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Your Truth | Cornerstone Church | Pastor Linn Winters · Rewind

Cornerstone Church

60 min

Linn Winters · Nov 25, 2025 · 4 min read · 60 min listen

The big idea

Trading what is actually true for "my truth" — what I feel or have decided is true — always leaves life smaller than God intended, so we must trade our truth for God's.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7"My truth" means exchanging what is actually true for what I've decided is true
Point 2 of 7Living your truth is living in self-deception

Point 3 of 7We have an enemy who wants us to doubt God's truth and replace it with our own
Point 4 of 7Following our own truth creates our own struggle and pain
Point 5 of 7Your opinion has never made anything true
Point 6 of 7Truth, not feeling, must come first and then guide everything else
Point 7 of 7Moses had to trade his own truth for God's truth to fulfill his calling
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

Matthew 7:24-27
Proverbs 14:12
1 Peter 5:8
Jeremiah 17:9
John 8:31-32

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Linn Winters · Nov 25, 2025 · 60 min watch · 2 min read

Your Truth | Cornerstone Church | Pastor Linn Winters

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Matthew 7:24-27
Proverbs 14:12
1 Peter 5:8
Jeremiah 17:9
John 8:31-32

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Trading what is actually true for "my truth" — what I feel or have decided is true — always leaves life smaller than God intended, so we must trade our truth for God's.

God's truth, not our own feelings or experiences, is the only safe foundation for life. When we exchange what is actually true for what we've decided is true, we deceive ourselves, create our own pain, and diminish the life God intended — but when we trade our truth for His, like Moses did, we find freedom and purpose instead.

Key points

1
1"My truth" means exchanging what is actually true for what I've decided is true
Pastor Linn defines the popular phrase 'my truth' as people leaning on their own feelings and experiences over what God has said. He gives examples: someone judging a race based on one bad encounter, someone justifying addiction because of the euphoria it first gave them, and a couple justifying premarital sex because 'it's fun' and feels like it deepens their relationship.
2
2Living your truth is living in self-deception
Working through Proverbs 14:12, Pastor Linn shows that a way can appear right and still lead to death — spiritual, relational, or unmet potential. He illustrates this with his own experience getting an instrument flight rating and the true story of JFK Jr., who ignored his plane's instruments, trusted what he felt, and crashed into the ocean because he trusted feeling over fact.
3
3We have an enemy who wants us to doubt God's truth and replace it with our own
From 1 Peter 5:8, Pastor Linn warns that Satan doesn't need people to become Satanists — he just needs them to doubt God and become their own god. He retells the Genesis account of Eve at the tree, showing how the serpent distorted God's love and provision until Eve traded truth for her own conclusion.
4
4Following our own truth creates our own struggle and pain
Citing Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful above all things, Pastor Linn retells the story of David and Bathsheba, showing how David's heart told him 'I need her,' overriding God's truth, leading to adultery, murder, a dead child, and eventually his own son's rebellion.
5
5Your opinion has never made anything true
Pastor Linn shares a personal story from age 16 telling his mother that Billy Graham was not a good Christian, only to be humbled by her response and later, as an adult, seeing the vast scope of Graham's ministry at a museum. He uses this to show that strongly holding an opinion doesn't make it correct.
6
6Truth, not feeling, must come first and then guide everything else
Pastor Linn points to Jesus's own words that heaven and earth will pass away before Scripture fails, then reads John 8:31-32 that knowing and holding to Jesus's truth sets people free, while living by one's own truth leads to chains.
7
7Moses had to trade his own truth for God's truth to fulfill his calling
Pastor Linn walks through Moses's story: his frustration that God seemed absent from Israel's suffering, his own truth that led him to murder an Egyptian, forty years tending sheep, and then the burning bush where God commissioned him. Moses initially answers with his own truth ('I can't, I'm a criminal'), but when he instead trades it for God's truth, he goes on to lead Israel out of Egypt and becomes one of history's most revered leaders.

Application

Pastor Linn frames the charge as a trade: find where you've chosen your truth over God's, and trade it.

