Priorities to Take With Us

Occasionally, people wonder if our greeting time interrupts the spirit of our worship. but I have found over the years that I love stepping into the pulpit and the environment that you create in greeting one another. It is a good and pleasant thing for brethren to dwell together in the Lord, and greeting one another in the Lord is as much an act of our worship as anything else that we do. but we're gonna continue our worship by listening to the Lord, this morning.

So let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians, chapter 4. And while you're turning, let me just, warn you up front that this sermon will be a little bit different than normal. We'll be looking at Ephesians 4, but we're not going to be exegeting these, these verses maybe the way that we normally do, but there are themes that are touched on in these verses that that harmonize with things that I want to share with you guys this morning.

So just be. be aware of that. And, also, the sermon will be different in the sense that it's, it's more of a family talk, if, if I can say that. we're going to have a family meeting this morning.

That doesn't mean you're in trouble, to put you at ease. I know in our household, when I call a family meeting, my children are immediately on the defense and wondering what, what they did wrong. but it's, it's nothing like that. But there, there are things that I want to say, this morning, in an attempt to represent the thinking and the heartbeat of the elders and speaking those things specifically to, to you, the cornerstone congregation.

And if you want to give a title to what we'll be talking about this morning, it would be this priorities to take with us. Priorities to Take with us. You guys turn to Ephesians 4, right? let's, let me just read to you, from Ephesians 4, beginning, in, in verse 4, after all of the glorious gospel realities that Paul presents regarding the freedom and the love and the forgiveness and the grace and the relationship and the spirit that God has given to us upon believing.

In, in Jesus Christ, Paul in chapter 4 begins to turn a corner and to tell us where to go with all of these, these wonderful things. And, and we see him directing us to thinking about in chapter 4, the church and Christ's vision for the church. And let me begin reading in verse 4. Paul says, there is one body and one spirit just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

But to each one of us, Grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says when he ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. Now this expression he ascended, what does it mean except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.

And he gave some as apostles and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. You'll notice in the last few verses that I just read the language of growth and flourishing.

We have him talking about the building up of the body both in verse 12 and verse 16. He speaks of us attaining, and that's a word that could be used to speak of someone attaining to a particular height. Or state of health, he has the word for mature in verse 13, stature. Verse 13, he speaks of us growing up, no longer being children, in verse 15, and in verse 16, he speaks of the growth of the, the body.

So this is the language of growth and maturity and And flourishing, and this is the essence of Christ's vision for the church for which he died. His vision for the church universal and his vision for cornerstone. Christ Jesus has a church growth plan for Cornerstone, and if he were here and we said, Well, what do you mean when you want us as a church to experience growth? he would say, This is what I want you as a church to attain.

I want you to attain the unity of the faith, speaking of unity, in our relationships with one another, but it's a unity that is based upon, built upon the gospel. It is a unity of understanding and of belief in the gospel. He would say, I want you to grow until you attain this. I also want you to attain to the knowledge of the Son of God.

That word knowledge speaks of relational knowledge. Christ's vision for us as a church is that we as a body and as individuals composing that body, that we would grow in intimacy with Jesus in the knowledge of Jesus in the context of a relationship with Him, and in an appreciation of that personal relational, intimate knowledge of Him, and that we're bringing others into that knowledge of Jesus, as well. He also wants us to grow to a mature person. And it's in the singular there, which obviously Christ wants us individual, individuals to achieve maturity, but he's talking here about corporate maturity that he wants us as a congregation together to attain to.

That we are achieving his purposes and executing His will with excellence and not in a klutzy, fumbling manner. And then also in verse 13, he wants us to grow to attain to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of of Christ. And that word stature is a significant word. It's in a context like this, it clearly speaks of height.

So, in fact, in Luke's Gospel, the story of Zacchaeus, it says he was small of stature, and this is the word that is used there. And so, what Paul is saying is that Jesus Christ wants Cornerstone to be a very tall church. A church that attains to great height, that one would expect a church to attain to, given the fullness of Christ that Christ has made available for us to grow in. And when you think about the stature that he wants us as a church to attain, think about it, a tall person tends to be more visible to other people, so he wants us to grow in our visibility in this community.

Also, a tall person is Able to see, to see more things than, for example, Zacchaeus was able to see. That's why he had to get up in a tree. He wasn't able to see what he wanted to see, but someone who is tall can see more and see further than someone who is not of great height. A few weeks ago, my wife was in the kitchen and she had pulled out a little pedestal to, to read something in the cabinets and I, I walked in to The kitchen and she was standing on this pedestal and I came and stood right next to her and she observed that we were exactly the same height.

My wife is 1 and 1 inch shorter than I am. And she said, I'm just as tall as you are. And I said, OK, and, and then she just started, she turned on that pedestal and started looking around the house. And, and she said, wow, so this is what the world looks like from, from your perspective.

