Well, 0 Crossing Church. How are you doing today?
Doing? All right.
Good to see you. Good to see you that you
survived yesterday and the previous week God is good.
He's good in so many ways and I want to share one of those ways
that God is good. 23, plus years ago, the crossing went into debt
and officially today we are a church that is completely out of
debt in that. Awesome, praise God for that.
Absolutely amazing. That we can, we can declare that
today, but our greatest debt was settled, 2,000 years ago, wasn't
it, and ever since then, we don't have to worry about the
debt of sin that we 0, because that debt has been paid by Jesus
Christ. I'm so thankful for that.
I'm thankful to be able to welcome all of our campuses
today from all across this region, And for every one that
is inside and online, we are so thankful for each and every one
of you that we can connect together today.
This beautiful day and if you were at any of our Christmas Eve
services, you heard that coming up next week is a new series.
There has to be a place and I'm so thankful that we can be a
church that can be that place and that God can do incredible,
wonderful Mighty things through the And efforts of his followers
and lovers of Jesus all through this region.
So once you to be a part of that sermon series coming up, there
has to be a place. Now, I'm a pastor and I've been
a pastor for 42 years, but people that really know me.
Well, know that somewhere deep inside me, there's an architect
trying to get out. And because I love buildings and
I love the design of buildings and I love how you can express
creativity through buildings. And so, as far as the crossing
is concerned, there isn't a choice of a location, a design,
a remodel that I haven't been all the way involved in because
I just have this love. I have this love for
architecture, it's just so satisfying to me.
And each of our locations is has a unique nature about it.
You know, there's none of them that look Like none of them that
look, even close to the same and if you go to all of our
locations you'll see that and some of them have right like
really especially interesting architecture and it's a
reflection of a of a deeper truth.
One that comes to mind is Hannibal.
Hey everybody in Hannibal or all screaming right now and I
remember when I first went into the theater in Hannibal, it had
this overpowering smell of mildew.
It had been abandoned for a long time.
There was no electricity on, or water on a lot of the plaster
had fallen. It was just, it was just
horrible, but there was something about it, something so
nostalgic about it. And I fell in love with that.
I'm never going to the elders saying, this is not a logical
decision, this is emotional. I would really like to make this
the location of the Crossing in Hannibal and they went along
with it. And the the illustration of
Hannibal is powerful because what you see is something that
was originally built to 40 years to build it.
And it was a to be the jewel of that of that community and
Hannibal and then the years and life and just it just turned it
into a ruin. And then it was so cool to go in
there and completely redo it back to its original glory.
And those of you that are sitting in that, in that room,
now you can just see it at forty, four foot high ceilings,
just beautiful. It's incredible, is a testimony
to what God can do in a human life because our lives can end
up looking like that. Like like God gave us a great
life to start out with and then it was just all that stuff
happened and we become a ruin and then God has this ability to
reconstruct us and now That building is a jewel in that
community and it's interesting on Broadway, other businesses
and locations are all trying to beautify.
There's to keep up with hours and that's that's the beauty of
how that can actually happen in the kingdom of God.
I love the 929 location. This 1874 shotgun building that
was built by German speaking Lutheran's who wanted to have a
church building in that where the services were conducted in
German and their H and I can't imagine what those immigrants
put together in order to be able to build that building and now
to be able from Heaven to look down and to hear the Praises of
people singing and lifting the name of Jesus up in that
building that that's great. And every single location has a
story like that. And I love that I want to and
I'm preaching from 48th Street which is our first location and
I want to share a little story about it and the architecture of
it because those of you that have been going to the 48th
Street location, you know, this that there were so many walls
and rooms and stuff. Like if you used to walk in
here, how many of you actually got lost?
Trying to find it where to go at the 48th Street location.
Raise your hand if you got lost in Heroes.
Yeah. Like where did we park?
