The best is yet to come!” This statement has often been a popular rallying cry, especially for the Church. It’s a declaration rooted in the belief that God has great things in store for his people just beyond the horizon. And it’s a sentiment we’ve shared and stated here at Cornerstone...but, not anymore. Of course, we still believe the future is bright. But who has time for what’s to come when we’re too busy being blessed by what is? You see, the best isn’t “yet to come”—it’s here and now! God is on the move, and he is doing a new thing NOW, in the midst of our present circumstances. Instead of focusing on the future, we’re determined to follow God’s lead, right here and right now.

When runners line up for a race, the first thing they do is find their mark. This mark, often a line drawn across the track, provides a starting point for the runners—and in the case of the 400m race—it’s also the finish line. As runners take their place at the line, they’re simultaneously standing at the start and finish of the race. Cornerstone is following suit, as we get on our mark and see how what God has for us in the future is attainable through our faith in the present.

Man, I am ready to preach. I have been looking forward to this. I was even joking last week that, like, I hope I preached okay. I didn't want to be so consumed with the week ahead that I was like looking past it because I've been so, so ready for today. I hope you're ready for today. I hope everybody watching online you're ready because I don't know if you know this. You may not be aware of this. It wasn't your decision to be here today. This is a divine appointment. I'm not kidding. If you're watching online, you thought you were watching because someone shared this, right? No, no, this was a divine appointment. You thought you were here today because someone invited you.

You didn't realize God put this on your Google Calendar way before you did. You're here for a reason. You're online watching us for a reason. Today is a divine appointment. And man, I've just I am so geeked out to preach today. I've got a handheld mic today, I've got I used to preach from like a tabletop, I got a podium today, you all are going to be lucky. Suppose you get out of here in an hour and a half. We might be hunkering down for a while. We're locking the doors back there. So no one can.

Man, I've been looking forward to this series here. And now that we're starting into it today, we will be looking at it for the next couple of weeks. The whole idea behind this series is that God wants to do something amazing in the life of our church and our personal individual lives. He wants to do something in your life. And he's not waiting for some future version of you to do it. He wants to do it right here. And right now, he wants to do something in our midst. And that is so counterintuitive to how our culture is and how we are. Because how are we we are people of the future, constantly. We're constantly looking to the future. The best version of ourselves lives in the future. What do you think about New Year's resolutions are right? That I'm finally going to lose that weight, I'm finally going to quit smoking. I'm finally going to save money. I'm finally going to budget. I'm finally going to be better in relationships. I'm going to date, my wife. I'm going to do all these things. And it's always some future perfect version of ourselves. As we're all productivity lives in the magical land of tomorrow. Some days one of these days, things will be nice. One of these days, God will do something amazing on my behalf. And what we are declaring in this series as a church, what we're declaring is that no, no, the best isn't yet to come. The best is happening right here. And right now, we don't have to wait until one day for God to do something amazing in our lives and our church that we can believe him for amazing things. Right here and right now. And that's what he wants to do. The best isn't yet to come. It's here. Now say it with me. It's here. And now put it in the comments if you believe it's here. And now a God's going to do something amazing in our midst. And today, we're going to be looking if you have your Bible and want to follow along. Don't worry; we'll have it up on the screen here if you don't. But we're going to be in Mark chapter one. We're looking at verses nine through 15. And I feel like Mark is a perfect book, specifically Mark chapter one. It's a perfect, perfect piece of scripture for us to look at today. Now, what we're going to be talking about like I'm going to get into it a little bit later. But what we're talking about typically, churches like I was talking to a pastor friend of mine this week, and I was telling him about what we're getting ready to talk about today. And he's like, Oh, you're going to be in the book of Nehemiah, that the book of Nehemiah because that's, that's where you're always at. That's what pastors always talk about. Whenever you talk about what we're about to talk about, you look at the book of Nehemiah do a study from there about leadership, but I was like, no, actually, we're doing something different. We're going to be in the book of Mark because I feel like the book of Mark encapsulates the Spirit of where we're at as a church, and it encapsulates what's we're about to start on. And that's because, in the book of Mark, it's unique. It's unique in scripture. Among the four Gospels, there's a Greek word you Foose use, and this Greek word what it means is primary means now it means at once, and this word is used Youth use, it is used 63 times throughout the New