Ask God to reveal your own truth
During the five minutes of daily prayer challenged the week before, ask God to show any place you've chosen to live your own truth instead of His.
Trade your truth for God's when He shows you
When God reveals a place of self-deception, set aside your belief, feelings, and perception, and simply live in what God has actually said.
Start with truth, then let it guide you
Rather than starting with feelings or opinions and bending truth to fit them, begin with what God's word actually says and let it shape your conclusions and perceptions.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

Paraphrase of the transcript
Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise. Like a person who builds a house on a solid rock, and that solid rock is Jesus... it will collapse with a mighty crash.
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“There's a way that appears to be right but in the end, it leads to death”
From the transcript
“in a sober mind, your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, someone”
Paraphrase of the transcript
the heart, the heart is deceitful... above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it.
From the transcript
“Jesus said, if you hold to my teachings, you will really be my disciples and then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

Pastor Linn opened with a simple picture: two builders, two houses, one storm. The difference wasn't the storm — the rain fell on both. The difference was the foundation. Jesus says the wise builder is the one who hears His words "and follows it" (NLT), while the foolish builder hears and ignores. It's easy to imagine the foolish builder was lazy or careless, but sand feels solid enough on a clear day. That's the quiet danger. Our own feelings and experiences can feel like a perfectly good place to build a life — until weather comes and shows us what we were standing on. This week isn't about scolding ourselves for wanting solid ground; wanting security is deeply human. It's about honestly asking what we've been building on. God's truth isn't offered as a burden but as bedrock — something that holds when the rain and floods arrive, and they do arrive for everyone. Before we examine any specific corner of our lives, it helps to simply admit that a foundation matters, and to want the one that lasts. That's where the week begins: not with a verdict, but with a question about where our house sits.

For reflection

When has a "storm" in my life revealed something about what I'd actually been building on?

Pray

Ask God for an honest look at the foundation your life is built on.

Day 2

"There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death" (NLT). Pastor Linn lingered on that word seems. A way can look right, feel right, and still lead somewhere we never intended to go. He told of earning his instrument flight rating, where a pilot learns to trust the instruments over what his own body is telling him — because in the clouds, feelings lie. He pointed to JFK Jr., who trusted what he felt instead of what his instruments read, and lost his life over the water. The lesson wasn't that feelings are worthless; it's that feelings make a poor final authority. Self-deception rarely announces itself. It doesn't feel like deception — it feels like clarity, like conviction, like "I just know." That's exactly what makes Proverbs 14:12 worth sitting with slowly. The verse doesn't call us stupid; it names something true about being human in a world where the obvious path and the good path aren't always the same. Learning to read the "instruments" of God's word, especially when our instincts pull the other way, isn't a lack of faith. It's the beginning of wisdom, and it can quietly save us from grief we'd otherwise walk straight into.

For reflection

Where am I currently trusting how something feels over what God has actually said?

Pray

Ask God to show you a path that seems right to you but may not be His.

Day 3

"Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour" (NLT). Pastor Linn made a striking observation from this verse: our enemy doesn't need us to reject God outright. He doesn't need anyone to become his open follower. He just needs us to doubt God quietly, until we drift toward becoming our own god — the final authority on what's true for us. Look back at the garden in Genesis. The serpent didn't hand Eve a philosophy; he asked a question. "Did God really say..." He nudged the frame until God's love and provision looked like withholding, and Eve traded God's word for her own conclusion. Notice how gentle the tactic is. There's no lightning, no obvious evil — just a slow reframing until the truth seems negotiable. That's why Peter says stay alert. Not anxious, not paranoid — alert. Being watchful isn't the same as being afraid; it's simply refusing to let doubt narrate our lives unchallenged. When a whisper starts making God's goodness feel suspect, that whisper deserves scrutiny, not agreement. We're not left defenseless in this. We're told to watch, and told Whose we are while we do.

For reflection

What subtle "did God really say..." question has been reshaping how I see His goodness?

Pray

Ask God to make you alert to the whispers that turn His goodness into suspicion.

Day 4

"The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (NLT). We live in a culture that tells us to follow our hearts, so this verse can land hard. But Pastor Linn used it not as an insult but as a warning label — the heart is a compass that can point confidently in the wrong direction. He walked through David and Bathsheba. David's heart said, "I need her," and that felt like truth in the moment. But following it led to adultery, to a man's murder, to a child's death, and eventually to a son's rebellion. The heart didn't warn him; it justified him. That's the sobering part. Our desires are skilled at building a case for what we already want, dressing appetite up as need. This isn't about treating ourselves as hopelessly corrupt or beyond God's love — David was still called a man after God's own heart. It's about holding our own conclusions a little more loosely, especially the ones that conveniently give us what we crave. When the heart says "I need this," it's worth pausing to ask whether that's God's truth talking, or a desire that's learned to sound like one.

For reflection

Where might my heart be building a convincing case for something I simply want?

Pray

Ask God to help you tell the difference between a real need and a desire wearing that disguise.

