Cornerstonekaty

Courageous Compassion

Matthew 25:31-46

Courageous compassion means recognizing Christ in people who are hungry, thirsty, sick, imprisoned, displaced, or vulnerable. Matthew 25 does not teach that good works earn salvation; compassionate action is evidence of faith and inheritance received through Christ. Believers are invited to care for others, not from obligation, self-interest, recognition, or a desire to complete a checklist, but from love and gratitude. Following Jesus means entering difficult places, being present with overlooked people, and giving them our best. The Christian mission is therefore incomplete without compassion: proclaiming the gospel and serving human need must remain united through Christlike love every day.

Witnesses in 3D

Acts 1"6-8

God's Steadfast Love and the Gates of Righteousness

Psalm 118

Imagine being an Israelite in ancient history. They faced countless threats and had every reason to wonder whether God's promises would survive. 

Suppose you were alive in Egypt. For four hundred years God's people had lived under slavery. Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew baby boys thrown into the Nile. If every son dies, the covenant dies. The promise to Abraham appears finished before it ever reaches fulfillment. But Moses, hidden in the reeds of the Nile, survives and raised in the Pharaoh’s own household. His steadfast love endures forever. You’re among those brought out of Egypt, thrilled and excited to be free! But then the Pharaoh changes his mind and traps you between his army and the Sea, defenseless with no escape. Then God parts the sea. His steadfast love endures forever.

Or suppose you were alive during the days of the judges. The nation spirals into idolatry and civil war. The book ends with the chilling words, "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." You might wonder whether Israel has become so corrupt that God will simply abandon His people. Then God raises up deliverers again and again. His steadfast love endures forever.

Or imagine living during David's lifetime. God has promised a king after His own heart, but David is running for his life in caves while Saul sits on the throne. Everything appears backwards. Has God forgotten His promise? Then David ascends the throne. His steadfast love endures forever.

Or imagine standing outside Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Babylon destroys the city. The temple burns. The walls collapse. The king is blinded. The people are marched into exile. If there was ever a moment when it appeared God's covenant had failed, this was it. Yet seventy years later a remnant walks back through those same gates. His steadfast love endures forever.

By the time Psalm 118 is sung during the great feasts, those pilgrims know this history. As they climb toward Jerusalem they are not celebrating because life has been easy. They are celebrating because every disaster that should have destroyed them has instead become another testimony to God's covenant faithfulness. The nations could not erase them. Their own sin could not erase them. Exile could not erase them. Death itself could not erase them. Why? Because God's steadfast love endures even when everything else gives way.

What threatens to destroy God’s people today? This week I watched Disclosure Day, which suggests that if intelligent alien life were discovered, Christians would begin abandoning their faith. It sounds new, and perhaps it is in terms of its details. But it is not new as a threat. There is nothing new under the sun. One generation feared Darwin and its theory of evolution, explaining life without the need for a creator. Another feared higher criticism, suggesting the Bible is simply a book written by men with limited knowledge and culturally influended bias. Another feared communism and its elevation of the state as god. Today we hear concerns about gender ideology, artificial intelligence, the surveillance state, or a one world government that will outlaw religion. But there is nothing new under the sun. The world has always found new reasons to question God. This should not surprise us. Psalm 2 opens with the question:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:1–3)

It is the theme of history. And as we enter the New Testament era we find more threats. The book of Revelation speaks of persecution, false teaching, compromise with the world, and seductive prosperity. Those have threatened believers for two thousand years. The question isn't whether something new will arise. The question is this: What remains unchanged when everything else changes? Psalm 118 gives one glorious answer. "His steadfast love endures forever."

That word translated "steadfast love" is one of the richest words in the Old Testament: hesed. It means: covenant love; faithful love; love that refuses to quit; love that keeps its promises; love that stands fast. God's love does not ebb and flow with our circumstances. It does not disappear when kingdoms fall. It does not vanish when His people fail.
His covenant love remains steadfast because it rests upon His own covenant faithfulness. Everything in this psalm flows from that one truth.

Because God's steadfast endures forever,

• we have a refuge in times of trouble
• we have rescue from our enemies
• we have reception into God's presence.
• we have reason to worship.

What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do - 3

Luke 15:11-21

The Christian life requires continual repentance, honest self-examination, and dependence on God's grace. Like the prodigal son, people often seek fulfillment apart from God only to discover that their own solutions leave them empty. Lasting change begins when sin, fears, resentments, and destructive patterns are honestly acknowledged and brought into the light. Genuine repentance is more than regret; it involves turning back to God and taking concrete steps toward obedience. Though painful, this process leads to healing, restoration, and spiritual growth. By trusting God's wisdom rather than human solutions, believers are transformed and increasingly conformed to the image of Christ. 

The Captured Heart

Psalm 116

We read many psalms which are carefully constructed forms of poetry. Psalm 119, for example, has a unique section for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Other psalms follow chiastic structures where they build up to a climax and then parallel the verses leading up to the climax to bring it back to its starting point. With such works you can imagine the psalmist sitting at his desk, meditating on his prayers and thoughts of God and working hard to find the right words and phrases that communicate the idea in recognizable forms. Good song writers do this today when they construct memorable songs. They aren’t spontaneous outbursts. 

And then there are psalms like this one, which doesn’t have those carefully contructed characteristics or patterns (at least not obvious ones). It does seem to be more of a spontaneous outburst. While the carefully contructed psalms invite us to dig into the layered meanings, spontaneous outbursts invite us to feel whatever it is that triggered the outburst. In this case, it is a deep appreciation and wonder at God’s great deliverance. 