Testament, we see this word use 63 times out of those 6341 of The uses are found in the book of Mark 41 out of 63. That's 65% of the time that the New Testament talks about immediacy and hear and now in at once. It's all happening in the book of Mark, and out of those 41 uses, 12 of them happen in Mark chapter one. That's why many scholars and many theologians refer to the Gospel of Mark as the gospel of action, the gospel of immediacy because things are just happening in the Gospel of Mark whenever you open it up and you look at it. It doesn't even have a birth account of Jesus. We don't even get the story of the Wiseman and the shepherds and Mary and Joseph. We just jump in immediately into action. We jump immediately into the narrative of a grown-up Jesus getting ready to embark on his ministry. Because it's immediate, here, and now it's action-oriented. So I want us to I'm going to read through these verses for us. To start today. We don't need the text on the screen yet tech booth. I'm just going to read through these, and then we'll work back through it again later in the sermon. But this is what it says. Starting in verse nine, at that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove, verse 11, and a voice came from heaven. It said, You are my son, whom I love with you, I am well pleased. At once, the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. You can see how the narrative is just jumping all over the place, right? Jesus comes, and he goes to the Jordan. He's baptized, and he's immediately sent out to the wilderness, and he's there, and he's being tempted, and then it's over, and the angels attend to him. It's just constant action. One thing after another, verse 14, after John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God, the time has come, he said, The kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe. The good news. Heavenly Father, Today we are in the midst of a move. We know you are doing something right here right now. We can feel it. God, we can feel it. We can feel your presence moving in our hearts, stirring us as a church; you are doing something amazing. And you're doing it right here. And right now, God, that's not coming in the future. It's here. So what we asked Today, Lord, is to help us meet the moment. Please help us to rise to the occasion. Help us be your church so that this moment doesn't pass us by and we miss it. We want to be a part of what you're doing, God, and you're doing it here. And now. Father, please bless me today. As I preach, I am an imperfect, fallible man. And so my words, thoughts, and ideas, if they get in the way of what you would have to say today, will be a complete failure. So God, would I ask that you go before me at this moment to prepare my heart and mind to speak from you. And then everyone listening online, everyone here in house at Cornerstone that we would be able to receive what you would speak to us today and see it change our lives because it's your word alone that changes us. We love you, Father; we pray all this in your name. Amen. Amen. Well, if you're taking notes today, the title of today's sermon is On your mark. And yes, we're in the book of Mark. But do we have any runners in the building anybody who likes to run the psychopaths? I see the hands of the psychopaths, you probably take cold showers, and you just like stare at blank television sets for a while because you're crazy. I can't get down with that. I when it comes to running. I just don't like it. I run as I run on Tuesdays and Thursdays set the week. I tried to run two miles each day. And I hate it like I never enjoy and never enjoy doing it. I played basketball in high school. And in middle school and elementary school. And in my sport, running is punishment. Like if you make a bad play, if you turn the ball over, if you're late to practice, you go run suicides, you run a lap. And so, it was always mind-boggling to me that people did a sport out of my sports punishment. It just always seemed kind of crazy to me. But even though I'm not a big runner, I understand what it means to be on your mark. Right. Even if you're not a runner, you've heard this phrase before, and you probably have at least a rudimentary idea of what it means. Now, there is a mark whenever you're a runner and getting ready to be in a race. It is the starting line. And so whenever you're told to get on your mark, you are being told to get to the place where the race starts, right this line of demarcation, and you need to be pretty mindful of where it is because if you start over the mark, you're going to be disqualified. And if you start too far behind the mark, you're going to be at a competitive disadvantage compared to the other runners in the race. So the mark is significant. Another thing that makes the mark so important in a race is knowing where the mark is in relation to the finish line matters. It matters big time because you can make an all-out sprint, or it's more of an endurance run, depending on what kind of race you're running. You need to be aware of how far away from the mark you are because if you give too much at the beginning, you can collapse your body literally can give out in the middle of a run. You see it happen where runners will fall. They'll collapse. That's because the buildup of lactic acid in their legs causes their body to fail on them. So it's essential to know where the mark is getting on your mark. My Uncle Jay has first-hand experience with the importance of getting on your mark and remembering where your mark is from my Uncle Jay. He's not a runner. He's not a runner, but he is.

