week.
What a blessing, you know.
It challenged my heart andthinking about the season that
we're in and what God is sayingto us Ecclesiastes, where Pastor
(08:04):
Celeste talked about in chapterthree, verse one.
It says for everything there isa season and for every matter
under heaven.
It gives examples.
It says a time to be born and atime to die, a time to plant
and a time to pluck up what isplanted, a time to kill and a
time to heal, a time to breakdown and a time to build up.
(08:28):
Today we're talking about thatvery thing, about a season of
building your life upon Christ.
We can see in Matthew 21, thenamesake of our church.
We shared this a few weeks agoat our 39th year, our
anniversary of the church ofCornerstone.
39 years, praise the Lord.
Matthew 21, verse 42, saysJesus said to them have you
(08:50):
never read the scriptures?
The stone that the buildersrejected has become the
cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing and itis marvelous in our eyes.
Friends, the idea of cornerstoneis that it's the setting piece
in which we put everything elsearound.
A cornerstone physically is theone that they would lay first
(09:11):
upon the foundation to make surethat everything in the building
was shored up and correct thatit was going to be laid out in
the precise way.
It was from that cornerstonethat everything else is built.
That's why, later in Acts, youwould see them referencing that
very piece of scripture.
It says this this Jesus is thestone that was rejected by you,
(09:33):
the builders, which has becomethe cornerstone.
See, friends, jesus is thecornerstone for us.
There is no one else.
He fulfills it completely anduniquely, alone in himself.
He is the one that we can buildour life on for eternity.
It's from him that we can buildour life up and can trust that.
(09:54):
He is a sure foundation.
He is the one that we can setour feet on.
Friends, there are lots ofother things that are taught,
and all of those things are goodideas by people, but Jesus
alone stands in eternity, and sothat's why we can put our life
in Jesus Christ.
I can tell you this that we cantry all the different ways to
come to Jesus, but it's only byhis sacrifice for us, his grace
(10:18):
for us, the extension of what hehas done for us that we're in
relationship with him.
It's nothing we can do.
We can't earn enough, we can'tgive enough, we can't do enough
good works.
It's not possible.
It says in scripture that weare as filthy rags before a holy
God, and so we're called to bethose that live our life in
(10:39):
Jesus Christ, accepting whathe's done on our behalf, by
faith, the currency of thekingdom, and living and walking
according to his statutes.
Now, last week, pastor Celestewas talking about David and I
got a picture of David.
This is a statue in Florence.
This is the only part of thestatue I can show you, and if
you know the statue, you knowwhy.
But we've been there, had achance to see the statue and
(11:01):
it's pretty amazing.
It's awesome and it kind ofdoes give a depiction of who he
was, because he was this roughand rugged, you know, courageous
, shepherd out in the field, andas a young man, you know.
Pastor Sless talked about how hewasn't even considered by his
father, jesse, to be one of theones that would be named king.
(11:22):
All his older brothers got alook and he was just out there
with the smelly sheep, and soit's the thing that God was
doing in his heart that it saysin scripture how he was
worshiping.
He was out there with the Lord.
He was being a good shepherd.
He was courageous.
He fought the lion, he foughtthe bear.
He ran them off from the sheepto keep the sheep safe.
He knew what it meant to be agood shepherd.
He was an icon, a symbol ofwhat would be Jesus later as the
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good shepherd for all of us.
And so David becomes this onethat's anointed to be king,
takes the place of Saul.
Saul looked good.
He was tall, it said.
He was good looking andhandsome.
He looked like the politicianthey wanted.
He was the king they clamoredfor.
And what they found out is thathe wasn't the one in alignment
with God's heart as soon as hegot in the position, don't we?
(12:09):
And so he started believing hisown press.
And so God was like no, you'renot after my heart, I will bring
one that is after my heart.
And so that's what he broughtin David.
And David does all these things.
He fights Goliath.
He fights these battles againstthe Philistines and all the
people on every side.
He goes to war.
He's a warrior.
(12:29):
He's a worshiper.
He's a statesman.
He's a warrior.
He's a worshiper.
He's a statesman, he's allthese things, but he's also a
man and he makes a mistake,because he should have been out
doing kingly things and makes amistake and ends up having an
affair with a married woman andtakes her into himself.