Like she, she was taking that in, what things look like from 6'3. But when you're taller, you can see further than than when you are not, and also that the taller that the church becomes, the wider the span. Of its reach as it does Christ's work and touches more lives and can bring more people into its embrace with the love of Christ and also the taller that the church is and Jesus Christ saying, I want Cornerstone to grow in stature. Part of what he's saying is I want the length of Cornerstone's stride to be longer and wider.

as it walks forward and goes out into the world to do the will of Christ and whatever community where a local church finds itself. And so Christ would say, I want Cornerstone to grow. That's my vision to grow in maturity and to grow in knowledge and in unity and in stature and all the ways that we just looked at. So how many of you want to grow?

Raise your hand as a church, OK. just a word of warning, growth is a good thing. In fact, it's one of the fundamental characteristics of living things. But we also would observe that growth is messy, is it not?

in fact, growth is often, even in the physical realm, accompanied by, by mess and by discomfort. I was reading a few years ago an article about growth spurts, and this author was talking about how a child doesn't grow consistently from day to day, but a child will grow and fits and starts, and that it's actually possible, some say, for a child to grow as much as 1 centimeter in 24 hours, and there are parents who just are convinced that that's happened to Their child almost overnight and this author was not trying to dispute that at all because growth spurts like that, he says, can happen like that.

But I was intrigued. This author pointed out that there are certain symptoms that might indicate a growth spurt, symptoms that accompany a growth spurt, and he gave three of them.

You might want to write these down. Number 1, a voracious appetite. If your child is incessantly hungry and just devouring and eating maybe more than normal, then he may be going through a growth spurt. Another symptom of a growth spurt is that the child sleeps a lot.

and the third symptom of a growth spurt is the child is cranky or fussy. And so that's interesting. we all as parents want our children to grow, right? You don't want to have an 8 ounce baby.

I'm sorry, 8 pound baby., and, and 15 years later, your baby, your child is still at the age of 15, 8 pounds. You don't, you don't want that. We all want our children to grow, and yet during some seasons of rapid growth, there's these things, a voracious appetite, and they sleep a lot and they're fussy and, and cranky. And I know what some of you parents are thinking.

You're thinking, man, if a voracious appetite, sleeping a lot, and being cranky is a symptom of growth, then my child should be 20 ft tall by now. And maybe you children can use this as an excuse, when you're cranky, eating a lot, sleeping a lot, just say, Mom, Dad, I'm going through a growth spurt. Give me some space. But these are the kinds of things that accompany growth just in the physical realm, and as our children grow, their needs increase, their appetites increase, and so their demands upon us for more provision increase.

There's also a klutziness that can come, especially during the teen years. I went through a rapid growth spurt when I was between my freshman and junior year of high school, and And all of my body parts did not grow in a uniform way. I was a gangly fellow, and and teenagers sometimes, they're not even aware of how they're growing, and they go to grab a glass of milk and they knock something over because their arms are longer than they were the day before, practically. And so there's, and we all understand that.

Well, he, he looks quite gangly, but that's a part of growing and he's klutzy right now, but But that's a part of growing, and we understand that, and there's problems and frustrations. There's even pains that sometimes our children may experience as they're physically growing. And we try to keep up with providing for them and there's frustrations because it's like, man, I just bought my child a whole new set of clothes about 6 months ago and they've already outgrown that set of clothes and I've got to go buy some more and we might complain about that, but we're glad they're growing, right?

We just know that these kinds of things go along with with growth.

And what guys, the same is true. of the church. This growth that is such a great thing, this flourishing that Christ dreams of for the church accompanying a church growing in these ways, spiritually and relationally and numerically. There are discomforts.

There are needs that increase and appetites that increase. There is a klutziness organizationally that a church experiences as it grows. There's problems and frustrations and And a need for people in the church to sit down and think about now how are we going to handle this because we're growing. What do we do?

What decisions do we make? Our church is, outgrowing its clothes. So what do we do now? And I say all of that as a lead in to the fact that Cornerstone.

is outgrowing her clothes. And especially if you think of part of that clothing being this facility at, at Linden Street. I think we showed this graph, about a year ago. We came to this campus back in December of 1994, and that was 18 years ago.

In fact, how many of you were here, a part of Cornerstone when we moved to this campus? Raise your hand. All right, a handful. We had a guy in the first service.

this morning, who the very first service he ever attended was our first Sunday here back in December of 1994. And you think about, I've been thinking about this lately, over the last 18 years, All the things that we have learned, the priorities that God has taught us and grown us into, the lessons, the transformation, the spiritual growth that has happened, yes, numerically, we have grown while here, but But the, the things that the Lord has done and the evolution of our church, the growth and the flourishing of our church, we are in such a radically different place right now than we were 18 years ago.

