Priorities | Pure

Ready for a cleaner start to the year than another to-do list? We’re launching 21 days of prayer and fasting with a simple, human approach: honest prayer over perfect words, secret worship over public optics, and a practical plan to put first things first. Drawing from Joel 2 and Matthew 6, we talk about returning to God with whole hearts and seeking first the kingdom so the rest of life can finally find its place.

We break down fasting in real terms—food, media, and habits that crowd our minds—and show how to trade something good for something better: clarity in God’s presence. Then we tackle priorities with the “jar” demonstration: when stress and small emergencies go in first, there’s no space for what matters. But when the big rocks lead—faith, family, friends, finances, and focus—the pebbles and sand settle around them. Anxiety gets smaller, margin appears, and your schedule starts to serve your calling instead of smothering it.

You’ll hear practical next steps: use a simple daily prayer guide, pick one meaningful fast, replace scrolling with Scripture, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal misordered loves. We also share a candid look at money and trust—how generosity builds freedom and why resources make great tools but terrible masters. If you’re exploring faith, you’ll find a clear invitation to begin with Jesus. If you’re already following him, this is your reset: seek first, then watch provision, peace, and purpose align.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a fresh start, and tell us: which “big rock” are you putting in first this week? Your story might help someone else take their next step.

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Chapters

• 0:00 New Year And Pure-Heart Focus
• 1:13 Why Prayer Matters More Than Eloquence
• 3:20 Launching 21 Days Of Prayer And Fasting
• 4:29 Fasting Without Optics Or Gloom
• 6:10 Trading Comforts For Clarity With God
• 8:08 Practical Ways To Fast And Pray
• 9:13 Using The Prayer Guide And Joel 2
• 11:40 Start With Today, Not 21 Days
• 12:46 Our Community Aim: Be Like Jesus
• 14:14 Life Groups And Real Community
• 16:40 What Priorities Really Mean
• 18:02 Treasures, Time, Money, And The Heart
• 20:24 Anxiety, Provision, And Matthew 6
• 22:06 Giving, Margin, And Trusting God
• 24:20 The Jar Demonstration On Priorities
• 27:04 Reordering Life So It All Fits
• 29:16 Faith, Family, Friends, Finances, Focus
• 32:14 Seek First The Kingdom And Righteousness
• 34:07 Return To God With All Your Heart
• 36:04 Invitation To Follow Jesus
• 39:32 Next Steps And Corporate Response
• 42:20 Party With The Pastor And Blessing