How do we get? I don't even under you know and
it was just nuts. Write it the way it was
originally, it was an elementary school designed for the open
learning concept and then that concept was shelved, and then it
was the community college and then we got it.
Well, a couple of years ago, I had a friend come from Southern
California, Mel. McGowan who was a Disney
imagineer and we sat down to figure out, how could we
reimagine the space and he wanted the blueprints.
He walked around the Outside and got the blueprints out and we
rolled them out and, you know, it's such a confusing building
at the time and I would that was bothering me and he looks down
at the prince. He looks at me, looks down at
the prince. He goes, what's the name of this
church? And I go it's the crossing he
goes Crossing. Like come on Mel you know the
name of the church he looks down at the prince again he looks up.
He looks down. He looks up like he's trying to
get me to look down. I look down at the prince and
suddenly it hits me. That at, you could only see it
on the blueprints, but all of those walls, and all of those
hallways were non supporting which means you could take them
all out. And, and he looks at it, and he
looks at me, and he goes to, you see how everything centers
around that Center. Place those of you at 4th Street
know that, there's that green space that's out there, and
that's actually across that. Actually, there's, there's it
comes together there. And you can look all the way
east to west. You can look all the way north
south, right. And he goes Crossing.
Look at that. You took all the and I'm like oh
this is so cool. I got on there, kind of gets
ruined though because we built this big tool shed on the on it,
which is where those of us at 48 years, sitting right now, I go
that kind of ruins the whole Crossing thing.
He goes really you worship at the foot of the cross.
That was done. That was it?
I go. Oh yeah, we got to do this.
And and now you go out there and you look and it's all open.
And the thing is no matter where you park, you walking, you know,
exactly where you are right. And I love that.
I absolutely love that you see there that structure was there
all along. We just needed to clear away all
the unnecessary walls. And this is what I think, I
think in your life, same thing needs to happen.
It's all right there, you just need Let God clear away all the
unnecessary walls. And things are going to change
right now. I told you, I loved
architecture. Well, one of those goals, those,
those bucket list things I wanted to do was I always wanted
to design and build my own house.
How many of you ever had that idea that goal that you want to
design and build your own house? So 26 years ago, I got to do
that before I moved to Quincy three years before I moved, I
literally Drew up this house on graph paper and pencil This is
how I want to make it. Look, I had bought land and I
wanted to build this house and I started to go to sales and pick
up things, like interior things that I wanted for it.
And I had a place to store those, and then I hired
contractors and I acted as the general contractor, that could
do everything that I couldn't do, which was a lot.
But I did install the plumbing, I installed the wiring, I
installed the HV. AC did a lot of that and I
actually was the one who laid the foundation of that house.
And it had a basement was 10 like a 10-foot basement and so
we dug down deep and I had someone do that.
And then a friend of mine Ray and I actually laid out the
foundation that was a big deal to me.
And so we use two by twelve and two feet.
I had a big wide foundation and you know, that that Foundation
had to be perfectly Plumb had to be perfectly level because any
mistake in that Foundation, was going to ruin anything that
rested on it, right? It had to be just, right?
And I remember being so proud when I took the forms off and I
saw that we had done such a good job on that Foundation, even
though it was all going to be buried and nobody would ever see
it. I knew that that Foundation was
a sure Foundation, you know, in ancient times before concrete
had been invented foundations were set with stone rather than,
with concrete and the very first stone.
The Cornerstone was the most important Stone in that
Foundation because the rest of the foundation was based on that
single Stone. And if it wasn't right, the
whole construction would be wrong.
And the tools that they used to make foundations in ancient
times Plumb and level. They've been around for over
4,000 years. We use many of those tools
today. Have you heard of plumb Bob's?
How many of, you know what a plumb bob is, raise your hand.
Yeah, there's a lot of you that do.
It's just a weight that comes down off of a string and make
sure that you're right with the Earth and gravity, right?
Or chalk lines, ever use a chalk line or a square, right?