God's grace has been abundant. We got a long way to go, a long way to go, but we're a lot further than we were 18 years ago.

And we came here in 1994, a church of 130 people and had some breathing room to To grow and it wasn't long before we ended up needing to go to two services and And then we weren't getting an even distribution of attendance in both of those services and we were bursting at the seams in the second service, so we tried different things. We reconfigured Sunday school in a way that was not ideal and that had some frustrations, and many of you were so patient with us in dealing with, with those things, some of which persist to even this day.

We also altered our service times as well, and And trying to strike a better balance between the first and the second service so that we could accommodate more people and then adding the overflow room a few years ago. These are just attempts that, that we've made to handle the growth that Christ has been bringing to us.

Sometimes it's frustrations for leaders and for the people. And there's a klutziness that that one would observe about the way that we have gone about things and still go about things, but that's, that's a part of dealing with growth in in the church. But even with the steps that we have taken, As a church to, to show hospitality to those that Christ is bringing to us. And then when you add to that, an ambition to bring even more people into what it is that God is doing here.

I, I want to let you guys know, I know some of you probably already know this because word has been, been getting out, but, I do want to let you guys know that in the Elders retreat back in November of 2012, the elders reached a consensus that within the next 3 years, we need to leave Lindon Street. And move elsewhere. as to where we go and how we go about that, that's, we've been doing some work on that. We're going to be talking about some of those things.

We're going to unpack for you two weeks from today in our annual meeting some of the reasoning behind what has led the elders to this consensus that I, I'm informing you about, and then also what it is that we're looking at in terms of possibilities as to where we go from, from here. I'm not sure how you might respond to hearing this. I know that there are some of you who are asking the question, What took you so long? And you might say, have the elders been timid?

Have they lack confidence and boldness? Have the elders been stuck here and not moved elsewhere because they have lacked vision? Those are actually valid questions, and I would be happy to entertain those questions with the possibility of making admissions that yeah, we've we've been timid and we've lacked boldness and perhaps lacked vision. our vision is even still unfolding as I speak, but having said that, I, I would say that a part of what's gone into the stew of why it's taken us as elders so long.

has been a desire to be careful, to not, get ahead of the Lord, a desire to be careful with the people of God. what I think about when I wake up at 2 in the morning, and I think about some of the issues that are in front of us as a church, I think about the fact, I think about you guys, and the fact that Jesus died and shed his blood for you. That's how much he values you. And, and if God has given me any role of leading this congregation for which he died, That, that's a very high calling.

And I don't want to mislead you, the people of God for whom Christ died. The elders do not want to mislead you, the congregation, the people for whom Christ died and shed His blood. So I think to an appropriate degree we've, we've wanted to be careful to make sure that we're serving you well and that we're going to lead you well as the Lord gives us His leading. Another element that I, I want to share with you is the fact that part of why it has taken us this long is, to figure out, does God want us to leave Lindon Street is is the fact that we have, we've enjoyed a lot of blessings here.

Being here at Linden Street has had its frustrations and its difficulties. But we've also been freed up here at Linden Street to grow and flourish in all the ways that are really most important for a church. We've not been saddled with some of the burdens that other great churches have been saddled with, and we've been free to just, just, look at the Lord and look at his word and to grow and And put our focus where our focus, I believe, should have been and to grow and flourish to the degree that we have up to this point of our journey and over that length of time there are certain values and priorities that have become a part of Cornerstone's DNA.

And what, as elders we have a very clear vision of what those priorities ought to be and what those values are.

We know who we are, and part of what has slowed our step is we know what we've been able to do while we're here at Linden Street and the ways that we've been able to grow in the spiritual. expressions and as we think into the future, we're wanting to make sure that whatever we do, whichever direction we go, and however we go about it. that it does not do violence. To these lessons that have been hard fought and hard won, that the Lord has taught us and inserted those things into the cornerstone culture that have become a part of our DNA.

Let me say it this way, we do not want as elders in leading the congregation to make any facility choice as to where we go from here that contains within itself the unintended consequence of moving us away from the priorities that have become a part of Cornerstone's DNA, and we've got to be careful about this. I don't know that many churches ever look at biblical priorities and just wake up one day and say, what, we reject those things, and we're going to push those to the side and we're going to go a different way.

I know that happens, but I think what happens most of the time is that a church embraces those priorities as biblical, but they embrace other things and they make choices unwittingly that contain within themselves. A moving away, a distraction away from what their biblical priorities should be, and before they know it, 5 years down the road, they're a radically different church that has lost sight of biblical priorities.

So whatever facility option we choose in moving forward and how we go about it. I just want you to know that we as elders, and we're going to unpack some of these things further in a couple of weeks, that we want to choose a road ahead that will do no violence to these priorities that have become precious to us, that will not serve to sideline these priorities and values, that will not destroy. Distract us away from these priorities. In fact, we will want to choose a road ahead with your help together in community with one another, that will, in fact, to the maximum degree, actually serve to nourish and facilitate these priorities and values.