The psalmist is reflecting on answered prayer to a crisis that was so bad, so desperate, that he was feeling the “snares of death” and the failure of others to help him “all men are liars.” He thought he was going to die, in other words. But he didn’t, and he knows why: God heard his prayer. It is such an overwhelming rescue that his only thought is to give himself to the Lord. His heart has been captured. This is why he opens the psalm as he does, “I love the LORD!”

A good example is the story of Les Miserables. It is the story of a man, a convicted man, guilty in the eyes of the law, on the run,  desperate and dangerous. He finds refuge and hospitality in the church. But in his desperation he cannot resist stealing the silverware. Not long after his theft he is discovered with them by the law who takes him back to the church to verify his guilt. But rather than press charges, the priest has compassion on him, explaining to the officer how glad that he was found for he had forgotten to take the silver candlesticks the church was also giving him. It was an act that set his life on an entirely new trajectory. His heart had been captured by grace. Instead of condemnation, which he knew he deserved, he was given life and it overwhelmed him.

Has your heart been captured by God? This psalm is the story of a man whose heart has been captured by the gospel of God; whose affection has been kindled by the gospel. Death and despair had its grip on him, but God gave him life instead and he cannot help but come into the house of God with offerings of thanksgiving. 

From death and despair - through deliverance - to delight.

The Danger of Idolatry

Psalm 115

If a proper worship of the Lord, both corporately and in the way you live in the world, leads to godliness, that is becoming like God in your character, then it only makes sense that worshiping other things will make us like these other things. This is what Psalm 115 is highlighting. You become like the thing that you worship.

That should be a frightening notion, for if the object of your worship is anything other than the Lord, then it will ultimately lead to darkness and death, for there is no light and life apart from God.

We become like what we worship: worshiping the living God leads to life, while worshiping idols leads to death.

Tremble at His Presence

A few weeks ago we looked at Psalm 111 and 112, which shows how the character of God is shaped in the man who begins with a fear of the Lord. We saw how worshiping God and studying his works lead to this character formation. What we didn’t discuss much is what this term “fear” means. How do you begin life with this biblical “fear” of the Lord? What does that mean?

While this psalm doesn’t use the word “fear,” it does call for trembling before the Lord. Of all the meanings of the word “fear”, tremble is perhaps the most basic. To say the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord is a call to tremble before Him. There isn’t enough trembling before the Lord in the church today.

Why do I say that? Because the lives of people in the church are often similar to the lives of people outside the church. God has become something “tacked-on” to the life you’ve already chosen to lead. In other words, many in the church fear the same things that many outside the church fear, and those fears shape their lives. Things such as the fear of losing reputation; the fear of not having enough money to pay your bills; the fear of not fitting into your peer group; the fear of failure. These things often drive people to make the choices they make. If you fear failure, you might not try. If you fear not having enough money, you may become a workaholic. If you fear not fitting in with one group, you may adapt to fit into another.

The Bible tells us to begin with a fear of the Lord. That means, at the very least, you are to tremble before Him. Jesus said it bluntly,

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

This psalm shows how even the earth trembles at the presence of the Lord. If the earth, notably the sea, rivers, and the mountains tremble before the Lord, shouldn’t you?

Who is Like the Lord, our God?

Psalm 113

God calls people to praise Him because worship is what humanity was created for. God is exalted above all nations and even above the heavens, yet in His grace He stoops down to care for the weak, the poor, and the forgotten. He raises the needy from the dust and gives hope to the barren and ashamed, showing that His kingdom works through mercy and reversal rather than worldly power. The psalm ultimately points to Jesus Christ, who humbled Himself, entered human suffering, and descended to death in order to redeem sinners and raise them into fellowship with God. The fitting response is continual praise: “Hallelujah.”

How Worship Shapes You

Psalm 111-112

One of the defining beliefs of modern western culture is that the truest thing about you is your inner desire. This is why we see the rise of “your truth” and “my truth.” It is why we see the rise in all kinds of self-identities. People are looking at their inner desires and defining themselves by them. Have you noticed that?
Theologian Carl R. Trueman, author of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, concludes that modern society believes the “real you” is your inner feelings and desires, and that fulfillment must therefore come through expressing them outwardly.

This is perhaps easiest to see with regard to sexuality as many who identify as “gay” are convinced they have no choice in the matter. Because it is their desire, it must be their identity. But you can do it with other things too. Infatuation, addiction, outrage can all become shapers of your identity around a relationship, an activity, a political party.

The psalmist presents us with an entirely different vision of humanity, showing us that the deepest truth about you is not found by looking inward to your desires but upward to your Creator.

Psalm 111 reveals the character of God. Psalm 112 reveals the character of the man shaped by fearing (or worshiping) that God. And Psalm 111:10 stands as the hinge: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”

Who is the Christ?

Psalm 110

This morning we come to the most quoted Old Testament passage by the New Testament writers. It was absolutely central to their understanding of who Jesus is. It is a theologically rich text in terms of Christology. In fact, it is the text that Jesus himself and the apostles appeal to in order to prove that Jesus is, in fact, the Christ. I hope that is a powerful pull on your interest to see what this psalm is all about.

And as we ask why it is so often quoted, we find it also resolves a great tension that the Old Testament prophets wrestled with in understanding the nature of God’s promised deliverance. How, exactly, will God deal with the problem of evil and the consequent injustice and oppression in the world? This psalm speaks to all of this.

Because it deals with these great themes, it is also a very pastoral psalm, as it gently guides and goads you through your spiritual journey, no matter where you are along the way. There is simply so much here!

So, where do we start? Let’s start with it’s main thing it teaches: who is the Christ. When I say, “the Christ” I mean the one the Jews anticipated to fulfill so many of the Old Testament prophecies about a son of David that would sit on the throne, conquer their enemies, usher in a time of peace, and be tied to a new covenant. Something great was in their future and they longed for him to come.

So, who is the Christ?