You all, you Builders all know that you all have those, but
they've been around since the pyramids and even before.
So but and all of that is designed so that every part of
the building actually becomes a reflection In of that, very
first stone that you lay, that Cornerstone.
Now, last week, when we were preaching behind the curtain, I
spoke about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, the
week of his passion, the week that he died.
And I told you about the song that they sang, it was called
the Halal, right, as he goes through the Eastern Gate, and it
was from Psalm 118 verse 25 and that weird hallel translated in
English is hosanna, right? Save us.
Well, if you go up in Psalm 118, just three forces from the 25th,
verse to the 22nd verse, you find something else.
Very interesting. There that gives you a glimpse
behind the curtain. So go there with me right now.
Psalm 118 thousand years before. Jesus is born the stone.
The builders rejected has become the Cornerstone Interesting.
Because the builders wouldn't want to reject the Cornerstone.
That would be the best stuff. But the builders rejected it and
yet it became the Cornerstone and then it says the Lord has
done this and it is marvelous in our eyes.
When you go back behind it to this side of the curtain when
Jesus went to Jerusalem, he goes to the temple after he rides
through the Eastern Gate, right? And then he refers to that very
verse. You read it in Luke Chapter, 20
verses 17 to 19, Jesus looked directly at them and asked.
Well then, what is the meaning of which is that which is
written the stone. The builders rejected has become
the Cornerstone, everyone who falls on that stone will be
broken to pieces and anyone on whom it falls will be crushed,
huh? Just before he quotes that
verse, he tells a story, he tells a parable it's called the
parable of the tenants. So it would be like a tenant
farmer. Okay, so we're talking about a
Vineyard in the story that Jesus tells and he says there's an
owner of a Vineyard who goes off to a far country and he has
tenants running his Vineyard for him and then he wants to see how
they're doing how its progressing.
So he sends people back to give him a message, but these tenants
won't won't tell them anything since more back and this time
the Mistreat them. And they aren't able to give a
report to the owner and so the owner thinks to himself, I'll
send my son, they'll respect my son, I'll send him back to them
and then I'll get the message of the report that I want.
But the tenants thought, you know, what we need to do, we
need to kill the Sun and then maybe we'll end up with the
property. So when the sun comes to get the
report, the tenants kill the son of the owner thinking that
that's going to somehow give them access to the property.
The question is well what will that owner do when he comes
back? Jesus tells that story and then
he quotes Psalm 118 the stone. The builders rejected has become
the Cornerstone and anything that hits, it will be shattered.
And anything that falls upon will be crushed, Luke records
that the religious leaders. They know exactly what Jesus is
saying to them and it actually describes their reaction.
Because as soon as they hear what Jesus says, they go, We're
going to kill that guy. Because Jesus is accusing them
of being the, the the builders that rejected the Cornerstone.
He's calling himself, the son of the owner, or the son of God,
and they have had enough of that.
You notice. He also talks about how the
stone anything that hits, it will be shattered, and anything
that it lands on will be crushed.
He's actually referring to the Prophet Daniel in the Old
Testament, about 550 BC. And this is what that Prophet
said he was. This was a dream that he
interpreted while you were watching a rock was cut out.
A rock was cut out, not by human hands.
Hold on to that, it's struck the statue on its feet of iron and
Clay. Now this statue has is made of
different materials representing, all the empires of
the world, all the great empires of the world of iron and clay,
and smashed them, then the iron, the clay, the bronze, and the
silver, and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like
chaff on a threshing floor in the summer, which means they
blew away the wind swept them away without leaving a Trace.
But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain
and filled the whole Earth. As a prophecy about this Corner
Stone. The stone, the builders
rejected, an onion Stone. A stone from heaven and not from
Earth, not by human hands or by human will, by God's will that
would shatter all the great kingdoms of the world and then
fill the Earth. In Zechariah 10-4.
It actually said where the stone would come from from Judah.
Will come the Cornerstone from him?