She's found out she's pregnant,her husband is fighting in his
(12:49):
army and David's army at thefront.
He tries to cover it up and itdoesn't work out and eventually
he orchestrates the man's murderto cover up his mistake and it
was a compounding effort of allthe things that had happened in
making errors.
And eventually she's there andit finds out that the baby's
(13:09):
gonna pass and he wails and heasks the Lord for this son from
this one, this wife that hestole away from someone else,
that the Lord would have mercy.
But the child dies and whathappens after that is that he
brings her in and Bathshebabecomes his wife and they have
another son and that son's nameis Solomon.
(13:30):
Solomon was born of scandal.
He was a son of scandal.
He was one that the otherbrothers looked at and they were
like who is this?
And how many people know thatyour history, your background,
does not mean that's what yourfuture will hold, that in Christ
we become a new creation.
It says he makes us a newcreation.
He's the one that cleans us offand sets us up and breaks the
(13:51):
chains off of our past and getsus out of the rut into a future.
That it is his calling.
He did the same with Solomon,but the challenge was to David.
David wanted to.
He had brought the ark up andbrought it into the city.
He was excited about this ideaof making a permanent house for
the Lord.
So long they had had thetabernacle, while in the
(14:13):
wilderness and as they came intothe promised land.
But now we wanted to make ahouse for the Lord, a temple.
1 Kings 8, it says this in verse19,.
Nevertheless, you shall notbuild the house, the Lord
speaking to David, but your son,who shall be born to you, shall
build the house for my name.
See, david's hands were bloody.
(14:35):
As for war, he wasn't the oneto build the house.
That needed to be someone else.
And so the Lord tasks his son,solomon, the son of scandal, to
be the one anointed to be theking.
And so David, the warrior, theworshiper, the one with the
heart after God.
He doesn't get to fulfill thatpeace, but his son does, and so
(14:56):
it's just that he challenges hisson to do so In another piece
of scripture.
You see the overlaying parts ofscripture in the Old Testament
telling the story of the kingsin 2 Samuel 7.
It says he shall build a housefor my name and I will establish
the throne of his kingdomforever.
And what we know historicallyis that the kingdom of Israel
(15:18):
falls apart and Judah breaks offand there's all sorts of
infighting and wars and thingsthat happen.
But the lineage goes all theway down and eventually comes in
the personhood of Jesus Christ.
And so this promise that's sethere, that was told to David, is
also reinforced to his son,solomon, saying listen, the one
(15:39):
that will follow you theforetelling of the Messiah, he
will be the king forever and hewill be an honest and good king.
First Chronicles picks up withthis story here and says, as
they start talking to Solomon,he called for Solomon, his son,
and charged him to build a housefor the Lord, the God of Israel
(16:00):
.
Now, solomon, as we think ofhim, he's somebody who you know
as he comes to that place.
It says that he came and theLord connected with him and the
Lord asked him what do you want?
You have a heart after me.
What do you want?
He could have asked for riches.
For riches, he could ask forthe death of his enemies.
He could ask for power.
He instead asked for wisdom tolead the people of God, and as
(16:20):
he does, then he gets the wisdomfrom the Lord.
The Lord imparts that wisdom tohim and all the other things
are added.
He has the wealth, he has thepower, he has the strategy, but
it all came from his wisdom.
That came from God.
You see here the depiction ofone of the queens coming to find
out about his wisdom, and sohis own self.
He says in 1 Kings 5, and so Iintend to build a house for the
(16:41):
name of the Lord, my God.
As the Lord said to David, myfather, your son, who I will set
in your throne in your place,shall build the house for my
name, shall build the house formy name.
So Solomon sets about to doexactly what the Lord had him to
do and he goes and he findsthose in Lebanon to send the
cedars and he brings about thepeople that are gonna work on it
(17:04):
and be anointed to do the hardwork of building the temple,
each one of it very specific, asdirected by the Lord.
Just like the tabernacle soldthe temple as well, each and
every little part.
In modern day Israel today youwould see it like this where
there's the Dome of the Rock, amosque that sits on the Temple
Mount instead of the temple.
Both the first and secondtemples have been destroyed and
(17:24):
those stones cast down.
But even modern day Jews, asthey go to worship in the place
where the temple would be, theonly thing remaining is the wall
that would be on the base ofwhere the Temple Mount was.