And we also want seeing our need to Reach more people. We want to make choices, to choose options for the road ahead that actually serves to enlarge our capacity to introduce others and to bring others into this wholeness. and well-being and growth spiritually that comes from being a part of a church that is operating according to these priorities that have become so precious to us. God is doing a great thing here at Cornerstone.

There's a health, there's a wholeness. Yes, we're broken, we're messed up people, and we got a long way to go, but God, God's spirit is here, and lives are being changed. And if we really love the people of the Inland Empire, We, we want to bring as many of them into the experience of this as we possibly can. And so that burden, that passion should govern our desire to figure out some way on the road ahead to find some facility that enables us to, that actually enlarges our capacity to bring others in to what it is that God is doing here.

So we're talking about, wherever we go, We may leave Lindon Street, but my message to you is we're not going to leave these priorities that have become precious to us. You say, well, what are those priorities that we're not going to leave? I'm really glad you asked that question because that's actually the rest of my sermon. What are the odds of that?

Whoa, 7 priorities, that that wherever we go, we want to take these priorities with us because we believe that, and there's other priorities that we can add to this, but these priorities are just a part of the mix of what makes for a healthy, vibrant church that is growing spiritually, relationally the way that Christ intends. We're not going to have a huge amount of time to spend on each of these, but we'll, we'll do the best that we can. The first priority is the preaching and teaching.

Of scripture, preaching and teaching the scriptures.

In Ephesians 4, now keep in mind Jesus has a vision for the growth and flourishing that He wants Cornerstone to experience, that He wants the universal church to experience, and so he's at the right hand of the Father, and He can get whatever he asks for and then give us whatever he gets from the Father. And so he ascends to the right hand of the Father with full authority to do as he pleases and get what he wants from the Father. And Christ has this vision for the church to grow in this stature and maturity of life and ministry.

And so he, with that vision in mind, selects the gifts that he wants to give the church to facilitate the fulfillment of that vision.

And we can say it this way, that the first of those gifts that he gives, look at this verse 11, is he gave some as apostles and some as prophets. Paul is talking here about guys like himself and other first century apostles that had witnessed the resurrected Christ and then specifically called by him. These were leaders in the, the early church, in the first century church. And it was through them that Christ spoke his revelation and wisdom to the church.

And then Paul also says in some as prophets, Christ has given to the church. I know there's some debate over this prophecy exist today, and what is the definition of prophecy. Anyway, if we take prophecy in the most formal sense as the explicit word for word, fresh speaking forth of divine revelation with the highest level of apostolic certitude. Then we would conclude that this was something that happened during Paul's day that does not happen quite to that degree once the canon of scripture is closed.

I think there are many things people do today that have close kinship with prophesying, but in terms of word for word apostolic certitude, I think at least for our purposes this morning we can say this. You may say, man, it'd be great to benefit from the ministry of the apostles and prophets, but I guess they're not around today, so we can't benefit from them. No, what Paul would say is, here you are 2000 years later. You have the benefit of the ministry of the apostles and prophets because it's become in scripture d.

Their ministry and the revelation they spoke is contained in our New Testaments. This is the ministry of the apostles, and the profits and so for our purposes, at the very least we can say that Through the written word of God. We can be fed and nourished and experience the fullness and the growth and the flourishing. That Christ wants us as a church to experience.

God's word is powerful, guys. We need to be a church that loves the written word of God, that preaches the written word of God, full of people who study the word of God, who memorize the word of God, who, who read it and who process it together in community with one another, and we seek to be molded and shaped by the Word of God as we come to understand it. We don't just study it and critique it. No, we allow it to critique us.

We don't try to change God's word to fit what we want to believe or how we want to live. No, we let God's written word change us, and we grow and we develop. Consistently with what we are learning from the Word of God. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul says to Timothy, from childhood, you have known the sacred writings, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

All scripture, all the writings, the inspired writings, he says, are God breathed, literally. It's the breath of God. When you read your Bible, when someone is reading it to you, it is as it were, that God is breathing upon you, you are experiencing the breath of God. The intimacy of that is profound.

You're not just reading what he said, you're hearing what he is saying right now to you through his word. He speaks today through His word. All Scripture is God breathed, and it's profitable for teaching, everything you want to know about God and, and about yourself, and about where you came from and about what has gone wrong with this world in the fall, and how to be saved, how to be made right with God. And what your future holds as a, as a believer in Jesus.

all these things that you need for life and godliness, the teaching for those things is found in God's Word. God's Word is profitable for reproof, as well. None of us like to be reproved, but what this word means? It just means to point out what's wrong with you.