Transcript

Jason Brown: 0:00

Well, happy new year. Some of you are going to get a chance to tell you last week, so I thought I'd tell you this week Happy New Year again. And it's been a good first week of the year, official full first week of the year. And uh I'll tell you, if your if your year started like mine did, it's been already a doozy. And in a good way, just but without without uh without its trials, that's not true. Obviously, we are those that walk in hand with Christ so that he's with us all along the way. And we're asking this question as we're in this theme called pure and focusing our hearts after God. The question we have for us are what are your priorities? What are your priorities? We've been looking at this scripture as a piece of what Jesus talked to us about in Matthew 5. And it says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And we've been talking about how God wants to be had pour out his blessing upon you in all that you do. He wants to bless you. He wants to pour out his spirit upon you, that you would thrive. It wouldn't just be like sustaining or trying to make it, but that you would thrive and it would be more than enough. That the blessing of God would be poured out upon you in that way. Would someone say amen to that? We're continuing this idea and starting today with this idea of prayer. And in doing so, prayer is something powerful for us. And that's why today we're starting out 21 days of prayer and fasting. And so that looks a little different for some people. So we want to break that down a little bit today in fasting and prayer and what that would look like for us. The idea of prayer is pretty easy. We start, we start to understand that in our communication with God. And I think people get wrapped up in the idea of prayer because they get scared that they don't have the right words to say, that they're not as eloquent as Pastor Celeste or as much passion as Josiah just prayed. And friends, it's not about that. How many people know that? And I'm thankful for those things. I'm thankful she's eloquent, I'm thankful he's passionate. But the thing is, it doesn't have to be those things. It has to be your heart being genuine to God. And that's what it is. You don't have to have the right words, you don't have to be eloquent. Even talks about, as Paul writes to the church, that those who are all put together and they're doing it for show that it's not about their heart. And so we need to be those who have a heart that's after God. And as we pray to the Lord, he already knows our circumstances. How many people know that? So we're not, we're not like, oh, and God, by the way, in case you don't know, God knows. Including all the stuff we don't want to tell God, as if we omit it from our prayers, he won't know about it. You're like, well, I'm not gonna talk to God about my problem because you know, it's like, well, God already knows about your problem. But I'll tell you this if we just come to God with a checklist of things that we need, it's me, me, me. But if we come to God earnestly seeking to know God and drawing near to God, it becomes a whole different thing. Because what happens is we're actually walking in step with him and drawing near to his presence. He's all he's available. Remember how we talked about that last week? He's always available. It's our pride, it's our sin, it's our other things keeping us away from him. And so as we draw near to him, as we are those who are saying, Lord, help me, forgive me, empowering by your spirit, as we draw near to him, he can speak to us into our heart. And how many people know that as the Holy Spirit empowers you to navigate the situations you're in, things are gonna get better. And you're gonna have the wisdom to navigate things that you would otherwise not have the knowledge to do. And so that's why we want to start this year with prayer and fasting. Now we gave you the extra week there because we know some people had still tamales, they still had sweets at the house, all the things that needed to be gobbled up, right? There was a little bit of sadness last night. You know, we kind of saluted as we threw away the last of the sweets. We're like, you know, it goes, we're like, oh, be well, friends, you know, hearts. Just kidding. But you get the idea is that, you know, as we go to be those who fast, it talks about in scripture how to fast. And and the idea of fasting in the old days was they were they were showing kind of like a penance and they were trying to near draw near to God because of what they had done wrong. And so there'd be a fasting, and you wanted to show other people how miserable you were in fasting. And so people were like, you know, contorting their faces and walking around like, oh, woe is me. I am forlorn. That's how you guys talk, right? At work and stuff with your colleagues. The idea is that it's not that at all. It's actually the opposite of those things, that we need to be those who were doing it as unto God. And so the focus is our heart after God. Matthew 6, 16 says, And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. For they disfigure their faces, and their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. I don't know about you. I've definitely made this mistake in the past where I think I was doing something not for actually doing it out of the goodness of my heart, but how it made me look towards other people. I'm glad I'm the only one. That's good. Good. Praise the Lord. Means you guys are doing it with the right heart. But let's be truthful. I think that's a lot of the optics of how we work in this world is that you want to be seen as a good person who's doing the right things. And as a Christ follower, you want to be some seen as someone who is pious and has a heart that wants to be holy and pure, all the things we're talking about. But here's the deal: if we do it for only the reasons of optics, then we've missed everything. Because we've already got a reward by people being like, oh wow, they really are dedicated. Guess what? That person's not going to be with you whenever you're going through the thing by yourself in your heart, in your room before the Lord. It's you. And so the real part is about you with God and your heart towards the Lord and how honest and open you are with God as