He has attempted many numerous feats of athleticism that he has no business trying, right? Like stuff that you're going, Why? Why did you think you could do that? What? What made you believe that this was a good idea? Years ago, like years ago, he just decided he wanted to go for a run. And not like a normal person just to run around the neighborhood or just like a little a mile two miles. He just was like; I'm going to run 10 miles today. I don't know what possesses someone to wake up and decide that day to run 10 miles when you've done no, like preconditioning for the hits. But he had that moment. So my uncle J gets up again, this is years ago, he goes for a run. And he did not consider his mark. He forgot his mark. So when he went for a 10-mile run, rather than, you know, like a normal person running out five miles, and then coming back for the other five to make 10, He ran out 10 miles, doesn't take exactly a math genius to realize that's going to equal out to 20-mile run. If he comes back, right. So he runs out 10 Miles realizes I've made a terrible mistake.

tries coming back, and he can't do it. His body just completely and utterly gives upon him. He has to find a payphone, make a call, have someone come and pick him up the resume because his body had failed him because he forgot his mark. Because he didn't consider where he had left from that, he had run 10 miles out from his mark, knowing where your mark is. I want to let you know we need to consider and remember our mark in the church. We need to know because I'm letting you know this we are starting a race today as a church, we are taking off on a race, and it's a marathon. And we have got to know what our mark is what we are running from as we run towards something because it's very enticing to just look at what you're running towards. But it is so important that you remember what you were running from where you are taking off. And I want to let you know today as we get ready to take these first steps of faith that what we are running from is one thing and one thing only, and that is favor, the favor of God. We trust in his favor that he is putting his hand on us. Because I'll tell you this much. We are not starting a race today. We're not starting this marathon Today is a church because we are so capable. We're not starting this because, man, we just we've got the smartest people on staff, and we've got the best people. No other church has people like us. And we're doing this because we're so smart. And I'm an articulate speaker, and everything's said, that is not it at all. Everything we do today, every step of faith that we take from now on, is rooted in favor of God, trusting him and trusting that he will be with us. That he's going to be with us every step of the way. We need it. We need his favor. We need His grace, and we need to keep it at the forefront of our minds. We need to be on our mark; I want to hop back into the mark; you all are seeing what I'm doing there, Right? On your mark. We're in the book of Mark. As a pastor, I got way too much joy out of coming up with this. I was like, Oh, this is good. We're in Mark, and it's on your mark. That's going to be so good. And it was it's I enjoyed it way more than everyone else like oh, yeah, we see what you did. That's cool. Like, alright, well, I'll tell some other pastor friends. They'll be like, Ooh, yeah, that's good. Let's write that down for later. So back to Mark, Mark chapter one, it says. And verse nine as we work back through it. At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and he was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open. Can you imagine this moment he saw heaven being torn open in the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And you have to remember from what we know from other accounts in scripture, it's not like this is just Jesus and John sitting there, and this is happening. John had crowds. John had people around him, so a crowd witnessed what was going on as heaven was torn open, and the Spirit descended like a dove. And then a voice comes from heaven and says, You are my son whom I love with you. I am well pleased. Amazing, right. And what's amazing is we can learn a lot about favor from these sets of verses. Because what we see from these sets of verses that favor is knowing that my identity supersedes any activity I do that who I am Trumps what I do, right? Because Jesus again, what did I say? This is Mark chapter one. This is the beginning of the onset of His ministry; Jesus has accomplished nothing, yet nothing. And yet you are my son, whom I love with you, I am well pleased God could have even just left it, it, you are my son whom I love. No, not only that, I'm pleased with you. I'm happy with you. What you've done so far has me smiling. It has me smiling upon you; I'm happy with where you're at. And that's because favor is knowing my identity, Trumps my activity, it supersedes what I do. This means I am a child of God. And it's not conditional. It's only on Jesus. If I trust Him, that means my identity is found in him, which means I am a son of God, a daughter of God, I am valued. I'm favored. I'm approved. And it does not matter what I do; I can't earn it. Jesus didn't earn it. He just was it. He just was my favorite. God looked at him, and he was pleased before he did a single thing. And that is true of you. And that's true of anyone who trusts in the name of Jesus of Jesus is your King. If you are following him and you trust Him, you are favored. I got news for you, your favorite. You're already there. You are the favorite he already looks at in. This is so just key. And I love this. This means that Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit look upon us not just with love, but with like, they're pleased with us. They like us. How often do we think that God's looking at us with just this condescension, looking at it just waiting for us to fail again, waiting for that same sin to trip us up again, and a new is going to happen? Are you ever going to learn? Are you ever going to get right?

But whenever we trust in Jesus, God sees the righteousness of Jesus on us. And he is pleased. And he loves us, and He likes us your favorite? I'm favorite. You know why that's so important to know before you start a race. Do you know why this is so important for Jesus to have this moment before his ministry began? When you know you're favored, and you know it's about identity and not activity, that gives you otherworldly confidence. Because you know, it's not based on what you do. And man, is God's going to love me? Will he have his favor on me because of how I performed today? How many people have to service told me man great, great sermon, Pastor. Only three-cheese? Well, God, God must not be favoring me today. No, we didn't have anybody get. We didn't have as good of a giving week. Wow, God's favor isn't a pot. It's no, no, it has nothing to do with activity. It has everything to do with identity. That's what God's favor is. It's our identity. It's who we are that we are children of God. And we need that as we take off on this race. We need that confidence that comes from knowing who we are. And we need to know who we are because it gives us endurance, not just confidence to take the steps but endurance to withstand setbacks when they come. Because whenever life starts throwing haymakers and it will like if you've lived any amount of time, you know that that's the case, stuff happens. Bad diagnoses come in, loved ones die and pass away, people move away, friendships change, and things happen in marriages and financial struggles. Life will throw a punch or two, and it will happen. And whenever you know who you are, your value isn't determined by those punches that you're able to take. Whenever you know your value, man, it gives you the endurance to keep pushing through to say hey, even though my circumstances don't define who I am. It doesn't define who I am because I'm a child of God. It gives us the confidence to take steps and the endurance to withstand setbacks. Is anybody in here know a thing or two about a setback? Is anybody? Yeah, I was kind of worried. I didn't know if you guys would relate to things not going well in life. I was like, I thought I might scratch this part from the sermons. I'm like, man; it might not be too relatable. I might be talking over people's heads. No, come on. Everyone knows setbacks. Everyone knows what it's like to be following God and to experience what feels like a failure, what feels like a setback, what feels like things not going your way, you trust God, and you see no breakthrough. I'm not talking about the natural result of sin. Right? Some people will just live their life paying no mind to God at all. And then oh, man, not seeing any breakthrough. Well, yeah, right. Like you're completely dishonoring God in every area of your life. What do I mean? What do you expect there? Right? No, I'm talking about when you are trusting God. When you are following him. You're doing what you can do to follow God, and you're not experiencing any kind of breakthrough. I mean, Cornerstone, you guys are no stranger to my family's struggles. Whenever we moved to Cleveland and tried starting a church, car repossessions to have their utilities getting shut off, just frustration after frustration, and we're giving, and we're sacrificing. We're inviting people, and we're like, Yo, what was this? Is this favor like my favorite looks like dang, never mind, like we're good. Take your favor off of us because it felt so frustrating, right? And just a constant struggle just like man, we're not going to. We're not sitting. Like we're not, we're not. It's we're not having our cars taken away because we're, we're blowing our money on stuff. It's because we're trying to keep the church of flow. Like I paid rent at the building last week, and that's what was going on. I had a buddy who was a server at Red Robin at the one in Canada at the strip for a long time. Just an awesome guy. Like, as soon as you see him, you're going okay, this dude's going to, like run this place in no time. Because of incredible work ethic, super personable, very charismatic. Everyone loves him. People who didn't even know him, like, you got to ask for this guy whenever you come and have him. Wait for your table. He's just amazing. And so everyone knows, like, okay, he is built for management, he's built the run this place. But there was an issue: to take those next steps and management, you had to serve alcohol to run the bar. And this isn't, you know, Cornerstone's stance or anything like that. But my friend, because of personal life experiences that he had seen what alcohol had done to people in his life, he had the personal conviction that he felt God put on him that you know what, I don't want to have any part of it. I'm not saying other people can't, but I don't want to have any part in serving this. I don't have any part of it. And so he took that stand, and so he wouldn't, he wouldn't take those next steps.