God's word, Paul says, is profitable. And you're all excited, profitable for what? For telling you what's wrong with you. And you may say, I don't, I don't know if I'm excited about that.

I, I think upon further thought you would be excited about that., when we are physically sick and we're experiencing symptoms, we know that something's wrong, but we don't know what to make of it. We don't have the language for it. What is going wrong in my body? And so we go to the doctor, and we're basically asking the doctor, tell me what's wrong with me.

And when he does and gives you the vocabulary and the understanding of what is going wrong, you thank Him for that. Anybody in our society today with a heart that is even remotely open to reality would look around themselves and see that something is seriously wrong. With this world and something is seriously wrong with me. What is that?

There are people in the Inland Empire, who are broken, and they know something's wrong, but they don't have the vocabulary for it. They don't understand what it is that's wrong with them. What's wrong with the world, and they don't know what the solution is. And what, there are other people out there that are very evangelistic in, in giving them all sorts of explanations for what's wrong with them.

Well, your problem is that you're just not loving yourself. You're not believing in yourself, or your problem is these other people outside of you. That's what's wrong. And all these other explanations with their accompanying solutions that will ultimately lead such broken people to disappointment, to despair, and to eternal spiritual ruin.

Who is going to tell them the truth? We serve our community here in the Inland Empire, by opening up God's word and without apology, saying, thus says the Lord. Here's what God says. John Calvin says, Scripture contains the perfect rule of a good and happy life.

This is, this is the word of God is exactly what people need to hear. Now if we conducted a survey of everyone in the Inland Empire and said what would you like for the church to do, what would you want from a church, I don't know how many would say I just want someone to give me the truth of God's word without apology, without compromise. I don't think a lot of people would say that, but even though they wouldn't say that, that is one of the best ways that we serve this community.

By speaking God's truth to the world around us, giving them an understanding and a worldview to understand what's wrong with them, and how Christ can be their savior, and bring them into relationship with God and give them hope and meaning for eternity.

And this is also the basis of our ministry to one another, God's word, and we as a church are molded and shaped. By God's word as we study it from day to day and from week to week. We may leave Linden Street one day, but we will not leave this priority of preaching and teaching the scriptures. A second priority that we want to take with us wherever we go, in fact, even grow more in is the priority of gospel feasting.

God has just done a Wonderful revolution in our midst over the last decade or so when it comes to the gospel. Paul says Christ wanting the church to grow in the ways we've seen, in order to further that growth, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, and some as literally gospellir. Christ wants the church to grow in all these ways. And so he gives the church the good news of salvation through himself.

And he gives us people who speak that to us, and show us how to apply the gospel to all areas of life. We have learned over the years at Cornerstone that the gospel of salvation through Christ is not just a message for nonbelievers. Somehow we've had it in our minds, the mistaken notion that, we give the gospel to nonbelievers, and then once they believe the gospel and get saved, we then stop evangelizing them and say, OK, now here's the rules you need to live by. Just obey these rules and you'll be fine.

But think about it, guys. On the day of your conversion, how much of the gospel did you really understand? The full scope of all there was to know about Jesus and all that you receive through Jesus in the gospel, how much did we understand? Maybe 2%.

And so when you think about it that way, you realize, wait a minute, I need to be being evangelized every day of my life as a Christian. Literally, most of the content of the gospel preaching we find in the New Testament is being preached to believers. Ephesians 12 and 3, Romans 1 through 12, Colossians 1 and 2, on and on the list goes of this unfolding of the gospel in the ministry to believers in In the church. In Romans 1:16, Paul is saying to the Roman Christians, he says, I, I'm eager to come to Rome.

He says, I'm eager to evangelize you, you Christians who are in Rome, I can't wait to come to Rome to evangelize you Christians in Rome. He gives his explanation. He says, Because I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed to preach it, and I'm not ashamed, even though I've killed people in my life and I've been a blasphemer and committed many sins.

I'm not ashamed to believe it. It's true for me. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God into salvation to everyone who is continuously believing. See, the gospel is the power of God to salvation, not just for nonbelievers, but he's saying here that it is the ultimate power, the ultimate location where God's power resides and does its greatest work for those who are believing.

That's for us. And so if we as a church, continue to grow and becoming a culture that is feasting upon the gospel of Jesus Christ and preaching it to ourselves and fellowshipping in the gospel and living in the good of it each day, we will never lack for the experience of the transforming, life giving power of Almighty God. God is a powerful God. You look throughout all creation, and there are amazing displays of His power.

But if you came to God and said, God, where is the ultimate location? Where you have deposited your power in its thickest density. God would say, I put it inside the gospel. You want to experience my power?

Live inside the gospel. Put it in front of your face, walk in the good of it, preach it to yourself each day. And you will never, you will never lack for the experience of my power in your life and in your ministry. Wherever we go, we may leave Lindon Street, but we will not leave off of feasting on the gospel and making it central in our ministry here.