The tent Peg from him. The battle bow from him every
ruler. Jesus came from the tribe of
Judah, and those religious leaders were very aware of who
he was. And what he was saying Jesus is
saying, I know that I'm going to be rejected but identifies
himself as the Cornerstone. Do, you know the temple were
that Jesus was in had a holy place and a holy of holies.
You may remember Clayton talking about that?
And in the holy of holies during that time of the temple, there
was no Ark of the Covenant at that time, there was only one
thing in there and that was called the foundation stone.
Jesus used the idea the illustration of a foundation
stone in teaching before like you can remember like the
greatest sermon ever preached The Sermon on the Mount Jesus
concluded that his big ending in that sermon was that there were
two houses, one was built on Sand the other and was built on
the rock and a storm came and blew against those houses and
the one on Sand fell with a mighty crash, but the one that
was founded on, the Rock could withstand All the storms and all
the wind and all the rain because it was on a firm
foundation. In Matthew 16.
Jesus said that, on this rock, I will build my church.
And what he said about that Foundation is that it will
withstand all that he'll can throw at it.
Talking about us. So I get the whole illustration,
the whole analogy of a stone and the Cornerstone, but let's dive
into one aspect of this and that is why did Jesus need to be
rejected? Why did he have to be the
Cornerstone? That was a rejected Stone.
Why couldn't these highly religious well School leaders
Nazi and accept? What was so patently obvious
Remember why Jesus came in the first place?
Jesus came to pay a debt of sin that he didn't know, but you did
and I did right. That's what he came for.
So he was rejected so that I would not be rejected.
He was despised so that I would not be despised, he was wounded
and bruised and ultimately killed so that I wouldn't be But
after Jesus died and rose again, and ascended into heaven, and
then he sends the Holy Spirit, a gospel plan had been fully
provided and salvation that, which was promised in that song.
The hallel and Hosanna, save us. Lord.
He'd be provided. Right after that, Peter and John
are healing a lame man in the temple and they get in trouble
and arrested because they healed a lame man.
And guess what? The scriptural subject was of
their defense, it's in Acts chapter 4.
It says, this in verse 8, then Peter filled with the Holy
Spirit said to them rulers and Elders of the people.
If we're being called to account today for an act of kindness
shown to a man who was Lame and are being asked how he was
healed. Didn't know this.
You and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of
Jesus. Christ of Nazareth whom you
crucified. But God raised from the dead
that this man stands before you he'll listen, Jesus is The stone
you've Builders rejected, you Builders not the builders you
Builders rejected which has become the Cornerstone salvation
is found in. No one else for.
There is no other name under Heaven given to mankind by which
we must be saved when they saw the courage of Peter and John
realized they were unschooled ordinary men and they were
astonished. And they took note that these
men Had been with Jesus. That was the number one reason
why Jesus came so he would be rejected so you wouldn't be but
there was a second reason. The second reason is that the
gospel would go to the whole world.
The gospel wouldn't be a story. It wouldn't be a Salvation, just
for the people of Israel. But it be for everyone,
everyone. The rejection of Jesus of as the
Messiah, by the Jews, opened up a door, a door way that God
intended to open for all the Gentiles, all the non-jewish
world, but it did. So without shutting the door to
the Jewish World, it opened the door to make salvation available
to who Everyone. The Apostle Paul devotes an
entire chapter in the book of Romans to this very truth.
Romans chapter 11. Finally, the Hebrew writer.
Takes us all the way back to Abraham 2000 BC to help us
understand this, even deeper behind that curtain.
Look what it says in Hebrews 11 by faith.
Abraham, when called to go to a place, he would later receive as
an inheritance obeyed and went, even though he did not know
where he was going. By faith.
He made his home in the promised land Like a Stranger in a
foreign country. He lived in tents as did Isaac
and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same promise.