you're communicating to him. And I'll tell you, that's the big, the big separation between how we can fast versus other people in other places and how they fast. You know, we lived in the Muslim world for many years, and in doing so, we were a part of iftars, which is the breaking of the fast for those who would fast. And in and some people did it as in an honest heart and trying to seek God in the way that they need to do, though we know that's through Jesus Christ. They were trying to do something and honor that way. Others, it was all about the optics of how they were seen to do things. And I can tell you, if that's all their reward, then that's all their reward is that they only get those ideas of trying to do that thing. But for us, as we go and we're there in our connection with Jesus Christ, the concept is that we would be, Lord, I draw near to you. I do so I do without something good, so I can do for something better, which is spiritual food for my spirit. And the reason we draw near to him in this way is so that we can have a more clear picture of what he's saying. And I can tell you, in our culture that loves food, doing without food is a big deal. In our culture that loves media and loves distraction, doing without distraction in media or social media or scrolling online, all that's a big deal. Because what you're doing is you're trading something you really enjoy for something better, which is more of the spirit of God. And I could tell you, as a pastor who counsels with people and talks with people over these many years, one of the things that we've encountered quite a bit is people would say, Well, Pastor, I really don't have time for that. And I'd be like, Okay. Okay. How much time do you spend watching stuff online? What's your phone time say on screen time? I'm sorry, I'm getting somebody's business. I apologize for that. I'm gonna come over here. It's a little warmer over here, I feel we're all there, right? We're all there. We're all there. And what we don't realize is that if we were to redeem some of that time, redeem that time and be intentional with it in our heart after God, man, what would be the difference in our life as we draw near to God? It continues here in Scripture and it picks up here in verse 17 and 18. It says, But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And so, friends, that's the heart of what we want to do. That's the heart in fasting that we want to do. And that's why I encourage you to participate with us over these next three weeks, is that we would be those that have a heart after God, that the thing that you choose to fast may it maybe be a sun-up to sundown kind of situation, or maybe it would be doing without a specific thing. Maybe it's doing without something you really enjoy, like your time on scrolling on networks or your time on social media. If you're doing without that and you have more time to read the word of God, more time to go into a deep study of the word of the Bible or a book that would encourage you in your circumstances. Any of those things being a really powerful way to fast and to participate in what God wants to do in and through your life. And so, as we talk about that, we also wanted to give people the way to pray or how to pray. And this doesn't have to be a formulaic thing, but it's definitely something that could be a resource for us. And so we want to put that QR code up for everybody. This is a prayer and fasting guide. If you didn't grab it last week, let me encourage you to do so. If you shuffled it down in your pictures, you could retake this photo and let it take you to it. It's a PDF that you could save and just reference as the weeks go by and the days go by. But we want to kind of walk through that today just to give you an example in day one and what that would look like. There'll be a focus for the day. For day today, it's the service, so it's Sunday service. And then there'll be some kind of a scripture. And the scripture will be a highlight. We've been using this scripture for us during this theme as well. Joel 2, we talked about it last week in verses 12 and 13. Yet even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster. Say amen to that. Amen. Continues and it gives us a reflection on this. It says, Today marks the beginning of our 21 days of fasting and prayer. As we embark on this sacred time of drawing closer to God, Joel 2, 12 and 13 reminds us of the importance of sincere repentance and heartfelt devotion. This season is a time for us to return to God with our whole hearts, fasting, weeping, mourning over the sin in our lives, and also rejoicing in the grace, mercy, steadfast love of God in these next 21 days as we prepare our hearts to receive a fresh outpouring of God's presence. May our hearts be open and ready for what God wants to do in us and through us. Then it gives you some prayer points that are there. And the prayer points are something that it just gives you a way to highlight that in your prayer. And you don't have to use the prayer that we have here and read it out loud, but it can be a way to guide us. And so you can see what's happening here. We say, ask God to give you a heart of repentance and humility to in this time of fasting and prayer. Pray the Lord reveal himself and his purpose for you in this season and to pray for our church to experience a fresh move of God's Spirit. Someone say amen to that. And so that's what we're talking about here. And then it gives you an example of prayer. And so that's why I want to encourage you because some people get very hesitant. Maybe you could come out of a Catholic background where only the professional people up front are the ones who pray. But every single one of us can pray. Every one of us can pray. You can pray to the Lord, and he hears you in your circumstances where you are. And so we encourage you in this that you would be someone who prays to the Lord. Don't worry if you get all the words right or wrong. It's okay because he knows your heart and where you are. And so sample prayer says this, and we'll pray this today together. Lord, as we begin this season of fasting and prayer, we come before you with open hearts. We ask you to search us and reveal any areas of our lives that need to be surrendered to you. We repent of anything that separates