It's known as the Wailing Wall,and that's where Jews will go
and pray, because it's themdrawing near to where the
presence of God had been satamongst the people of God and
(17:46):
the Holy of Holies and the Arkof the Covenant.
You can see a depiction of ithere.
It's in Israel.
It's a little model of what itwould have looked like in that
day and it kind of depicts whatthat would look like, each piece
of the temple being a partwhere you would walk through,
and each one of that signifyingpart of the sacrifice is
signifying the process ofdrawing near to the presence of
(18:07):
God.
Think about that.
We have a God who wants to bein the midst of his people, and
so he makes a way for a holy Godto be in the midst of a sinful
people by creating this templeand a separation of a veil to
keep his presence from them.
But it was something where healso would be able to be
(18:27):
approached, to be worshiped andto have sacrifices, and so they
brought in these artists andthey started to work with the
wood and work with the differentpieces of gold.
It says they inlaid the wholeinside of the temple.
You could see the artistry here.
There's a depiction of what itwould look like, room after room
, gilded in gold, giving gloryto God.
(18:48):
They gave their best.
It was the best woods and itwas the best of their gold, the
best that they had to worshipthe Lord.
It was all intentional.
Each detail was shown and eachone of it depicted, all the way
back to the imagery of thegarden, even the menorah
representing the tree of lifeand the different pieces that
(19:08):
would be lit before the Lord.
It went back to a time wherepeople Adam and Eve walked with
God in the garden and they werewith him in his presence.
But us, as people, we made asin against God and it broke his
heart and the sin inside of usas people separated us away from
him and from his presence, andso they were blocked from
(19:29):
entering the garden again.
So this temple actually makes away for people to come and to
approach the living God againand have community with him, to
be intentional each and everystep of this, each and every
process as they would go forward.
You know it was amazing.
Yesterday we hosted an eventhere at the church and it was an
(19:52):
opportunity for a bunch ofchurches to come together and
learn about reaching theircommunity and what it would mean
to try to step up to the nextplace.
We had some church coaches andother things happening.
We had 21 churches representedhere at the church and it was
awesome.
They came from all differentparts of Arizona, all the way up
in the Navajo Res, down at thesouthern border, all the way
(20:13):
over from the east and westsides of the state.
They all drove in to beintentional with their team, to
hear and to learn what was goingon, and I love that.
I love that our team was ableto host them and to serve them
and to be a blessing, while weourselves were receiving as well
, getting challenged on mindsetsand thought processes of how we
can do better to reach thosearound us.
(20:33):
And how many people know that?
There's two things you can knowabout pastors.
One, they are caffeinated, verycaffeinated.
We went through lots of coffee.
And two, many of them are fullgospel.
You guys know what I'm saying.
And so we ran out of sandwichesat a full gospel preachers
meeting, and so we, our team,jumped through hoops, man, and
(20:54):
they went and knocked it out anddid a bunch more sandwiches and
everybody was very gracious,everybody got a sandwich and
there was extra to spare.
But, man, it was one of thosethings where you have to have an
intentionality to say I'm notjust gonna sit back because I
got my sandwich, but I'm gonnajump in and make sure that
everybody gets fed.
How many people know what I'mtalking about?
You have to have a heart forothers and I want to say thanks
to our team.
Can we have a hand for our teamthat served all these churches?
(21:17):
Man, thank you guys, you are ablessing.
It's that intentionality, it'sliving our heart with not just
what's in it for me, but how canI be a blessing?
They internalize this walk withGod, this presence of Lord, and
we go back to the scripturethat we started with today in
Ephesians 2, and it starts topick up with this very idea of
(21:39):
being intentional In verse 19,.
It says so then you are nolonger strangers and aliens, but
you are now fellow citizenswith the saints and members of
the household of God In verse20,.
Built on the foundation of theapostles and prophets, christ
Jesus himself being thecornerstone in whom the whole
(22:00):
structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in
the Lord.
In verse 22,.
In him, you are being builttogether into a dwelling place
for God by the Spirit.
Friends, I love this piece.
What an amazing thing, as Paulwrites to Ephesus and the church
(22:21):
that's there, challenging themto understand the very thing
that we learned this summerabout how each one of those
voices of the prophets waspointing the people to return
back to God.
