Core Values 2024 - Week 1: Transparency

And Amen, let's read in Tobacca chapter two, verse four.

Aback at two chapter four, it says, behold the proud,

his soul is not upright in him, but the just

shall live by his faith. Let's pray, Father, I thank

you for your word, see the only change agent we have.

And I pray that today as we explore core values,

the thing that sets cornerstone apart and different. For those

things that we trust as our guardrails that we that

we live by, that are encoded on the ethos of

our gathering, I pray that they become part of every

individual where.

We love you and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

This is our series on our core values. We reach

through our core values. We actually do this every year.

You may not remember, but this is how big of.

An issue we believe.

This is that you should know why we are the

way we are. And today I want to speak to

you on what we believe is our foundational core value,

and that's transparency. This is what we believe transparency. We

believe that the human struggle is essential.

To our faith journey. Let me say that again.

We believe that the human struggle is essential to the

faith journey.

Now, everybody struggle doesn't look the same. Amen.

You may look around and you may think to yourself, oh, well,

so and so look at them.

They don't struggle.

Oh they got plenty of money, they don't struggle, or

they're happy, they don't struggle. Every single person has some

part of struggle in their life, every person. And we

can't quantify or even qualify the struggle because it's not ours.

And sometimes we look at people and we say, oh, well,

I'm so blessed because I'm not like fill in the blank. Amen,

And they probably look back at you and say, oh Lord,

thank you for not.

Letting me be like them. Because we all struggle.

We all have different areas where you know, life is

just not exactly like we thought it should be. Come on, somebody,

raise your hand if you can identify with that. You thought, Hey,

you know what i'd just be. I thought i'd be

further along. I thought i'd have more things. I thought

I would be more whatever, I thought i'd be less whatever.

You know, I thought i'd be less. Come on, somebody,

So when.

We talk about that human struggle, we're not talking about

somebody else.

We're talking about you.

Now, let me talk about the people that everybody saying

that about. If you are one of those people that

people look at you and think, oh, well, they got

everything perfect, they got everything together, this sermon is actually

for you, because no one should look from the outside

to the inside and think that you don't struggle, because

you should be open about the reality of the human

life in which you live. If you're wearing a mask

of perfection, that means you're not operating in transparency. Come on, somebody,

So we don't want to be that object to the

people that we're in community with. We don't want to

be that means of comparison, because the reality is when

we're transparent, people see into our lives and as a result,

they grow in the lord because they realize that you're

still a work in progress. To I mean, I know

that some of y'all here, and and you know some

of it. I know for fact some of it I

know by faith, y'all don't like me very much. And

that's completely okay with me, because I'm not a finished

product yet. I came Steven Kathy Honeycut. I came down

to the Annex the other day and I was dressed

like a bum. I mean worse than I am now

and had on old, ragged shorts and a dirty T

shirt and they walked in.

I said, oh, no, y'all caught me looking like this.

I'm just normal.

And this is what Kathy said, without even thinking a hardbay,

she said, Oh, we know you're.

Normal, that's why we're here. I didn't know how to

take that.

Come on, somebody, but you know, when we live our

lives open, well, let me just finish reading. We believe

the human struggle is essential to our faith journey, and

as a result, we embrace authenticity and honesty in this

open and safe environment. Listen, when everybody knows you got

some they're not afraid to talk about their stuff.

It's when they think you got it together that you're.

Gonna huddle up with your other perfect friends and talk

about how bad they are. In this open and safe environment,

hypocrisy runs low and repentance becomes a standard element of life.

We should all live.

In the fact that repentance is a foundational element of

every Christian life. We think repentance means that we're dirty

and ugly, but repentance means that you were and now

you took a bath. That's the simple fact of the matter.

So if we live behind some kind of facade of

perfection and we never get to that place of brokenness

and repentance, we're never cleaned and we can never go

to the next level. As a matter of fact, when

we live in transparency, how many of you you've ever

You go to a house and you pull up in

the yard, maybe your own house. Hopefully you're not looking

at other people's windows, but you pull up and you

look in, and you can see your family inside the house,

and you can see what they're doing through that transparent

window sill. But you know what the reality is when

they look from the light into the darkness, they can't

see you. You can see into the light, but the

light can't see into the darkness. And transparency allows our

lives to be lived so that people in darkness can

see us, but we're not impacted by the fact of

what they're doing or who they are because.