And I know this is where you're waiting for the but then God, within six months, had Red Robin change their policy, and he got promoted, and he now today owns 37 Red Robins across this country. Nah, that's not it. That is not what happened. He held his ground. And that was that. So did Red Robin. Like they that was it. And that's frustrating. Because you're like, God, I am honoring you. I'm trying to take steps in favor. Where's the other end of that? Where's the breakthrough? Where's the thing starting to go? My way? Why is that? Why is that? Let's keep reading. Let's keep looking at a mark. As we pick up, this is what says in verse 12, so Jesus has this mountaintop moment, right? Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove in front. All these people. God says from heaven, a voice that people can audibly hear it says, This is my son, I love him. I'm well pleased with him. very next verse, at once. You use immediately at once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan, not exactly what you would expect, right? He was with the wild animals, and the angels attended to him. Favor can feel like failure. Failure can feel like failure. I see a lot of I can't see your mouse. But I see a lot of eyes. That I can just see that. Yes, you've been there. You know that favor can feel like failure that you can get on your mark and realize, hey, look, life is life isn't about how great I am. It's about how great he is and me following him, and you can get on your mark. And you could start taking those steps from favor, and you still see the struggle. You still see no breakthrough; things are not going your way. Look at Jesus. You're not alone. I'm not alone. You're not alone. In this, Jesus went from this moment of triumph in verse 11. Immediately to moments of testing in verses 12 and 13. Immediately use at once. He goes directly from having God validate him to this moment of trial and testing where the closest companion he has for a month and a half is the devil himself, testing him at every turn. We know from other accounts in scripture that all Jesus had during this time to him was water. That's it for 40 days as Satan is constantly berating him, testing him, and trying to break him down. So yeah, favor can feel like failure. It can look like a failure; you can honor God and face setbacks. You can honor God and still face discouragement. You can honor God and still face depression. They can coexist. And they often do. You know what that means in your life. And maybe you've experienced this, you can make a commitment to follow Jesus, and you can start losing friends. And it's not out of anything that you've done. It's not because you're like, Well, I because I've started following Jesus, I got to start changing my friend group, and I'm going to unfollow all these unpriced like accounts. I'm going to do all this, and I'm going to, and this is going to be, so I'm just getting rid of everything in my life. No, you can use our following God and say, hey, look, I don't want this to change anything between us. I still love You guys, and I still want to hang out. But you start noticing you're getting fewer and fewer texts. The boys are hanging out on Friday night, and you didn't get an invite. The girls are going out on Saturday morning, and you're not included. And you're going, God. Like what? I'm starting to follow you, and you take people out of my life. Who am I supposed to hang out with that? I'm supposed to follow you but be lonely and not have a group of friends. You can start trusting God with your finances and see your budget tighten. And again, I know, this is where most pastors say, and I started tithing, and my budget came up $250 short. But you know what, on the day before my rent was due, someone showed up at my door and said, I don't know why, but I'm supposed to give you $250, And I paid it Glory to God. Like that's, that's what we hear a lot. You know, what we don't hear a lot are those stories where Yeah, it was $250 short. And I just I was short. I didn't pay for this. And so now I've got a credit company upset with me. And I'm trying to figure out what bills to pay and what ones I can do now and what ones I can't, and I don't know what I'm going to do a