There's a 3rd priority that we want to take with us wherever we go, and that is the priority of faithful shepherding. Faithful shepherding again, Christ's vision is for the health and the growth of the church, and to facilitate that, He gives gifts to serve that in. And it says, and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors. And teachers, or you could translate this and some as pastor teachers.

This word that is translated pastors is the Greek word that means shepherds, so he gives to the church shepherds. If a church is going to grow and flourish, it needs shepherds, and for Christ to give you shepherds. That gift implies something that Christ thinks about you. The fact that he would give you shepherds tells you that he views you as sheep, right?

That you are a flock of sheep. There are actually people that I've talked to at times who A claim the name of Christ. who are offended at the notion that they are sheep. And their attitude is I don't need elders.

I don't need. I don't need shepherds. I don't need any authorities in my life. But here's Christ in his wisdom saying, hey, I, I don't waste my gifts.

I give you what is necessary, and I, to further your growth, I give you. Shepherds, sheep, the very least we can say is sheep need to be led. They need to be fed, they need to be protected, and they need to be loved. And at Cornerstone, God has taught us a valuable lesson along the way.

And we have seen the maturity of the elders' ministry grow over the last couple decades in wonderful ways. We're learning and growing. I'm learning and growing, and our ability at shepherding and meeting the needs of God's people is, is growing, each day our conviction here at Cornerstone is that where there are faithful and caring shepherds, Christ will send his sheep. Christ loves his sheep.

He cares for them. And so where there are faithful shepherds, caring shepherds, Christ will send his sheep. Pray for us as elders that we will be faithful and that we'll grow. We have a lot of learning and a lot of growing to do.

But we look at this passage, you can look at this passage and see that I need, I need shepherds in my life. And Christ has given me pastors as a gift to To me and to my family. I, let me just say this real quickly. Pastors are a gift to the church, which means pastors are a gift to pastors.

So pastors need pastoring. I need pastors that are in my life. Pray for us as elders that we will care for one another and serve the pastor, one another. I was reading one author recently who, who, this is a pastor who made this statement.

He says, I am pastored by my congregation. And that resonates with me because there's, there's so many things that I've learned from the body here by the example of so many of you and, and even by sometimes your rebuke or your challenge or admonition, and I'm, I'm a better man today, 21 years into being here at Cornerstone because of ways that God has used this congregation to pastor and nurture and develop me. And so we want to be committed to strong, caring, shepherding ministry.

That's part of the reason.

That we developed a handful of years ago, the Care Group ministry. The care group ministry is essentially taking our membership. Anyone wanting to become a member of Cornerstone is basically saying, I want to be cared for by the elders, and what we've done is we've broken the membership down into shepherding blocks that make it more feasible for elders to oversee and to care for. the members of those shepherding blocks of people that meet once a week and seek to do life and ministry together as much as possible and also care, for, one another.

But, as, as, as elders, our concern is whatever growth God brings to us, we want to make sure that we're the elders that he wants us to be and that we're developing the elders that he wants us to develop so that we're ready, whoever he brings to us and the souls that get saved, that they're not going to just get converted, but they're going to be cared for, they're going to be nurtured, they're going to be loved and helped in their walk with the Lord upon becoming Christians.

And so there, wherever we may go, there may be things we have to focus on, but we are prayers that we will never lose our focus and our commitment to faithful shepherding. There's a 4th priority that that we don't want to leave, that we want to take with us wherever we go, and that is, let's say it this way, the priority of a congregation of ministers, a congregation of ministers. It's interesting.

Paul says that Christ has given these gifts of apostles and prophets and evangelizers and pastors and teachers. Verse 12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry to the building up of the body of Christ. Notice the language there. Paul is saying that Christ has given you pastors and gospellizers.

He's given you the written word of God, you the congregation, you the saints, so that you can do the work of ministry. That means that if we're doing church the way that we should, you are the ministers. I think I've shared with you before that a friend of mine who pastors in New York, he and another man or two function as pastors of the church. And if you go on the website, you'll see their pictures there as pastors, and then there's a button that says church staff.

And I remember the first time I was on that website, I clicked that button expecting to see maybe the secretary or a few staff people and what came on the screen after I clicked that button was a picture of the whole congregation. And what's being conveyed there, and this pastor told me himself, the congregation is my staff, and I feel like I can call upon any member of my congregation at any time and say, hey, here's a need. Can you reach out to this person and minister to their need.

That's the way we need to think.

You don't hire pastors to do the work of ministry, even though we should be doing the work of the ministry, but actually you, you appoint pastors and have them in your life so that they can equip and resource and supply you and encourage you to do the work of the ministry. We are the supply lines to you who are out there in the world and in the workplace, perhaps more so than we might be, even though we should be out in the world ourselves doing the same thing that God has called you to do, but in the workplace, in your homes, in your neighborhood, operating as missionaries.