Check this out. For he was looking forward to
the city with foundations. Whose architect and Builder is
God. Abraham rejected the foundations
of the Earth. For the foundations of Heaven.
even though he didn't understand what was coming, Today you and I
were all living on the other side of the curtain, right and
their Earthly foundations all around us.
And a lot of those foundations you had a part in building, a
matter of fact, a lot of those foundations are really, really
important to you. But I have to tell you
everything that sits on an Earthly Foundation Has the
potential to be an idol. And many of them are.
And I think about the things that mankind has created over
the years, the the buildings, the structures that they have.
They've built how many of you ever heard of the Seven Ancient
Wonders of the World. They're all buildings.
These Ancient Wonders of the World.
I want you to think about how well they're doing.
First one would be the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
It's one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World and yet
nobody knows where they were or even if they actually existed.
Not only are there. No ruins of it.
There's never been any foundations found of it.
They're just gone. How about the Temple of Diana or
Artemis in Ephesus? One of the great Wonders of the
World? This humongous Temple.
It now it's location is now in a swamp and there's nothing left
of it except for a broken pillar that they've raised up to show
you where it actually used to be.
The Colossus of Rhodes was an ancient wonder of the world.
It was a sculpture made of bronze of a huge human type
person. I got like a god who had one
foot on the land and one foot on an island.
Just and over his head was like this, his hand was over his head
and they built a fire up here, it acted as a lighthouse and he
was so big that ancient ships were able to sail between In his
legs. But an earthquake took care of
the Colossus of Rhodes and he fell.
And when he did all the bronze was pillaged by the local
people. And today it exists no more.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria was one of the seven ancient wonders
of the world but you can't find it today.
You can't find some pieces of it but they are under the water of
the Mediterranean Sea, the statue of Zeus at Olympia.
Was one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World at the base
of Mount Olympus and now it is a ruin also underwater.
The mausoleum of halicarnassus lasted longer than the rest.
But an earthquake took care of it about 600 years ago.
The only ancient wonder of the world that you can still visit
that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza.
And it's a tomb. Which is kind of a testimony,
isn't it of what it actually is? And if that's what's happened to
the greatest structures of the world, how do you think your
building is going to do whatever you're investing into Bill?
How do you think it's going to last over the years?
And what are you rejecting in your life in order to invest in
those things? Now I want to share with, you
know, we're going to have this series, that's coming called.
There has to be a place but here's what I want to tell you.
I know a place. I know a place where buildings,
last forever, I know a place where time doesn't matter.
I know a place where hope never Fades.
I know a place where people never die.
I know a place where sickness is eliminated.
I know a place where sorrow is swallowed up.
I know a place where light is never extinguished.
I know a place where Joy overflows, I know a place.
Where were unions are rich? I know a place where life is
abundant. I know a place where faith has
been replaced with site. I know a place where Angels
dwell, where praise fills the air where sin has no place.
And ultimately, I know a place where I belong and, you know, a
place where you belong and Abraham knew a place where he
belong. The writer of Psalms do a place,
where he belongs, Zechariah knew a place where he belonged Peter,
and John knew a place where they belong.
We Belong. I know a place where Jesus said,
I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again. And receive you to myself that
where I am, there you may be also I know a place prepared for
me by the master builder. I know a place prepared for me
by the foundation layer. I know a place that has a living
Cornerstone. I know a place that is inhabited
by My Savior. My Lord, my king, my father, and
my friend, I wonder Do you know that place?
We're moving to a time of decision.
So what Alison, and I first moved to Quincy, we picked a
house on 23rd Street. Kind of sort of barely in the
historic district because the neighborhoods just incredible,
right? And we thought about walking and
stuff and and how that nice that would be.
And we lived there for 10 years and one of the things that was
kind of lacking in that house was the garage.
It had a really ugly garage, it had stucco on the garage and the
stucco was cracked. And the doors didn't open.
Right. And the and the door didn't go
up, right? And it just like it was I was
awful and I thought, you know what, I can handle this, I
could, I can fix this, I can make this, right?