favor can feel like failure. I have been there. I've been there and not like long ago, not like my far-off past like, a couple of months ago. I've been in places where man, this is your favorite God doesn't feel like it feels, and it looks a lot like Phil. You can vow to date wisely to be like, You know what, I've been a serial dater. I've not even remotely honored God in my romantic relationships. But that's changing. I'm going to change that. I'm going to make sure that I honor God in every way that I can. I'm going to look for the right things. I'm going to date with the intent of marriage like I'm going to do everything that I should do. And you realize that you're single for a month, and one month becomes three, and three becomes six. And before you know it, it's a year, and it's two years, and you're going like God, I'm getting shouted down over here, right? Like amen, amen. But you can feel like, Where where is it? Where's, where's the follow-through here? Where's the follow-through of this? This is your favor because, honestly, it feels a lot like failure. And can I say that we've been there as a church. And yes, I mean, individually, like each of us in our own lives. But collectively, as a church, we have been here. We've failed. We favor fields, and it looks a lot like failure. Whenever we read our old property on 578 Killian road, we tried multiple times to build and to add on to that property, like multiple times, we tried looking at different kinds of buildings that we could build and asking the county about it and getting denied saying like, No, you guys can't build that kind of property or that building there. Even though it's the affordable kind and the one that maybe we could afford to build, we tried doing, you know, different kinds of fundraising a different point, never a true capital campaign, but it never really panned out. And we'd have financial issues as a church or other issues with our denomination, things like that. And so it just, it never happened. And it felt like a failure, like man, we're just not able to build. And then, on top of that, we did build the facility at Killian road, we ended up giving it up. I can't get into the whole story today, but issues with our denomination still owning the building on a technicality of a trust clause. Even though we had built it with our bare hands. Like our congregation built this building. We were written prayers on the studs and prayed over that thing and built it. And they, they took it, and we allowed it to happen. We weren't going to take that to court. We weren't going to dishonor the name of Christ by having all this fought out in a legal battle. So we lose our building. And that feels a lot like failure. It feels a lot like failure. And then from that, moving from glory to glory, we have to meet mobile. Right? We have to meet mobile for three years. Right, man. It's like the hits just keep on coming. My goodness sakes, we have to meet mobile for three years. And I know we've got some tech people and some setup people who are getting PTSD with me talking about this from setting up and tearing down every single week, every single week. Two hundred some odd chairs, get them out and put them back, hook this up, take it down, put it back, just craziness. And we did that for three years with no end in sight. Felt like failure. And then the one building that we did still own the campus the Magor campus that used to be a campus here at Cornerstone. This is a campus that we put blood, sweat, and tears into and funding and people raised in Cornerstone people who became leaders at Cornerstone, and we sent them over there saying, hey, help this church grow, help get healthy and thrive. We sent them over there. And then they started to feel their call to become their church building their own church community. And so we released them, we allowed them to do that to have that vote and be able to do that. And that feels like failure. Whenever you lose 200, some people, you lose the only building you own at that point. And so I, if I can be raw for a little bit, we had people in leadership positions on our staff talking to each other during all this time saying, are the people in our congregation going to think this is a sinking ship? Because if we look at our past, it's failure after failure after failure. It's we own our building. And we're part of this denomination too. We're not a part of that denomination anymore. Oh, we don't own the building. Oh, we're meeting mobile. Oh, the only building we own. We don't have any more Oh, those 200 people. And some of the people that came to Christ, through Cornerstone and our ministry, are gone. Now. That looks a lot like failure. Right? And it felt a lot like failure. But what if it wasn't? What if it was not?

What if favor feels like a failure? Sometimes feels like that does not mean it is a failure. It means it just feels like failure. Sometimes look at what we see in the very following verses immediately. The next verse in Mark, Mark 14, this is right after Jesus was tested, after John was put into prison, which can we just like to stop here? So, Jesus gets pushed into the wilderness for a month and a half. The devil is his closest companion. His diet consists of nothing but water. He faces constant testing and trial for 40 days. He comes out of that and finds out his cousin, one of the godliest men that there is, has been put in prison, and his prison sentence will end with his death. Herod will behead him.
Does anything look good at this? How far off does that approval from God seem back in verse 11? This is my son; I'm pleased with him. I love him, do you? Maybe you could show it because it certainly isn't looking like it. Because he's been going through testing, John's put in prison. And yet, in the middle of all of this, look at this, despite all it's happened, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. In the midst of all of that, there is still good news. And this is why it's because failure is a choice. But failure is a constant failure.

Failure is something that, and this is going to sound, you know, super like a self-help book. But it's true man. failure. Failure is something that we label, an event, an event happens, and we label it a failure that's on us, we choose its failure is a choice favor, though, our identity, who we are, that's a constant, it does not change. We are the favored sons and daughters of God. Failure is a choice. But favor is a constant. That's why amid the testing, amid the wilderness, in the midst of John being put in prison and eventually killed in the midst of all of that, Jesus goes and preaches good news. Because he didn't choose failure. He's going to know failure. That's, that's a label. I know who I am. I know that God sent me. I know, I'm the son of God. And so I'm going to take steps from that favor. I'm going to take steps from who I am, not what the activity around me is saying is happening. Because the activity was saying, everything is a failure. This is not going to work. But he knew who he was. He knew who he was. And he knew he had favor. If you believe you have favored, say it, declare it I have a favor. I have a favor, declare that you need to declare that more often. Because it's very easy for your circumstances to tell you you have failed. But you need to remind yourself to start your day off. Say, Man, I'm getting on my mark. My mark is I am a favored son or daughter of God. And I'm taking a step from that. I have favor; God's favor is constant. It is not a choice. It is permanent. Jesus knew this; He took steps flowing from that constant favorite, he knew his mark, and he never lost sight of it. Never to the cross was on that mark of failure. I know that this looks like failure. But everything in my kingdom is the opposite of how the world sees it. Everything. You see failure; I see favor. He knew he was favored, and Cornerstone. were favored. were favored. And I don't mean that in the sense that you know, a church with billion-dollar buildings goes ahead and the favor of God is upon us because of this. No, we're not favored because of our circumstances. Were favored. Even before we fixed this building up, we were favored. In it, because it's not about the activity. It's about our identity. It's about who we are. We are favored Cornerstone were favored. And we've seen that we saw that play out because we didn't believe that they were failures during that time of all of those failures. Like it may feel like it, but we're going to keep taking steps from that mark a favor. We're going to keep taking steps. And so we believed, prayed, fasted, and searched, and eventually, we came upon this property. 2445, South Arlington, we came across this property. And I have to tell you, the entire story of us getting this property is a story of God's favor. Because it wasn't about us. It was all about him and him working this out. We people were telling us for, you know, a long time that we should check out this property, a few people in the congregation saying we should check out the old compass north building, the only thing is, if this is less than 1000 square feet or old building on Kilian, that we were outgrowing was 20,000 square feet a little over 20,000. This is a third of that. A third. And so whenever people were telling us to come to check it out, we're like, Well, I mean, it's yeah, the property is great. But this building is, it isn't going to cut it. Like it's just not, it's not going to work for us. But we wanted to do due diligence. So we came and checked it out. We came just a small group of us in December of 2019 walked through the building. And you know, that we looked around, we're like, this is great. For a smaller church, like, it's just, this is not going to work for us. Little did we know, about 80 days later, the Coronavirus pandemic would spread from China, would spread across the world, would hit Ohio would hit the entire world, the country, and we would be forced to shut down and go online, and all of these crazy things would happen. We had no idea. But as it's all going on, we're realizing, wow, there's no end in sight for this thing. Suddenly, I and the leader boards, people on staff like well, maybe we should check out that building again. Because with a smaller amount of people that we're allowed to have, it could work in the meantime, it could work in the here. And now. This could work as we get ready to build for what God is doing down the road. And so we came back the numbers worked out, right, the leadership board prayed and fasted, and we got the building. And I mean, the whole thing, the whole thing is just God's favor all over it. And the whole thing is God's favor. It's amazing.