It says to repent, to turnaround and go back to God.
What an amazing thing.
And so that's an alignment thatwe see how they are the ones
that are helping lay thefoundation.
It's from Jesus that everythingis set.
(22:45):
It calls us to be, that we arecitizens, that we belong to him.
I can tell you, since we livedas expats around the world.
You know we had done that forover 10 years in different
places and trying to jumpthrough those hoops.
As you read it, it says thatwe're no longer strangers or
aliens, we're no longerforeigners.
We now are citizens.
(23:06):
And being those people, man,I've had to do the bureaucracy
of trying to get your paperworkdone in Europe.
It was crazy the chaos of Cairoand the Egyptian system.
It's not even digitized, it'sall paperwork and piles and
trying to keep my money in mypockets when the Mexican police
had other ideas for it.
As we lived abroad, we knewthat we didn't belong, we didn't
(23:30):
have, we weren't citizens there, we were guests there.
We were guests there.
We were foreigners there.
But see the Lord, he calls uscitizens of heaven.
He calls us those that belongto him.
And what's amazing is thataround the world and we've been
in like 70 countries around theworld when you go through the
airport, most of the time theline for the foreigners is
(23:51):
always the long line.
They have like one person sortof working and there's a really
long line of foreigners and thenthere's like five people
working for the citizens and soyou get to speed through and I'm
always like does anybody have aspare passport, can I borrow it
?
You know what I mean.
Like try to get out of the line, man, and we come back this
summer and we get back intoMiami, coming back from outside
of the States.
Then I'm pumped up.
(24:12):
I'm like here we go, citizenline, baby, we're going to go
through.
I'm in America, you know people, you know feet on the floor.
We're back and they're likecool, get in line.
It was a super long line.
It went all the way down thecorridor.
People thought this wasn't theiragain.
They were not happy.
(24:32):
They're trying to, you know,act like they knew somebody in
line.
Anybody do that.
You got to stop doing that.
They're like trying to oh hello, friend.
Oh hello, are you my cousin?
Can I step here Trying to slidein?
We're like in the back.
It was one of those thingswhere it's like man, if you're a
citizen and you have special,special responsibilities, you
(24:54):
also have special things thatyou can do because you belong
there.
And that's what he calls us foras citizens of heaven belonging
to him.
In scripture we move forward inEphesians 2, verse 20 and 21,
built on the foundation of theapostles and prophets, with
Christ Jesus being thecornerstone.
We talk about the foundationand how it's so important that,
(25:15):
as we set our lives, we do socorrectly.
It's only built in Jesus Christ, it's only built on the
direction to return to God andthe instruction we hear from the
word.
That's why we spend our time inthe word.
It washes over us and itinstructs us, it corrects us as
we pray, it makes it alive andit starts to challenge us.
Even the same piece ofscripture you read the week
(25:36):
before can challenge you in anew way as the Lord moves it in
your heart, and so it becomesthis foundation by which you
build your life.
If you ever built anything andyou have the wrong foundation,
things can be bad quickly.
Anybody ever experienced that.
We've seen that as we've beenacross the world in different
places, and you know we havecertain regulations here in
North America and Europe.
(25:56):
But if you get outside of thoseplaces, you know an earthquake
happens or something happens andthe foundation of these places
just fall apart and suddenlythose things that now are
becoming a shelter become chaosaround them, and it's so sad.
We had the same thing happen inEgypt there, and it's so sad.
We had the same thing happen inEgypt.
(26:17):
There was a hard rain and oneof the skyscrapers just fell and
hit the skyscraper across thestreet because the foundation of
the building was doneincorrectly.
The building itself held shape.
It hit the other one across thestreet but everything
underneath it was broken.
And so what's interesting aboutthat is we think about building
our life.
We think about the plans andhow we would put something
together as we're trying toconstruct something.
If we're doing this physically,then we would have all the
plans laid out, we would map itaccordingly, double check and,
(26:39):
you know, measure twice, cutonce.
All those things that we learnthat we would be as intentional
with our spiritual life to bethose that are coming to the
Lord and say, lord, I build mylife on you and your principles,
on what you say, not just goodideas from some concept online I
saw on TikTok but, lord, whatthe word of God says to my life,
that I would build it.
(27:01):
That has eternal value.
Ephesians 2, verse 22,.