us from your presence and pray that you would pour out your grace and mercy upon us. Help us to hear your voice clearly during this time and align our hearts with your will. May this time of fasting bring us closer to you and prepare us for all you have in store. In Jesus' name, Amen. So that's what we're doing, and that's what we're talking about. So we encourage you to participate with us. Twenty-one days of prayer and fasting. And I can tell you that it actually happens faster than you think. Some people would think, wow, 21 days. How about this? How about today? Just today. And then tomorrow for tomorrow. Because as we think about it in this big way, it almost becomes impossible. See, our hearts, friends, the focus of this is that we would be pure before God. We want to be those that are in step with him and encountering what he has for us. Want to welcome you today to Cornerstone. My name is Jay. If we haven't met, and it's a blessing to be a part of what God is doing. You know, we talk about often here how none of us is perfect and all of us are in need of a savior. And so we war people that are following after Jesus. And so we use this imagery of Christ walking with his disciples because that's how we see ourselves, as people who are following Jesus, where he's leading us to go. And in doing so, our ambition, both personally and then corporately, is to be more like Jesus. And that's a simple, easy way to say what we're focused on as a community of faith is that we want you to be more like Jesus. I want to be more like Jesus. You want your neighbor to be more like Jesus, your friend to be more like Jesus, the person at work that you hate, I mean you don't like, to be more like Jesus. And why do you want them to be more like Jesus? Because they'll forgive you for when you're doing boneheaded stuff. And you're gonna forgive them, etc. And so we want to be more like Jesus. Hey, in just a few weeks, we actually have uh our life groups coming up. In fact, we have a training for life group leaders in just a little bit. So I want to encourage you to pay attention to the announcements in that way. But we want everyone to be a part of life groups. Why? Because it's easy to come into a big corporate setting like this and never make a friend. You know, a lot of people come late, which I forgive you in the nine o'clock service. In the 11 o'clock, they have no reason why they are late. And they are later than you. I don't know why. I can't convince them to get here earlier. I'm gonna tell everybody it starts at 10 45 so we can start at 11. You guys know what I'm talking about. But let me be intentional that if we do that, if we come late and we leave early, you'll never make a friend. And I want you to be someone who has connections, who lives a life in community together. We're not called to do this life alone. So we wanna be those that are connected to God. We want to connect with God, we want to connect with others. We want to be those that we grow in our relationship with Christ. We want to be those that grow in our relationship with other people. And we want to be those that serve. We want to use our talents, use our abilities for the Lord and our time for the Lord, because that's part of who we are as stewards of God of God. We want to love Him, we want to love God, we want to make disciples, we want to reach the world. And so today, as we continue in this idea of pure, that's our heart. A few weeks back, if you had didn't get a chance to listen to the message, we encourage you to do so. Pastor Celeste shared about finishing strong. And it was a powerful message about those things that we're called to do, not carrying the weights of our past, but instead running with endurance, as it talks about it in Hebrews 12, run with endurance to be those that run the race and finish the race for God. Someone say amen to that. You're not called to carry all the junk from your past into this year. Let's let go of those things and go after him. We talked about what it means to be pure in heart, and in doing so, being those who have hearts that are open and transparent before God. Uh, in Psalm 51, it says this. It says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. You say amen. We talked about specifically our posture and our hearts before God, how we're called to be those that humble ourselves before the Lord. And in doing so, it will be those that we see that as we humble ourselves, he will lift us up. But if we're those who are proud and continue to keep our pride that separates us from God, then it will keep us at a distance. And the reason that happens is because he will keep us at a distance to protect us from his holiness. But instead, let we would in fact embrace his forgiveness, embrace his work that he wants to do in our lives so we can draw near to God. Amen. Today we continue with this idea, asking that question what are your priorities? Priorities. Now, priorities is an interesting concept because it means something unique to each person. You can see the definition of it here. It says the factor condition of being regarded as treating is more important. So as we start to be those that create checklists of what's important in our life, um, how many people, your checklist is the exact same thing as how you live it out? This is honest crowd, no one's raising their hand. How many people you have a checklist, but it may not be exactly how you live it out? Now you make a good checklist, it's very robust, very good, but then you find that your checklist might not be the thing that you're focused on. And so, you know, it's like you need like this guy who is in all of our training materials of everywhere, of every business. It's like, focus on your priority set, right? It's like, what is your yield off of what you're doing in your life? What are you doing with your time? How is that yielding back to us? And so today, as we talk about priorities, we want to look to scripture and what it says for us. I'm gonna encourage you to open your Bible, your tablet, your phone. We're looking today at Matthew 6, continuing in the words of Jesus and his teaching for us. Matthew 6, verse 19 says this do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. And I think we can understand where this is coming from. Because for us, it's