And if you were with us a few weeks ago, you know, we were talking about Abraham, right, and how Abraham knew that God would send a substitute sacrifice that he wouldn't have to go through with sacrificing his son, Isaac. And Isaac said, but where is the sacrifice, like whereas in an Abraham said, Hey, God will provide the lamb, he'll give it. But then it ended up being a ram. It's because that's what it needed to be for it to be stuck in the thicket. For it to be able to be there had to have horns, it had to be a ram, and Pastor Brenda is talking about man, you know, this, this building this property, this, we were looking for a lamb, but God sent around, we were looking for what we thought we needed. But God said, notice what we needed. He sent us what we needed. And man, this building has been a godsend, a literal Godsend the things that we've been able to do the ministry, we've been able to have already so, so thankful for the favor of God that has been following us. And it took a big step of faith, a big step of confidence from that mark, a blessing for us to jump into this property. Because here's the thing, we took that step of faith, knowing it was too small. Anybody in here have a family with five kids, and you willingly went in to buy a one-bedroom house because you're like a favor.
The favor of God is upon us. Like, you don't do that. You're like, if this is our size, this is the size of the house, we need it for us as a church, our database of people who call Cornerstone the home church is between 20 520 700 people. It's an extensive database. If everyone shows up as they do on Christmas and Easter, man, we're packed. And we're I mean, we were growing, we were growing. And so, this was a big step of faith for us to get this place. But we believe big things were to come. This brings us to the final verse I want us to look at Today, Mark 15. Let's look at it one more time. It says the time has come. Jesus said The kingdom of God has come near Repent and believe the good news. The time has come.

The time to forget the future. And to focus on the here and now. To forget the future. Yes, we want a fulfilling future. We want amazing things to happen. But we are not going to be so caught up about well down the road as a church, and if we don't know, no, no, we will be believing and trusting that it's here. And it's now that the time has come for us that the waiting is over, that we don't need to wait any longer than we can boldly step into the future that we believe God has in mind for us and step into the present that God has in mind for us. If we get on our mark, of trusting in God's favor and not in ourselves, and we start taking those steps forward, we will see amazing things happen, and they will happen immediately. They will happen here and now, not in some distant future. But right now, you lose immediately at once the time has come. And the time has come for us. Cornerstone The time has come for us to act to take those bold steps of faith. Trusting Jesus and trusting in his favor. The time has come for us to get on our mark. Because you see, we know our identity. We know who we are. We know who we are. Do you think it was a coincidence that we spent seven weeks talking about our core values and who we are like? Oh, that's so fun that we talked about that? Well, what a coincidence, it fits in. Yeah, we did that on purpose, then on purpose, because, like I said, identity matters. Who you are matters before you take off on a race. You need to know your mark. And we need to know who we are as a church before we take off on this marathon of a race. But we know who we are. We know our identity, our core values. We know our mission is to help people find the father, a family, and a fulfilling future. We know who we are. We know God's purpose in our hearts as a church. And here's the thing we know we have influence. We know we have influence. God has given it to us again. This is not because of anything we've done. It's because of his favor going before us. He's given us influence. And not just here in Akron, he has given us favorite in Northeast Ohio, we have people joining us the people in here who live in, you know Barberton and Norton and Wadsworth and Canton, just different places all over we have people watching us from Cleveland, we've got Favre in Northeast Ohio, we've got influence in Northeast Ohio, we influence our state borders, we have people watching us in Indiana and different Massachusetts, right Missouri, we have people watching us from different places across the country, and from different places across the world. Like we have people in the lady in the Philippines watching us. Like God, people in South Africa have given us this great influence. He's given us this great influence as a church. And we do not want to squander it. We want to be on our mark, walking from God's favor to capitalize on and, if I can, get super practical for a moment. And this is what we're going to talk about in the closing minutes. Today. I find it super practical, what that looks like, capitalizing on the favor and the influence that God has given us. At this point in cornerstones history, what that looks like is a new facility. I'm just going to say we need a new facility. That's it's not a nice to have like, wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it be? No, it's a necessity; we need it. We need it if we're going to truly capitalize on the mission that God has given us and be able to realize it to its fullest potential. It's not going to happen in this building as is. It's just not. It's just not we have got to build a new facility where we can gather together and rally together as a church to learn and connect into worship. Just worship Jesus together. As I said, if everyone who called Cornerstone their home church showed up even just half, we would be packed out for multiple services here. We can't do it. We just can't do it. We need a bigger facility; we need a place where we can have the community, and we want a gymnasium, a place where we can have basketball clinics for the community. And we can have danced like the Tim Tebow is a night to shine for the community for special needs. Like there are so many amazing things that we can do here. We want a place where senior adults can have things where we can have retreats, just that I mean. Honestly, I could go on for about another hour talking about just the vision of what we could do with a new place. But chances are you've already been thinking about it too. Chances are you've already been dreaming about the man. Wouldn't that be amazing if we had this, and oh my goodness, is just this new place? That could be us planting our flag in the ground of that community and saying we are here for you. We are here for you. There is room for you. We are making room for you because we are thinking about you. We care about you.