As we continue forward, it saysthis in him, you are also being
built together into a dwellingplace for God by the Spirit.
A dwelling place for God.
See, that very temple thatSolomon built.
(27:21):
There was what we called.
It was the veil that wasbetween the holy of holies and
the outer places, and that thingwas the thing that protected
the people of God from theholiness of God.
Anyone who would approach theholiness of God.
They would fall dead becausetheir sin inside their life
would cause them to be dead inthe presence of a holy God.
So, as those who would go in tomake preparation the priests
(27:43):
they would go about this wholeset of rituals and cleaning and
making sure they had done alltheir, the forgiveness and
getting all of the differentpieces of worship before the
Lord.
And as they went in to the Holyof Holies the one time to make
that time of year, they had tobe rigged up just to make sure
that they were good to go in.
Do you guys know this?
So they had bells on the bottomof their clothes.
(28:04):
They had like a rope tiedaround their leg.
Why?
Because if they had not done itright, if they really weren't
holy in their heart as they wentinto the holies of holies, the
holy presence of God wouldstrike them dead.
Yes, they're the high priest oryes, they're the chosen priest
for the time, but guess what,that didn't matter.
The holiness of God supersedesany of these things.
So you're like Bobby, bobby, youokay in there.
(28:27):
Give us a jingle, bobby.
You know what I mean.
Like whoever it was, it waslike jingle, jingle, jingle.
It's like you stop hearing thejingle as you start pulling the
rope.
You still in there.
What's going on, man, could youimagine if you were the one on
deck in case Bobby didn't makeit?
You know you were priest numbertwo.
That would be scary, man.
It's like Bobby, you know theypull him out by his foot.
(28:47):
You're like okay, here we go.
You can imagine as Christ goesto the cross.
It says as he gave up hisspirit.
It says the veil in the templewas torn into, and what that
means is that the very thingseparating the presence of God
from the people of God wasfulfilled and that Jesus had
(29:08):
become the sacrifice for allpeople, for all time, taking on
the sin of the world on himself.
And as he died, sin died and hepaid for those things.
And as he did so, it opened upthe opportunity for the Spirit
of God to rest on the people ofGod.
And in Acts 2, as we see thatthe early church is anointed by
the Holy Spirit of God, the veryrepresentation of what was in
(29:31):
the Holy of Holies, the flameand the fire.
Those things appear upon thechurch, as now we are the temple
of God and the Holy Spirit ofGod is with you.
The church, what a powerfulthing to be.
The dwelling of the Most HighGod as he walks with us Citizens
, the dwelling of the most highand friends.
(29:55):
There's a piece of scripturethat we see in Psalm 138.
It talks to us about thatprocess.
It says the Lord will fulfillhis purpose for me.
Your steadfast love, o Lord,endures forever.
O Lord endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of yourhands.
See, god wants to do somethingin and through your life.
(30:18):
He wants to direct you and moldyou and guide you into his
image.
He wants to use you for hispurposes.
And if you're here under thesound of my voice and he's
someone that he's not done withyour story and he has something
for you to do still so, let meencourage you in this, that you
would be intentional in yourlife after God, to build your
(30:39):
life on Jesus Christ, foreverything else is not enough.
Friends, today we have anopportunity to respond to his
love for us, to his message forus, and maybe you're here and
you have never made a decisionto follow Jesus.
Today's your opportunity to doso.
Each one of us has to answerthat question of have we
(31:00):
embraced Jesus?
For us, the symbol of the crossis one of power.
It's one of power because it'sa symbol where Jesus went and he
gave up his life for you andfor me.
He went and took all of our sinand all of our mistakes and all
of our brokenness and he tookit to the cross and he paid for
the sin of the world, all of mysin, all of yours.
(31:21):
He paid for it once and for all, for all people.
And so it's by our belief inhim and saying Jesus, I believe
you are who you say you are Lord, I place my faith and my trust
in you today that we are maderighteous.
In the scripture, paul writesto the church at Rome.
He says it like this because ifyou confess with your mouth
(31:42):
that Jesus is Lord and believein your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will besaved.
For with the heart, onebelieves and is justified.
With the mouth, one confessesand is saved.
Friends, today is your day.
It's your day to say yes toJesus, to invite him into your
(32:03):
heart and life, to start a newrelationship with him.