With gospel intentionality and everything that you do, invading the ordinary of your own life and the lives of other people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, speaking gospel truth at opportune moments and being a living embodiment of the gospel to those that your life comes in contact with. Each and every day.

That's, you're the ministers in that sense, not just here on the campus, but throughout the Inland Empire, wherever you go. And Christ has given you pastors to resource you to do that work of ministry with, with excellence. I want you to be honored by this. Basically what Paul is saying in verse 12 is the church will never experience the growth described in verse 13 unless, unless all of the members of the church are committed to the ministry and doing the work of the ministry.

There's a 5th priority that's tied to this that We never want to leave and wherever we go, we want to take this priority with us, and that is, let's call this covenantal community, covenantal community., we made a confession to you as a congregation back in 2004. We came up with a document that was called Compliments and Criticisms. I don't know how many of you remember that. It had a list of things that we were rejoicing in that God was doing at Cornerstone, along with some criticisms that the elders had of themselves, and one of the criticisms that we gave voice to in front of you.

back in 2004 was the fact that we had rightly been depending upon the proclamation of the Word of God to produce sanctification and spiritual growth in the lives of God's people. But while we were doing that, which was good, we were not giving due appreciation to the role that relationships play in serving as the matrix in which that sanctification and spiritual growth could occur. And God was challenging us as elders about that as we were studying His word and we began to take steps and care group was one of those steps to develop a structure of ministry that fostered relationships and community amongst the people of God here so that we would enrich the matrix in which spiritual growth could, could occur.

imagine all the preaching in the world.

isn't going to be very effective. If all of you, if none of each other, none of you have any relationship at all with each other, even family members, you, you get in the car, you go home, you all go to your separate rooms, you never talk to each other. There's no relationship amongst anyone in this church. We're all living as islands unto ourselves.

That's how we live from day to day. I can preach God's word until I'm blue in the face. But without that matrix of community and relationships, you're not going to grow the way that That you should I would ask you, what, are you experiencing community? Are you living in relationship with other brothers and sisters in, in Christ?

That's where you can really grow and soar spiritually and yes, it's a mess, but that mess is a part of the genius of God's plan to grow you and we're calling this covenantal community because we're not, think about it, even if we're preaching the word to you and maybe there's relationships that exist amongst you all, but they're casual relationships, consumer relationships, everyone's relating to one another tentatively, and it's like, what, I, I'm not sure about you, whether I'm really going to be interested in a relationship with you for over the long haul, but let's just see how it goes for now.

If that's the nature of the relationships that exist, again, I don't know how rich of a matrix that would be for growth, but it's covenantal. committed relationships over the long haul, with all of the mess and the thrills and the spills and the joys and the sorrows and, and the hurts that go back and forth and the forgiveness that is granted and received. And yet, after years of that, we're still together, loving one another.

That's That's the context in which spiritual growth can really happen. Paul later in verse 13 or 16 of chapter 4, he speaks of the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies. He's talking about the parts of a building. that are joined in a committed relationship to one another.

None of you would be sitting in this building right now if you were not convinced that all these building parts had a committed relationship with one another, right? We trust that and in the church, it's not just parts of the church that touch each other's lives, but are committed to one another. With all the imperfections and the mess that that might entail, it's covenantal, committed community that wherever we go, we want to foster that and nourish that as much as we can and never lose sight of it.

Hastening on, there's a 6th priority that we want to Never lose sight of, and let's just call this gospel-driven households.

and I, I could take some time if we had it to demonstrate the connection of this with Ephesians 4. Paul says be filled with the Spirit. And he flashes that out and immediately goes to the household and all the household members and spends a great volume of space on, on that. And what he's communicating in that section of the book of Ephesians is, I want the gospel to go here, into your home, into your family, into your household and affect all of your relationships with one another.

Our dream here at Cornerstone is that every household would see itself as a part of the Cornerstone campus. That's what we want to see. We believe that's a biblical vision that everyone looks at the square footage of their home and, and basically says this is a part of the Cornerstone campus. And that everyone looks at their home and essentially says that I want my home to be not just a place where some good things can happen from time to time, but imagine that everyone in the Cornerstone family looked at their dwelling place, wherever it is.

If you're a single person, if you're married, if your children are in the home, out of the home, doesn't matter. Everyone looks at where they're living and says, I want to make this a power center for worship, a power center for ministry, instruction, hospitality, and outreach. This right here where I live is a part of the Cornerstone campus. This is a Cornerstone facility.

This is an outpost for the kingdom of God. And I want this place to explode and come alive with ministry and service and worship and outreach. For God's kingdom. I've been, I don't think I, oh I got it.