Day 5

"You are truly My disciples if you remain faithful to My teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (NLT). Pastor Linn set this promise against everything the week has surfaced. Living by our own truth doesn't lead to freedom — it leads to chains, even when it markets itself as liberation. Jesus flips the order we usually assume. We tend to start with what we feel or want and then bend truth to fit it. Jesus says start with His truth, hold to it, and let it lead you into freedom. Notice the condition isn't a one-time agreement but a remaining — a continuing to hold on. Freedom here isn't the absence of limits; it's the security of standing on what's actually real. Pastor Linn even shared how at sixteen he confidently declared Billy Graham a poor Christian, only to be humbled years later seeing the scope of that ministry. Strongly holding an opinion never made it true. That's oddly freeing. It means we don't have to defend our every conclusion to the death; we can let some of them go and take hold of something sturdier. Truth first, then everything else — that's the road out of the chains we didn't even know we were wearing.

For reflection

What conclusion am I holding tightly that I've never actually tested against what Jesus said?

Pray

Ask God for the freedom that comes from starting with His truth instead of your own.

Day 6

Related passage

Pastor Linn walked through Moses at the burning bush. By then Moses had a well-formed version of his own truth. He'd been frustrated that God seemed absent from Israel's suffering. He'd acted on his own truth and killed an Egyptian. Forty years of tending sheep followed — plenty of time for a man to conclude he was finished, disqualified, a criminal with no future in God's plans. So when God commissioned him, Moses answered with that truth: I can't, look at who I am. What moves the story forward is the moment Moses sets his truth down and picks up God's. God's truth about Moses was bigger than Moses's truth about himself. "I will be with you" (NLT) reframed everything Moses thought disqualified him. This is the trade Pastor Linn kept naming all week — not a self-improvement project, but an exchange. We hand God our verdict on ourselves and receive His. And notice: God didn't argue Moses out of his fear or pretend the past didn't happen. He simply offered His presence as the truer fact. Whatever version of "I can't, because of who I am" we carry, it's worth holding up next to what God actually says about those He calls.

For reflection

What "I can't, because of who I am" story am I telling that God might be ready to trade for His?

Pray

Ask God to trade your verdict about yourself for what He actually says about you.

Day 7

Tomorrow the ordinary week starts again — the commute, the inbox, the conversations that catch us off guard. That's exactly where this lands. Jesus said the wise builder "listens to My teaching and follows it" (NLT), and following is a Monday-morning verb. Pastor Linn framed the whole week as a trade, and a trade isn't a feeling; it's a decision made in real moments. This week, in the five minutes of daily prayer, there's a simple, un-dramatic practice available: ask God to show one place you've been living your own truth, and when He shows it, actually set your version down and live in what He's said instead. Not all of it at once. Just the next thing He reveals. It might surface at work when your instincts insist you're right, or at home when your heart makes its confident case, or alone when an old verdict about yourself resurfaces. In each of those, the building happens in the choosing — truth first, then let it shape what you conclude and do next. Storms will still come; Jesus never promised otherwise. He promised the house on rock stands. So the forward question isn't "did I understand the sermon" but "where, this week, will I quietly make the trade?"

For reflection

What is one specific moment likely coming this week where I can choose God's truth over my own?

Pray

Ask God, in your daily prayer this week, to reveal one place to make the trade — and for the will to make it.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Pastor Linn told the true story of a pilot who trusted what he felt over what his instruments told him and flew his plane into the ocean. When have you had to trust a gauge, a map, or a set of directions over your own sense of where you were going?

Discussion questions

1
Read Proverbs 14:12 aloud together. What does this verse say about the difference between how a path seems and where it actually leads?
2
Pastor Linn defined 'my truth' as exchanging what is actually true for what we've decided is true. What are some everyday ways people lean on feelings or experience instead of what God has said?
3
In the story of Eve at the tree, how does the serpent go about getting her to doubt God's love and provision, and where do people hear those same whispers today?
4
Read John 8:31-32 aloud. What does Jesus connect knowing and holding to His truth with, and why might that lead to freedom rather than restriction?
5
Moses first answered God's call with his own truth ('I can't, I'm a criminal') before trading it for God's. What changes for a person when they start with what God has said instead of with their own conclusions?
6
Pastor Linn framed the challenge as a trade — asking God to reveal a place where we've chosen our own truth, then setting it aside for His. How might our group encourage one another to keep starting with God's word rather than bending it to fit how we feel?

Pray together

Ask God to show each of us, gently, where we've been living on our own truth, and for the courage to trade it for His and rest on that firmer foundation.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Where these passages are preached

Matthew 7 Proverbs 14 1 Peter 5 Jeremiah 17

Explore related topics

God's Word Self-Deception Surrender Truth

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