I can do this and so I took a sledgehammer and started taking
off all that. Stucco got all the stucco off of
that thing and I went and bought some vinyl siding because that
was like you know that solves every problem.
Right. And I put my new vinyl siding on
it you know? And trimmed all is like, it
looks so great. And then, you know, it was look
nice for maybe like 9 months. And then like the siding at the
bottom started to buckle. Like come out.
And the doors around where the I decided around the doors, they
didn't want to open. And, and the and the the garage
door is all messed up and like part of it was open and part of
it was shut and what I realized was the foundation had cracked
so bad. That it was actually sinking.
And no matter how I might want to try it.
The foundation was bad because the foundation was bad.
The whole building was bad and I have to tell you how foolish I
felt as I tore off my 9-month old siding. and as they brought
in, Big machinery, backhoes. and as that entire garage was torn
down, And then, they had to go down into the concrete pad,
which had no Foundation. By the way, was just a pad of
concrete and tear that all up and bring in trucks and haul it
all away. Until there was nothing left
there, but just dirt on the ground.
And then they started built a whole new.
Foundation or A New Path. Built a new structure.
And sighted it all over again. Yeah, I was foolish and I felt
even more foolish when I got the bill.
And I thought about that money that I'd spent on the siding how
it could have gone toward that, bigger bill.
And I wonder how many you're just like me.
You know what I mean? I mean, here's your life.
And you're building on your foundations.
You're building on your foundations.
And and how many times have you put a Fresh coat of paint on it
or you put some siding on ego there?
That good? Oh yes.
Only to find out that it disappoints you.
I want to tell you the truth today.
That on your best day and your best effort.
It's still. Not going to work.
And if you trust in Jesus, before he ever constructs
anything in your life, guess what?
He's going to do. He's going to deconstruct it.
And we don't like that. We don't like deconstruction
because it makes us feel foolish.
And it makes us feel like we've wasted our time, and we've
wasted our opportunities, and we've wasted our relationships.
And we've wasted our past, we've wasted our money.
And we see all the big machinery.
He brings in and we're like, oh no and the mess.
But he uncovers all of the stuff that wasn't ever right.
He hauls it away. And then he begins to construct.
Something brand new in your life.
But there's one difference in my analogy.
My garage on 23rd Street. I got the bill. but when he does
this in my life, he gets the bill.
He already got the bill. There are those of you here
today? That have never come into an
intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and I want
you to hear this. Good news.
He has already paid the bill. You just need to accept the fact
that he paid it for you. There's going to be someone
standing right over here by the baptistry.
That would love to talk to you about what those next steps are
to accept that into your life and don't don't have any
Illusions. It's it's not easy and it can be
embarrassing because that deconstruction has to happen but
trustee Because what God builts in your life, with stands the
test of time, there will come a day when all of these locations
that the crossing has will all fall to dust.
But the people that were changed in them will live on for
eternity in the glory of Heaven. And you can be one of those
people, so go over and talk to the person that standing over
there today. If you've never made that
decision for Christ and if you have Take stock of your life
right now. Where are the places where
you're trusting in the things of this world?
You don't have to wait for next week or the week after that to
start a new year's resolution. Be resolved, don't waste another
minute. Don't waste another moment.
Be resolved. Come up here, get down on your
knees and say, Lord. Here's this, here's that.
If Abraham was content to live the way he lived, let me live in
your kingdom in such a way. But I look forward.
To a kingdom with foundations. And to a King who will never be
off his throne. Would you stand with me?
Let's pray together in Jesus name.
Heavenly Father, please take advantage of this moment.
Make it a Moment of clarity with your angels stationed, all
around this building. I pray that we will.
No. The truth that you are here with
us. And that you won't leave us or
forsake us and that you love us enough to die.
For us. Help us then.
To live for you. Even if that first step.
Is right now. In Jesus name.