what we live our life for, that is our treasure. And so whatever we are those working hard for, we trade our time for money, whatever you spend your money on, that becomes a priority, or where you spend your time is a priority. And so it becomes a reflection of what really is a priority to our life is what do you spend your money and your time on. And so essentially I can go to your schedule and follow you around for a week and see what you spend your time on, and then look and see what your report on your on your debit or your credit card says, and pretty much get an understanding of what is valuable to you. And the reason is because I can see are you spending your time with your family, you're spending your time on yourself, are you spending your time uh bettering yourself, are you spending your time just, you know, couch potatoing it up? What are you doing with your life, with your time? And what are you doing with your money? So if you're spending your money and doing good things or giving to the Lord or or investing so you can see a return on that, or or making wise decisions for your family, making a way for the future, or if you're just blowing it on whatever comes across your marketing. Nobody's guilty. People raising their hands like But that's why we have algorithms, right? They want to market to you the very best. They're like, oh, are you have somebody you have some good network? Okay, are you afraid of losing it? Okay, I'm gonna market all these things to you. Oh, you don't have any money at all, you want to get rich quick, or I'm gonna market this stuff to you. Like, oh, you finally have a little bit of margin in your life. Let me give you all these trinkets and gadgets and stuff you can blow your money on that you really won't care about in three weeks. But you're definitely gonna buy them. Because you're tired and you should go to sleep, but you're still on your phone. I'm gonna go back to scripture. How about you guys? Is this good? Okay. Matthew 6, 21 says, For where your treasure is, your heart will be. We also. And I think we all know this is that wherever we put the most valuable thing, most valuable thing we have is time. The second of that would be what we do with what we trade our time for. So that would be with our resources. And in doing those things, we can see where our treasure is. That's why it continues in Matthew 6, 25. It says, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious. It's talking about how the Lord will be the one who's on your behalf. He is the one who is the important thing. Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body or what you put on. It is not life more than food and the body more than clothing. And then I asked that question again what are your priorities? And I could tell you, as someone who reads that, and man, I like clothes, I like shoes, I like fashion. That's one of the things I would skip lunch to have is more shoes in my life. I have, I will. If you guys ever see my secret connection, you'd be like, good Lord God, help this man. Why? Because it's one of those things like I like it. Isn't that am I doing without giving to do that? No, because that's a priority that comes out first. We give to the Lord first. And then we have made a commitment to kingdom builders that's gonna come out second. And we're gonna pay all of our bills. And at the very end, if there's margin, then Celeste and I, we give ourselves an allowance, and that's the money I get to blow on whatever. So if it's more bullets or if it's golf balls or if it's shoes, that's where those things go. And I'll tell you, like, it becomes the thing where God starts to deal with me about not about all this other stuff, I'm fine with all of that. We even have margin that's there, where if God talks to us and it's like, hey, I want you to give this specific thing, we're like, no problem. But if God's like, hey, I want you to give your pocket money, you know, like the money that you can blow on you. I want you to give that money today. I'm like, God, you know, I don't not really carry a wallet right now. Um He's like, cool, use your app. I'm like, yeah, my passcode is just not working. Super weird. No, then you have to be, you know, I was talking to a friend this week and he was giving me a great example. He said, you know, there's a movie where in the in the in the end of the movie, it's a really old movie called Ghost, and and uh Wibby Goldberg, her her person is giving a check over to a nun, and she she's holding on to the check, she won't let go of the check. You know, she's supposed to give it to her, and the and the the person takes it to take it out of her hand and she just won't let go of it. And I think about how often sometimes I'm like, it's over a stupid amount, too. It'd be something really small. And if I can't trust him with that, if he can't trust me with that, then how can he trust me with more? And so I have to be willing to let go of the folded up hundred in my wallet or whatever it is in your context. If we don't do that, how can he trust us with more? If we have time and we don't give our time, how could he give you more to be able to deal with something else? What we'll do is we'll just spend it on more stuff that takes us away from God. I've unfortunately seen it in my friends and in my own life and other situations where the more resources we got took us into other things that took us away from God because we had more play. But here's the thing, I think sometimes God will help me by not making, if I'm not making good decisions, he won't give me more resources to take me away from his presence already because I'm already focused that other direction. But instead, he'll bring someone who's like, no, no, you stay locked up to me. Guess what? You can have all the resources you need. You can have way more than that because I trust you that it's not gonna ruin your heart. I've seen many, many people become a multimillionaire and they are no longer in step with God, though he is the source of their wealth. Friends, don't be that. Don't be that. I want all of you to thrive. I want all of you to have the blessing of God that outpaces you that you could never spend. But your heart would remain with him. Your heart would be the king's. Today we're talking about this idea of