I'm going to encourage you thatyou would search your heart
today, life to start a newrelationship with him.
I'm going to encourage you thatyou would search your heart
today.
Maybe you're here and you'venever made that decision before.
Today is your opportunity.
Maybe you have made a decisionin the past but you haven't been
living for God.
It's your opportunity torecommit your heart and life to
him.
(32:24):
If you're here in the room, ifyou'd stand to your feet where
you're at, bow your heads.
If you're here in the room, ifyou'd stand to your feet where
you're at, bow your heads.
If you're online, take a momentand pause whatever you're doing
for what God wants to do in ourlives right now, in this moment
, as Christians are prayingfriends, we already had people
this morning make thatcommitment to Jesus to invite
him into their heart and life.
People making decisions to besaved by grace through Jesus
(32:47):
Christ.
Today is your opportunity to dothe same, as heads are bowed
here in the room.
If that was you and you'd say,pastor, I just want to be
included in that prayer.
Today, I want to make thatdecision to follow Jesus for the
first time or for anopportunity to recommit my heart
to him.
If that's you, if you justraise your hand right where
you're at and you say that's thedecision I want to make today,
to invite him into my heart andlife.
Thank you Jesus.
Thank you Jesus, as people aremaking decisions today.
(33:08):
Thank you, lord.
Thank you Lord.
Thank you Lord.
Friends online as well, that'syou.
Praise the Lord.
I'm gonna ask if everyone would,if they would pray this prayer
out loud after me.
Lord, thank you for loving me.
Thank you for sending Jesus.
(33:30):
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
I believe he rose again.
Forgive me of my sins.
I surrender my life to you.
In Christ's name.
I pray Amen, amen.
(33:51):
Friends, we rejoice that youmake a decision to follow Jesus
today.
Those that raised your handspowerful, amazing.
Hey, if that was you, connectwith us.
We have people in the back.
We want to be able to putmaterials into your hands so you
can live this life successfullyafter God.
If you're online, message us.
We don't want you to do thislife alone.
Prince, today we have thisopportunity, as we play this
last song and we come to thisaltar, to make a place with God
(34:13):
and to draw near to him, to askhim for more of his impartation,
for more of his spirit, formore of his grace and wisdom, to
live this life after him, to beintentional in building our
life in the way of God and notour own concept, to come for him
, for healing, for insight, foranything that we need, because
he is our source.
Lord, we thank you so much andwe pray.
(34:35):
Lord, just giving you all thepraise and all the glory today.
Lord, thank you for openingthis word to us and to our
hearts.
Lord, thank you for giving usthe example of David and Solomon
, lord and Lord, their obedienceto you, Lord, and the details
of being intentional andfollowing after God and what it
means to build the house of theLord, to be the dwelling of the
Most High God and live for you.
(34:56):
Lord, that you empower us, lord, to be a good example of what
that means.
Lord, to shine, lord, with thebrightness of the gospel message
to those around us.
Lord, as we come to this altar,we do so with hearts after you,
to draw near to you for animpartation, lord, for wisdom,
for direction, for healing.
We pray in the name of JesusChrist Amen.
Hey, just a reminder for you incase you didn't know.
(35:17):
We're having a Mercy House Gala.
That's coming out the firstweek of October and we're
celebrating over 30 years ofMercy House, which is our
community outreach center that'shere in Avondale.
It's a blessing to be able tofundraise to that event.
Let me encourage you to buytickets.
Make it a date night, bringsome friends along with you.
You get to hear about theministry of Mercy House and its
(35:38):
opportunity for us to help raisefunds for the operations of the
ministry.
Celeste Brown (35:42):
And life group signups are today.
So as you head out, you'll seea QR code.
Scan it, view it, see whatthere is, ask questions, find
out what group fits for you andsign up for something.
It is going to be an amazingseason.
Jason Brown (35:55):
Before we go, we are to pray this blessing over
us.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord, make his face toshine upon you and be gracious
to you.
Lord, lift up his countenanceupon you and give you peace.
Lord, I pray a blessing uponyour church, your people.
(36:17):
Lord, you empower us by yourspirit to live your love out to
those around us.
Pray all this in the powerfulname that is Jesus Christ.
Amen, amen, know this we loveyou very much here at
Cornerstone.
God bless you.
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