We need to capitalize on the influence God has given us. It is time for us to act, and it's time here. And now. It's time. It's time. So you may be wondering, okay, I get that it's now, but how? Like, how are we going to do this? Like we can't just snap our fingers, and suddenly their brand new gym multipurpose facility pops up. How in the world are we going to do this? Well, that's where we're starting. Today is the official start of our here-and-now capital campaign are building. We're taking those steps. We're getting on our mark, taking steps, trusting in favor of God don't before us that this isn't going to be because we're so great. But because he is seeing us through and we're trusting God, we're gonna start raising money to build this facility, and we're being as wise as we can about this. We're not blindly going through it, and we're doing everything we naturally can to partner with GOD super to make something supernatural happen, right? We're doing everything we can. So we're working with a consulting firm called the ling group filling in Tim Cooper, they've been working with this amazing group of church consultants, they've worked with smaller churches to huge churches, a Lakewood down in Houston, the Billy Graham Association, Elevation Church in Charlotte, these are really qualified, amazing men and women of God who are giving us fantastic advice on how to do this on how to actually build out a real capital campaign. One of the things that they've done is they have researched our congregation, our giving habits of the last years, our demographics, all of that. They believe that over the course of three years, which is what the total campaign will be a three-year campaign, by the end of three years, we will be able to raise between 1.25 and $1.75 million. Now that, yes, that would completely pay off a brand new building. And again, I want you to understand, that means raising the money, that doesn't mean in three years, that's when the building would be done. That means in three years. Everything would be paid off by then. The building hopefully would be finished much sooner than that. But this is a big moment, is a big, big moment, we need this new facility. And we need it now. We need it. Now. We need things to start now. And so we are taking all the steps we can as a church to make this happen, and people are already sacrificing for it. This is the funniest part of today's sermon for me to talk about. I want to tell you about just how a few people have sacrificed already. All right. So we've been talking to a few people in the church, one couple, they own a small business. And they were talking to me, and they said, Hey, because we're a small business, our income can fluctuate pretty crazily, from week to week, depending on what we bring in. And so we want to let you know, we really can't make like a month-by-month commitment because that's just hard. That's hard for us to do, not knowing what our finances can be. But we have liquid money right now where we can write you a check for $10,000. And they did $10,000. Incredible. Incredible. And then, on the flip side, we have people on the other end of the spectrum who are saying, hey, look, I don't have the 1000s of dollars of liquid money right now. But I know in my budget, we have a young girl who's in college, college. And she said, You know what? I can do $35 a week for three years. And over the course of three years, that equals over to over $5,000 a $5,000 commitment. Incredible. Jessica and I were joking about the first service. We're like Frankenstein, our commitment, it's coming from a whole lot of different pieces and parts, we're using some money from the stimulus check that we just don't need, we don't need it for ourselves, we're using, we're gonna do a monthly commitment for the next three years. And we're making an amount of money from a pension account that I had from whenever I was at all-state. We're putting it all together. And the reason we're doing that is that we prayed and asked God what a sacrifice looks like to us. Because we didn't want to write an arbitrary number that we came up with. That made us feel good about ourselves like oh, look at us, look at we're good, right in our little check. We wanted to ask God, God, what's your number because we wanted to feel it. That's what sacrifice is, you feel it? You don't write it or give it, and you don't even realize that you did it. You feel sacrifice, and we said, God, help us feel this. What what is something that we are going to feel? And we knew for us just a monthly commitment with the amount that we can do? Wouldn't it would be, you know, it'd be a commitment, but it wouldn't stretch us too far. But that partnered with the bigger one-time gift. We're like, okay, yeah, that's, that's gonna, it's gonna stretch us. But it feels good. Pastor Brenda she already made her first commitment. She said whenever she put her check-in that back wall, the exhilaration she felt was unmatched. Just absolutely.