We don't see them.

We can only see the potential in them and the

will of Jesus in their lives. And we're protected by

our transparency. But the moment it goes dark, the moment

we stop living in transparency, then we only see shadows

of our self and shadows of others, and God is

calling his people out of the shadows and into the light.

As a matter of fact, the Bible says that we

were translated out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

Transparency is not just for the faith community, but it's

also for the people we encounter every day because they're

living a tough human existence as well. And there's been

a very few times that things have been as tough

as they're getting right now. If you're worried about what's

going on in the world, admit that you're worried about

what's going on in the world. Just because you're worried

doesn't mean God's not gonna protect you, but it makes

you a lot more relatable to the other person that

don't have.

The same hope as you.

So if you can talk about those vulnerabilities and say, yeah,

but I'm trusting the Lord to bring me through it,

I'm trusting the Lord that his word is true and

that he's who he says he is. Transparency makes our

lives a living testimony. You got your Bible still open

right there? Go to Genesis chapter three. Genesis chapter three,

We're gonna start reading in verse seven. You're there, say amen.

Then the eyes of both of them were open. Talking

about Adam and Eve. Here basically, let me catch you

up to what's happened. Adam and Eve were created. They're

placed in the garden of Eden. God said, hey, you

can eat anything you want to eat, just don't eat

from the two trees in the middle of the garden.

Satan shows up. He says, come over here, see this apple.

It's good to eat. It's gonna be delicious. It's gonna

make you wise like God. It's gonna it's gonna give

you wisdom. You're going to You're gonna have everything you

ever want to. Just eat the apple. He said, oh, no,

can't eat the apple. He said, yes, you can. She said, no,

one can't. He said, yes, you can. If I do

all die He said, you want die? She said, crunch.

Right.

That's the way that whole story goes. So that brings

us to this point. So then the eyes of both

of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

Now listen, they've been naked.

I don't know how long, and we don't know how

long it was from the time they were created until

the time they fell, but the whole time they were naked,

just running around in the woods buck naked. Just it's

the reality. And they regatized they were naked, and they

sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

So their or their their immediate response.

To realizing they were not what they once thought they

were was to try to cover it up.

There there.

Their immediate response to this revelation was deception. Deception is

something we used to cover ourselves. But the moment it's

plucked from the vine of life, it begins to die.

The moment you move into deception, the moment you start

trying to cover your life with something else, it begins

to wither around you.

So at the very moment they covered.

Themselves, there had to be a new covering already being made,

because human made facades will not cover, they will simply

dissolve around us.

I want you to think about that.

They're immediate and that was just them too, And they

were so afraid of being transparent and open that they

covered themselves immediately. And they heard the sound of the

Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of

the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from

the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to Adam. This is to

me the the sadist scripture in the entire Bible up

until this point. Daily God came into the garden, and

he physically walked with Adam and Eve. They experienced him

in ways that we won't experience him until we get

to Glory and for an apple. They heard the sound

of the Lord God walking in the garden in the

cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid

themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees

of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam

and said, where are you? You know, God looks at

the heart of a man, at the heart of a woman,

at the heart of a boy, a girl, at the

heart of every single one of us. And we're so

worried about what's going on out here that we forget

he can see on the inside. And I think that

sometimes he looks and he sees who we're pretending to be,

and he says to himself, where are you?

Where are That's not who that's not who I created

you to be.

And most of the time we relate this to sin.

We think that that sin is the only thing that

God hates. But God also hates the facades that we

create to make ourselves look better.

That's called pride.

As a matter of fact, pride is adverse to the

human struggle. We say that again, Pride is adverse to

the human struggle. That's tweetable right there. It causes us

to make it look like we don't struggle. Our pride

will not give in to the fact that things are

not the way we want them, and we will pretend

like they are, and we will finance a life on

a credit card at thirty two percent because we don't

want people to know that we don't have it the

way we used to have it. Pride, where are you?

I wonder right now, if you look at your life,

I wonder if God has said that about you in

the last week.

Where are you? Where's that person that I.

Where's that person I created that I'm working on, that

person that used to chase after me? You know, I

remember a few years ago, probably a bunch of years ago. Now,

remember a few years ago, we used to do this

event in Myrtle Beach called Serge. We take all of

our students to Myrtle be each would have this worship

experience in preaching and baptize people in the ocean.

It was amazing.

