Welcome to Cornerstone Online!

  • We are a community of people experiencing God and connecting with one another like never before in history. Introduce yourself in the chat and let us know where you are joining in from!

 

Next Steps💪

  • Connect with us! If today is your first time joining us or if you have never connected before, you are a VIP! Just click HERE!
  • Follow us on Facebook

 

Tell Me Without Telling Me || Week 3

 

A downer’s perspective is seen through the lens of Negativity

  • Literally, they are NOT CONFIDENT that the BEST IS YET TO COME

 

Tell me you are a Christian without telling me you are a Christian

 

Today, let’s talk about CONFIDENCE

 

Christian Confidence: The belief and hope in God’s promises that the best is yet to come

 

Revelation 21

3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

5 Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life. 7 The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

 

To simply put it…

In the end, we win

  • God wins so we win

The best way to have confidence is to be reminded of what is to come

 

Christian Confidence should change…

1: How you respond to your circumstance

  • There is no denying that life can be really hard

John 16:33

33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Paul is saying: BE CONFIDENT

  • God is in charge
  • He will take care of us
  • Just because is looks bad now does not mean it will always be that way

 

“Son,’he said,’ you cannot in your present state understand eternity…That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.

And of some sinful pleasure they say “Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why…the Blessed will say “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

 

Heaven will be so glories, God’s redemption of the world so deep and complete, that even the most horrible thing a believer can suffer will pail in comparison

  • That Glory will redeem and restore all the horrible and broken things in our life
  • In light of that Glory, the hard parts of life will only speak more to God’s goodness and our restoration in him

 

Pain, loss, heartache, disappointment will meet their end in Jesus

 

Romans 8:18

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.

 

This means that in Christian Confidence we can say…

  • Say THE BEST IS YET TO COME
  • Even with our dying breath, we can say THE BEST IS YET TO COME
  • Even in our darkest moment, we should say  THE BEST IS YET TO COME
  • Even when all seems lost we can say THE BEST IS YET TO COME

 

Christian Confidence should change how we respond to circumstances

  • For we are not hopeless a hopeless people

 

Christian Confidence should also change…

2: How you respond to others

 

Do you know why we have such a hard time getting along as people?

  • Take any human relationship and you can typically boil their problems down to two things…

 

Broken Relationships Always Include

People Taking what they can

People Getting Even

 

Taking what you can

  • Emotionally
  • Physically
  • Financially
  • Relationally

 

Stems from the selfishness native to all of us

  • I may seem to be about you, but I am really about me

Getting  Even

  • Revenge
  • Socially
  • Physically
  • Emotionally
  • Financially

 

Matthew 5

38 “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and don’t turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

 

43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?

 

Instead, Jesus Gave:

  • His time
  • His glory
  • His life

 

Jesus didn’t get even, He Blessed:

  • Those who cursed him
  • Those who crucified him
  • Those who denied him

 

Tell me you are Christian without telling me you are a Christian

  • I will show you someone who knows to lay themselves down for others, even those who are against them
  • I will show you someone who doesn’t dwell on being right all the time
  • I will show you someone who doesn’t’ seek revenge on those who have wronged them

 

Galatians 2:20

20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

 

Be the one who goes first

  • The Tic Tok trend always starts with someone saying “I’ll go first”
  • Now is the time for us to go first

Christian Generosity

Christian Contentment

Christian Confidence

 

I’m not asking you to broadcast your faith through words to the whole world

  • But if someone were to examine your life through your deeds alone, would there be enough evidence to prove your claim

 

James 2:17

17 In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.

 

Email my notes