Just knowing, man, something is happening. And I'm a part of it. Something is happening. And I'm a part of it. And it's happening here. And now, here and now. We're going to be having a later this month at the end of the series of kind of a commitment Sunday. We have these commitment cards, and they're going to be available online as well. Where you can commit to a one-time gift, you can commit to a commit for a year, two years, three years, anything like that. But man, I would just ask you as We're leading up to that March 14, Sunday, just be praying and asking God, God, what's your number? I don't want to. I don't want to come up with my number. I want to know what your number is. And I'm not even saying that because God's number is going to be a really big one, it's going to be sacrificial. Honestly, if $5 a week is a sacrifice for somebody, that's amazing. That is amazing. If $5 a week and sacrifice if $1 a week is a sacrifice. That's amazing. Just ask God, God, what is your number? What's your number, man? I'm just so excited. I feel like I could go for another hour, but I can't. The worry, I'll get you guys. I'll get you guys out of here. But we need this, man, we need this. And we need it here. And now it's bringing me the last, the last verse I want us to look at, which is our verse for the year. Second Corinthians 517. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The news is here. See, we just talked about at the beginning of the sermon, we're always were people who the best version of ourselves is always in the future. The great days are always in the future, or the best is yet to come. I mean, churches say that all the time. We say we used to say that all the time. It was in the song we think this morning. The best is yet to come. It's here. It has come. The old is gone. The new is here. Jesus is here. He's with us in his favor, is upon us. The new is here, Cornerstone; we can do this. Like we can actually make this a reality. We can actually make this happen. We can reject choosing the label of failure and say no, no, this is favor, even if it doesn't feel like at the moment. This is favor, and then take steps that flow out of that favor. Act like God is with us. Just act like he's with us. Take steps forward, acting like he is going to see us through because why not us? Why not? Why not? Us? It's so easy for us to think that like no, the really influential ministry, we'll leave that to the big boys. We all know that the big churches and they're huge and that we have some in our area. And their amazing churches will just leave, you know, really influential ministry to them. But we'll just be a nice little Community Church. And we'll just all love each other and not really spread out, you know, not really try to have more people in we'll just enjoy what we're doing right here. This will be good. No. Like I said last week, if that is your mentality, we need your seat. We need your seat because we are moving forward in favor. We are moving forward to what God has called us to do. And we are going to reach out because I can't remember. Everything's blending together. Right now, guys, I'm kind of I'm about the blackout. I can't remember if I said this last service or if I said it yet. But the reason we're doing this, I've had people ask me before why do we need to do this is this? Is this about what other churches about these mega-churches? Were just all about people? What's the phrase? I've heard it a few times before like, bucks and buts. Whereas what more bucks and more people's numbers and it just looks good is that what this is about? What this is about is the kingdom of God expresses itself through Cornerstone in such a unique way. It's it's crazy. If you've been to other churches, you know that to be the case. And I believe we're doing our people, just people in general, a disservice if the only people who are lucky enough to get to experience that expression of the kingdom of God at Cornerstone is people who can fit in here and nine or 11. That's it. If you're if you can't do that, then sorry, you're out of luck. No, no, that is not it at all. We want our entire community; we want the people that God has given us influence over to truly be able to experience the kingdom of God through Cornerstone Church because it is special. What we've got is something special, and he is going to see us through the last thing I want to say on your mark. So whenever you get on your mark, right, in most races, the mark is here and then the 100-meter finish lines right there. Or 200 meters, it's there. Three hundred meters, they're the toughest race.

Again, I don't I don't know from experience. But the toughest race, if you ask runners, in the 400-meter run. Because it's long enough that you can't do a full out sprint the whole time, your body will actually shut down on you at about the most well-trained athletes could run about 275 meters before the lactic acid buildup causes their legs to just fall apart. They will actually stumble. They will fall they can't follow it through. So you have to pace yourself to a certain degree. But one of the most amazing things about the 400-meter race is the mark the starting line is simultaneously the finish line. Do you see where I'm going? Our mark of favor the mark a favor that we chose to believe in whenever we allowed the denomination to take our building the mark A favor that we chose to believe in whenever we were mobile for three years, and we had no idea what our future had in store that marks a favor that we lined up that, and we bought a building, that's a third of the size of our old building that we were about to grow out of that mark, a favor that we've taken all the steps from that is the same mark a favor that we are going to find ourselves out when we finish our new building. It's the same one. The favor that it took to start these steps is the same thing that we're going to need to see through to the very end, and we can do it. We can do it. It's just a matter of us getting on our mark, get on your mark, see the favor of God, see that it's not about the activity we do or how great we are, but how great he is, and that He has called us to advance his kingdom. He's called us to do that. So let's do it. Let's do it. Let's get on our mark. And let's advance, Father God. Today, we take a step forward; we are done kicking the can down the road, it's not happening anymore. The days of saying well, someday, maybe next year, one of these days, we are putting those words and those phrases and those idioms to death today. There's no more. The best is yet to come. The best is always here. And now. It's always here and now with you. God help us to believe that help us to truly believe that to truly internalize that because we know if we do, it's going to change everything about how we live if we truly believe that our best self doesn't exist somewhere down the road and, and God you're just waiting for us to finally hit it but that you love us and you like us where we're at now. And you're calling us forward. Man, that changes how we live. It changes how we act; it changes everything about our lives. Help us to internalize that truth that you are with us, and you are making all things new right here. And right now. Because God, if we do that, my goodness, the things that you have in store for us. We will look back at this day and be blown away by how small our vision was. We will look back on this day and be blown away that we had such small dreams and such small hope for what you could do through us. We know you're doing something amazing God, use us as your vessels. Use us as CO laborers to fulfill the work with you of helping people who need you, people who are far from you. Find you find a family, and find a fulfilling future, and we will give you all the honor, all the glory, and all the praise, and it's in your name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Are you guys ready to run? Because we're running. I'll tell you that much. We're running, and we're not stopping it. Things are about to get really crazy around here. And it's not stopping. We're just gonna keep taking steps forward. So I hope you guys are ready. We have some exciting days ahead.