priorities, giving you this example. You might have seen it before. When I was in sales and marketing, uh, they had this thing. We went through training that talked about this for us and how we spent our time, how we spent our effort. And it's this idea of priorities. You probably have seen it, you might have seen it. And it's this idea of your life and its contents. Like you almost have so much contents. You can kind of see it that's here. You have sand and pebbles, rocks, and a jar. And the concept is that you have this jar, it becomes the totality of all that you have time for and bandwidth for in your life. And in doing so, it becomes something that helps us understand what that looks like and how we do what we do. And I could tell you as we start to unpack this bag that's beneath me here, it starts to be something really important because we start to pull out these important things to us, which is all the rocks in our lives. And the rocks are important because each one of them is something that we're like, hey, I can't do without this. Like this is important. These are really important pieces. If I lose those, then I've lost everything in my life. So I have to make them a priority. And so we understand that these rocks are a priority, but many times it's not the rocks that go in first. It's actually this other stuff that starts to eat us up. And the things that eat us up is stuff like stress and anxiety. And the reason it starts to eat us up is because it starts to clamor on our emotions. And so you guys might have seen this before, but you know, we start to pour these things in, it starts to take up a lot of space in our life. Way more space than it should. In fact, it's one of these things that if we if we focus on this stuff and it starts to go in first, and it will mess up everything. If this becomes a priority and we start stressing about everything that's going on, then the other stuff, it hasn't even made it in yet. And then you have these other things, like these little emergencies that start to happen. And you know, the scripture talks about it like they're little foxes that spoil the vine. It's all these little problems, little issues that happen, and man, it just starts to really have an effect. And I can tell you, man, it's like, whew, well, that's dusty too. You can see how it could be a big, big problem. Because here's the thing, I'm like, oh, no big deal. There's still some space in there. I can still get the important stuff. I mean, like, you know, things like my faith. I can have my priority of faith. I can put that in there. And you know, my my priority, my family, man, I can put my family in there, we can get in there. Wait a minute. It's starting to be a problem. What about my friends? Um I mean, I care about my friends, I want my friends to know Jesus, and I I mean my finances, I I want my finances to be in good order. And the things that I'm focused on in my life, I need them to work out. Uh-oh. There's too much life for life. And the reason that this works this way is because this is the wrong order. And if if we focus first on the things that stress us out, if we so focused on the things, these little problems and issues that come into us, friends, we can never really get the important things in our life dealt with first. They're not included. And so, whenever people are like, Man, I don't have enough time for faith, yeah, that's because you left faith for last. Man, I really can't reach my friend. That's because you left it for last. I'm not great with my finances. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. We left it for last. I'm guilty. How about you? But here's the deal the Lord, when we draw near to him, what does it say? If you lack wisdom, let us ask of God. And he will pour it out generously to us. And so when we start to think about this differently, when we start to arrange these things differently, man, it changes all the difference. And you start to say, okay, so these things are in my life. Okay, so we're gonna put my faith in, my family, man, super, super important. My family, uh, right there. Okay, I need to get, wow, I need to have my friends, man, that they would know Jesus. I want to make sure that they're good to go. I want to make sure that my finances are right with God. I want to make sure that, wow, the focus of my life, all the things I'm responsible for, dealt with. And then it starts to change because all this other stuff, well, actually, this stuff is still in life. How many people know that this stuff's still coming, whether or not we like it to go? And so as that stuff starts to happen to us again, well, now we have a different situation for it because now we're not dealing with it in the same way. So those foxes that come along, man, they come along, they're still coming. The problems are still coming, the phone call is still coming, still gonna mess with you. We see it happen all the time. But here, now it starts to fill in in our life, and all the major stuff's still in there. And then all those anxieties and all that stress, sometimes that stuff still gets to you. And it's still there in your life. But guess what? Now it just starts to fill in between all the cracks and all the things. And all of our important stuff's still there. All the major focus of what we're supposed to have with our priorities is still there. It doesn't matter how much of this stuff comes, it just keeps on dripping in there. And guess what? Now, before we were up here, now we have margin in our life to deal with everything that's going on. Friends, if we can get our priorities right, it'll change everything for us. If we can get our priorities right, it'll change our whole situation. And this can be the focus for our life, where everything fits and we have margin to spare because we listen to the order in which God has given it to us. Can someone say amen to that? So let's talk about it for a moment here with our priorities. First priority is faith. We talked about it there, how our faith is our priority. Why is it our priority? Because if you get out of alignment with your faith, if you say, Oh, actually, family first. Friends, if it's family first, then you're gonna be messed up because your faith is out of alignment. Actually, your life with God is eternal. Your family's