Students would always and the worship services were just so incredible.

And I remember standing in the back of the auditorium

with Chris Campbell and the students were just we're doing

I don't I forget the names of the songs, but

I remember the song and it was just like an

anthem of a season for our students, and everybody was

weeping and just falling on their face before God. And

I looked at Chris and I said, why can't adults

worship with the same passion and reckless abandon as students do.

And I think Chris said something in his great wisdom.

I think he said something to the effect of, if

you can solve that one, you can write a book

and neither one of us will have to work again.

But you know, the reality is we live our lives

in a place where we're not bound by the things

at a young age that we are at an older

age that at a young age as teenagers, most people

already know we don't have it all together right, and

we're okay just being whoever God created us to be

and chasing after him with a reckless abandon because well,

we don't have anything else.

We're still we're still bulletproof. It doesn't matter.

But then as we age and our create, our creativity

is socialized out of us because God creates. It's a

different sermon for a different time. Because God connects with

the creative part of who we are. Because He is creative,

that gets that gets filtered out of us by society,

and we're afraid to tap into the emotional creative part

of who we are, so we don't.

Connect to God the way we used to connect to God.

Let me tell you something.

If you would just get rid of the facade and

take off the mask for about three Sundays in a row,

it would blow our community up.

I'm just telling you it would.

I mean, if one of y'all that was over sixty

dashed across the front of this altar, it'd be onw

like Donkey Kong.

I'm telling you, where are you? So?

We said I heard your voice in the garden and

I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself,

and God said, who told you you were naked? I

think the way God said it, I wasn't there. But

the way God said, it was not hey, who told

you that? He said, who told you that? Like I

knew you were naked the whole time? Why didn't you

just ask?

I would have told you.

You've been naked, You've been who you are. Why all

of a sudden are you trying to cover it up?

The first lie from the enemy was he made them

think that they were different, just because they knew. Now,

he said, I was naked, and I hid myself.

He said, who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded that

you should not eat? And the fig leaf had already withered?

And watch what happens. This is what deceptioned up. This

is what living behind us a facade does. Then the

man said, the woman, the woman that you gave me,

she gave me a the tree, and I ate. See,

deception leads to deception. He said, it's not my fault.

I'm the innocent bystander. I didn't even get the first bite.

I got the second bite.

It was the woman.

And by the way, God, it was the woman that

you gave me. So if it's not her fault, it's

your fault. And deception.

Recontextualized God in their mind.

The moment they moved out of transfer parentcy, God became

something else. God became an object in which we try

to manipulate based on our perceived status in the world.

They were perfect when they were naked. Now they put

some clothes on and they covered. Now you realize that

I'm not actually taught that we're talking symbolically the moment

they covered something that had been out there for everybody

to see, the moment they covered it. In other words,

what I'm saying is, do not come to church nicked

next week. I just want to make sure I get

that point across, right, Okay. I just felt like somebody

might have been honing into the wrong thing.

The moment they did that.

Suddenly God became an object that was manipulated, just like

we manipulate the people around us, and.

We begin to blame him for things that were our fault.

He said the woman, and you gave me the woman.

So ultimately, God, it's your fault. It's your fault. I'm sick,

it's your fault. I'm broke, it's your fault. He left,

it's your fault. And every time we say that, pride

grows a little more because pride is a monster that

demands to be fed.

And the Lord said, and the Lord God said to

the woman, what is this you've done?

And the woman said, the devil made me do it.

To the serpent deceived me. And I ain't God, I

ain't it. He just took advantage of me in my

mental health. The devil doesn't make you do anything.

Now. When I, especially when I would do financial counseling

with people, they would come in. They were talking about, oh,

the devil, the devil, the devil, the devil, devil and Ernie.

I do this every time. I would say can I

see your checkbook registry? And that'd be like, why am I? I

just want to show you something. Sure, I say, this

check for one hundred and twelve dollars to the devil?

Write that check?

No? What about this one for sixty nine to ninety

nine to the cable company?

Did the devil right that one?

Know? What about this one right here for two hundred

and forty two dollars at foe go to CHIW Did

the devil right that? No?

So the devil didn't actually write any of these checks.

He did him make you do anything, but see the

moment we don't live our lives in transparency and let

people in, we start looking for somebody to blame, and

it's either the devil or God.

The reason is because they live in the invisible.

And there's no accountability because nobody can prove whether they did.