I've been brandishing this lately when I've been talking to people from time to time that, if, if you came up to me and said, Pastor Milton, what's, what's Cornerstone's address, I would hold up the church directory and say, which address do you want? Because yes, there's a sense where our address is 1363 Linden Street right now, but actually all of the addresses that are on here, at least all of the members that are on here whose addresses are here, these are all Cornerstone facilities.

This is all a part of the Cornerstone campus. I think here on this campus we have use of about 17,000 square feet of space.

That that we use on Sundays and other days of the week. And you might think, man, I wonder what we could do with 50,000 square feet. Wow, man, we could do great things with that. what?

One of these days, I'm gonna go through this directory. I'm gonna call every one of you and ask for the square footage of your home. All right? So if you get that call, don't be freaked out by it.

and then add that all together. Guys, we have hundreds of thousands of square feet. that are all cornerstone facilities. That God's plan is that these facilities be power centers for evangelism and worship and instruction.

And life and service to the kingdom of God. What can be done with all of this facility? I'm not negating the value of this facility here at Lyndon or wherever else we may go, but I think one way of viewing wherever we might go, let's just say one way of viewing this Lynden Street campus is this campus, this facility is one of the porches. That can usher people into The wholeness of what is being experienced on a family and household level.

Throughout the body life of Cornerstone, whatever facility we may acquire and move to is just one of the porches. A welcoming porch that can usher people into the wholeness of what is happening in all of these addresses as care groups come together in some of these addresses and then as people are just simply looking at their home saying this home is not mine, it's God's, and I want my home to be a power center for life and for ministry and service to God and His work. There's a 7th priority that I'll touch on.

We're pretty much out of time.

And that is, if this vision is ever going to come to pass, then we absolutely need, we need wives and we need children doing their part, but I want to strike out at the men real quick. We need every man to be a pastor. One of our visions for here at Cornerstone is for every man to be a pastor. If you men have a wife, welcome to the pastorate.

If you have children, welcome to the pastorate. As you read the rest of Ephesians, you see Paul putting heavy responsibility on the men. to married men, he says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. All this gospel stuff I've been giving you, look at the gospel, study it, and then turn around and face your wife and be that towards her.

Love her the same way that Christ. loved the church, so that your marriage will take on the contour and the shape of the gospel itself to where your children will be able to look at the way that you relate to your wife, the way that you do marriage, and other people who come into your home, who witness your marriage, that they would say, I know what the gospel looks like, because I see it on display in this marriage. In chapter 6, verse 4, Paul is considering the issue of, man, we've got children in the Ephesian church and they need to be taught, they need to be trained and developed, and someone's got to carry that responsibility.

And so in this letter, he says, Fathers, To you, I'm going to give this responsibility.

Feel the honor of this man. God picks you above anybody else. To bring your children up in the discipline and instruction. Of the Lord.

Yes, husband and wife work at this together, but men, it is your responsibility to execute this and to oversee this. More than anything else. We need men standing before our households. If our households are going to become power centers for all the things we've been talking about, then we need men standing before their households and leading those households well.

And I'm not talking about the chest thumping. Testosterone filled leadership. I'm the man. You do what I say.

I'm talking about men here at Cornerstone. Imagine a congregation of men here at Cornerstone who stand before their wives and children, and they lead out of brokenness. They lead in humility. And in confession of sin, they lead in grace, and in humble service, and in love, and in transparent, humble petition and crying out to God.

That's the leadership that God wants from men. And I don't know of too many women that will have much trouble following a man who leads. In that way. These are priorities that God has instilled in us.

It's become a part of our DNA. We believe this is part of the reason why, even though we got a long way to go, whatever is whole and healthy here, it's because of these priorities. And whatever we do, whatever we decide, We don't want to be distracted from these priorities and I'm making a commitment to you as a body that wherever we go, whatever we do, we're taking these priorities with us. Let's pray together.

Lord, I review these priorities for our benefit this morning and yet at the same time, I know that you're not done teaching us and And we're asking as elders, these things are precious to us, but what else are you trying to teach us? I believe we're at a season right now where you're through the discomfort of the moment, you're trying to insert something into our DNA that right now does not exist. And we just say to you, Lord, speak, for we are your servants and we are listening.

We're open.

We want to grow. Make us people who love this, this community. We love the people of the Inland Empire and beyond. To where our passion is to To bring them into The glory of the gospel that we ourselves are feasting upon.

We do not do well to keep this to ourselves. Make us better lovers of those who are presently outside of the enjoyment of these things. that they might be ushered in and experience the life and the wholeness that comes. From individuals in a church doing life and ministry in this way.

You've given us what we need. We thank you for that. We thank you for this opportunity, Lord, to give of our offerings to you. We ask that you would take these funds that are given in this offering and do much with them for the glory of Jesus Christ.

We ask these things in his name, and all God's people said, Amen.