life with God is eternal. And so we need to have him first above everything else. Did you know if you put God first, it makes your marriage better? It makes your relationship with your children better, your relationship with your grandchildren better, with all your people around you. You know how crazy you make your family? You know how crazy they make you? Can you imagine that without Jesus? It's called reality television. It happens all the time. You guys can see it. Just turn it on. The second thing that we know, of course, we talked about faith, it's also family. So family is another major, major one. Why? Because that is exactly what God uses as a building block for our whole society. That's why the enemy attacks the family, the nuclear family wants to tear it apart. Because whenever you don't have the nuclear family in alignment with God, then everything goes awry. No one's caring for anyone. Everyone is trying to do their own thing. They're fighting at all odds, and it tears us apart. That's why we want to have families that are focused on Jesus. In fact, in a few weeks, we're gonna be talking about that idea right there: a family that loves Jesus. The third is our friends. Man, God has given us relationships. We want to be those that connect. And so we're called to be those who are a good friend to other people. That we are those that will go the extra mile, that we will be those that help people in their time of need, that we mourn with them, they celebrate with us, et cetera. We walk in step together. We already talked about our finances, but our finances would be another one of those priorities for us. Another priority would be finances. Let me encourage you in this. We've done it from time to time. I'm thankful for Laura, who's led it for us, but Financial Peace University is one of those things that's a good tool that you can use to get out of debt and to get into a place where you are walking free of the pressures of your finances on your life. And that's Dave Ramsey, he's a believer, and he walks you in step with these things of getting rid of all the other stuff so you can walk in step with him. You can be free. And once you're free of these things, man, you can be so much more generous because you have the ability to do so. The last example we'll give here is our focus. It's the things that God gives you that you're responsible for. It's the things that he has for your life. The reason that you have a plan and a purpose, he's like, hey, I want you to do this thing. And when we get out of misalignment, then those are the things that drift away. And then we wonder why we don't feel fulfilled is because this thing is fighting against us. We want to be those who do the focus that God has given us with excellence. And we live that, that purpose for God. And then the anxiety that comes, well, guess what? We can cast our cares upon Him because He is there for us. And that stuff just drifts out of the way. Those little problems, those small foxes that come, then we can deal with it and we can fit it around the major stuff instead of making it a priority first. How many people know that you can choose to make it what is a priority in your life? So, friends, let's be those that make the right priority that's here. But to continue in scripture in that same piece in Matthew 6, now in verse 31, it says, Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles, they live after these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Friends, he knows that you need it. He knows that you can't walk out the house with no clothes on. He is aware of it. So he's gonna help you to provide for you. And so the thing is, if we put alignment, seek first the kingdom of God, all this other stuff starts to happen. And that's the next piece in Matthew 6, 33. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Let's put that in there. Let's say righteousness together. Righteousness. What does it say? Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That's his right standing. It means the purity of God. Seek forth, seek those things, and when you seek that first, all the stuff can be added. And so that means that the thing, like you know, the nice car, the nice house, the nice thing, the cool place, no big deal. No big deal. It's a blessing in your life. Why? Not a negative thing at all. Not a negative thing at all. Because guess what? Your heart is with God. So now what how how in the early church when they met together, they didn't have great facilities like this where people they could do this. Well, it was it was in people's homes. How do you house a hundred people in a church? Well, you have a house that can fit a hundred people. How do you go and you sell your land to give to the church to happen? Well, you had land to start with. And so what did that mean? That means that people had resources. So it's not wrong that we have resources. It's will we live for them or just use them as a tool for God? So, friends, I want you to be blessed. I want you to own all the street uh street corners on everything. Let your blessing of your business be manifest in this year. But here's the thing if it's gonna take you away from God, I'm gonna ask that you would have a heart after him first. So that the very thing that he wants to use as a resource and a blessing in your life doesn't become a God little G in your life. But instead, that your priorities would be correct. It continues here in Scripture in Matthew 6, 34. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. And people know that is true. It says, sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Friends, we are called to be those who cast our cares on him because he cares for us. That we get our priorities set right first. It's the words of Jesus we're reading today. That we would be those that align with the very things that our Savior told us to do. So when we ask that question, what are your priorities? And it goes back to that scripture that we talked about today in Joel 2. Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart with fasting and prayer. Friends, that we would tear our hearts before him. Not the outward sign that we're doing it, but the real work of tearing our heart before God and making him be the priority for our lives. We have a video for you.