It or not.

But it all comes back on us because we're afraid

to just simply be who God wants us to be.

You know, I used to wear a suit, not just

every Sunday. I used to wear a suit every single day,

and I would wake up I put that suit on me.

I mean, one hundred and five degrees outside in July,

come in with a suit down that long. I have

to go hide somewhere and breathe because I was so

hot because I was trying to be something I want

because I was never the suit guy. Matter of fact,

I dress up for y'all. I'm a blue Jee's and

T shirt. The re the only reason I have buttons

on my shirts because I love y'all. But we've got

to get back to the place where we just get

along with God because we can't truly live in transparency

until we realize who we are at the very fabric

of our being. Who did God create me to be?

Let me say it this way, What is my purpose?

What is my purpose?

See?

This core value funnels us right back to our mission,

and that's helping people find purpose. If you haven't found

your purpose, you start by going to see Miss Antoinette

and engage.

That's where you start the purpose process.

And once you find your purpose and you realize there's

so much out there.

That I don't have to pretend like I'm not that because.

I'm all of this, suddenly we embrace the struggle that

surrounds the purpose.

And it becomes that living testimony.

And people look at our lives and they're like, oh

my goodness, I didn't realize how amazing Dennis was. I

knew he was a good guy, but he's been through

that and God brought him here and whoa, And I mean,

he's I love you.

He's not that special. If God did it for him,

he'll do it for me. See.

Transparency is not words on a page. Transparency is the

way we live our lives so that the people on

the end, so that the people on the outside see

that Jesus on the inside. In First John Chapter one, Clay,

you guys can come and get ready. In First John,

chapter one, verse seven says, but if.

We walk in the if we walk in the light.

As he is in the light, we have fellowship with

one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his.

Son, cleanses us from all sin.

If you're not here today, I mean, if you're not

here today, If you're not here today, you won't hear this, Glenn.

I just sometimes my mind gets ahead of my mouth.

If you're here to and you've never asked Jesus to

forgive you of your sins, never made him the lord

of your life. The Bible says that if you do that,

he washes away your sin. He doesn't cover your sin

to be uncovered again later. He washes it away.

It's not there anymore. You're cleansed.

And in just a moment, we're going to give you

an opportunity to see the blood of Jesus apply to

your life and your sin washed away.

Not just simply asking him if we say now, this

might be for you. If we say that we have

no sin, we deceive ourselves. Deception.

We've been talking about deception. We've been talking about it.

We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

But listen, listen, Cornerstone.

This is for you. If we confess.

Our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us

our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So listen. If you've been coming here.

Week after week after week after week, and you're pretending

like and you're pretending like Jesus don't know what you

do sitting in front of your computer. Are you been

coming here week after week after week, pretending like Jesus

don't know that you're having an emotional affair at work

jumping right in the living room today. You've been coming

to your week after week after week, and you're living

your life on credit cards so that you don't have

the ability to be generosity, be generous. Jesus already knows that.

But if we come, whether we've asked him before or

whether we're asking.

Him again, he is faithful to cleanse us of unrighteousness.

It's like taking that.

Squeege, cleaning that window that you can't see through, so

that you're clear and transparent and people can see into

your life life again.

It's as simple as that. Everybody's staying with me. And

if you're here and you and you.

You just got to You just got to be clean today.

You just got to surrender some stuff to Jesus. Surrender

your life to Jesus. This is your moment, this is

your time. Alter team, come Unless you're responding to the altar,

then stay where you are. In other words, listen the

people that you see up here. We're not immune to

our lives getting dirty and smudged. We're not that church.

We're not that church where only perfect people get to

do things.

Jesus uses broken, busted people.

So listen, if you're ready, if you're ready to come

to and get clean so you can live transparent.

On the count of three, I want you to step out.

I want you to come one, two, three, step out

and move right now.

Come on, I want to meet Jesus. I got some

things I need to repent of. I got some things

I need to unload. Listen.

I know this is a hard alter call because you

think the person you came to church with is gonna

say what were you praying about?

And then you tell them.

Because it's about transparency. You tell them because once you

come here, Jesus washes you clean.

You're a brand new creation.

So step out, Listen, don't hold onto that pet sin anymore.

Don't hold onto that dirty little secret anymore. Turn loose

on it and get free.

Thank you, Jesus, Thank you Jesus. That'sh Claire. You're ready.