Video: 35:47

What we have, we have been given to keep and to carry. God has given us a song of joy, but it's up to us to sing it. God has given us a language of hope, but it's our mission to speak it. God has written us a love letter overflowing with wisdom and freedom and truth, but it's in our hands to deliver it. Our King, our Savior, has redeemed and revived our souls, rewriting the stories of our lives with the divine purpose of reaching others. And the riches He has put in our hands, he has given us to keep and to carry. God has given us an unthinkable mercy, and it's our calling to extend it. God has given us the good news of Jesus, and it's our purpose to announce it. God has given us life and life abundant to savor and to share, to rejoice and to reflect. What we have, we have been given to keep and to carry.

Jason Brown: 37:32

And that he would be the priority in our lives. Friends, that we would be those that come to him with pure hearts, with pure hands in our worship of the Almighty. Today we have this opportunity to respond to his love. And before we come into this altar and seek more of his presence, I want to give it an opportunity for you that are here, that have yet to make a decision to ask Christ into your life. Friends, each one of us has to answer that question of have you embraced Jesus? It's what makes us in right standing, is that it separates us from every other people that are religious on the planet, is that we are those who embrace the living God and his work for us. And that's possible because Jesus came and he lived a sinless life. He came to us, as we just talked about in this Christmas season, in a way that we could receive him. And then he living a sinless life, he took on all of our sin and all of our shame, all of our brokenness, all of our mistakes. And he did so so that we could be made back into relationship with the living God. And so Jesus, the holy sacrifice, he takes on the sin, not just uh of those around him immediately, but for all of us, for all people, for all time. And that's why the symbol of the cross for Christians is so powerful, because the cross is the place where Jesus took our sin and he paid for it once and for all. The symbol of intimidation and fear that was meant by the Romans to be a symbol of their power becomes flipped on his head, an upside-down kingdom where Christ becomes the sacrifice. He takes on all of our brokenness, and in that way, he pays for it. As he dies, so does our sin. But friends, he is not dead, but he is alive. And so we have a living relationship with God, and in doing so, we walk with him and trust him in what he's doing and what he is saying. It says this in Scripture in Romans 10, 9 and 10, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Friends, that's your opportunity today to embrace the love of a living God who gave up all of the majesty of heaven to come down and become a sacrifice for each one of us. And the amazing thing. Is that we can't earn it, we can't buy it. It's only by his grace that we can receive it. And it's by faith that we say, Jesus, I believe you are who you say you are. Lord, I ask you to come into my life and to forgive me of my sin, to make me a new creation. And when we do that and we start that new relationship with God by asking for forgiveness, placing our faith and trust in him, it says that you are made new and you're born again in your spirit. Friends, that's my hope and heart for every single one of us that we would embrace the love of Christ, invite him into our heart and life. I'm asking everyone if you're here in the room, if you'd stand, wherever you're at online, if you'd take a pause for what God wants to do in your life right now. In recent weeks, we've had people, all sorts of people, make a decision to follow Jesus. We're so very thankful for that. People reporting online that they made a decision to follow Jesus in this past year. So thankful for that. Today, friends, for you that are here, that you would have this opportunity to respond to his love as well. As Christians are praying and heads are bowed here in the room. If that's you, you say, Pastor, I just want to be included in that prayer today. I want to invite Christ into my heart and life. You just indicate that. If maybe it's the very first time, maybe it's you're making a recommitment to him. If that's you, if you just raise your hand, right where you're at. Say, Pastor, that's me. I want to be included in this prayer. I want to invite Christ into my life today. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. We see the hands that are there making decisions, making decisions for Christ. Thank you, God. Thank you, Lord, others, friends online, wherever you are. Praise the Lord. I'm gonna ask everyone if they would, if they prayed this prayer out loud after me. Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Friends, we rejoice with you. Make a decision to follow Jesus today. Those that made that commitment today, praise the Lord. Praise God. Hey, if that was you, take a moment, take a shot of this QR code. Want to be a resource for you here on the screen. I have decided to follow Jesus and let that be a blessing to you. Today, as we come to this altar and respond during this song, we have this opportunity to draw near to God. At the start of this fast, I'd ask that every person would come make an altar with God, that they'd say, Lord, that you would have your way in my heart and my life. Reveal to me anything that's separating me from you, and so that I can make you be a priority in my life, to get my priorities straight, so that I can live this life and thrive in the presence of God. Lord, we thank you for your presence. We thank you for your wisdom and your impartation of your words to us today through Scripture. Holy Spirit, thank you for making it alive and Rhema and challenging us in how we live our lives. Lord, that we would not be those riddled with anxiety or letting them take priority in our life or the small things, the problems of different kinds taking priority. But instead, Lord, we place you first. Lord, and that you would help us and empower us, Lord, as we focus on our family and our friendships. Lord, help us in our finances and our focus that you give us, Lord, for all of our responsibilities. Lord, we come to this altar and make a place with you, asking for impartation, pouring out your presence upon us as we prayed earlier together. Lord, we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Celeste Brown: 43:40

Today we are having party with the pastor. So immediately following this service, you can join us if you've been a guest for the last few weeks and we have not had a chance to meet you yet, or you have not met our team. We're gonna be meeting on the east side of the building down the hallway. If you have children, we ask you to go grab them first and then meet us there. It's quick, it's informal, but it's just a chance for us to say hello, tell you a little bit about the church, answer any questions you may have.

Jason Brown: 44:05

Amen. Before we go, we're gonna pray this blessing over us. The Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Lord, lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray a blessing upon your church, your people. Lord, you empower us by your Spirit to live your love out to those around us. We pray all this in the powerful name that is Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Know this. We love you very much here at Cornerstone. God bless you and have a great week.