The Bible

We believe that the Bible is God’s holy and inspired word. It is inspired in a unique way. Some might say that some author is inspired or inspiring, but when we say we believe that God has inspired the words of Scripture we mean something much more than that. We hold the Bible to be God’s true and trustworthy word which is a faithful and reliable guide in all matters of faith and practice. It is His love letter to His people. It is “living and active…” It is actually a composite of 66 books which give the rich record of God’s dealing with His creation. It contains history, poetry, law, prophesy, and letters. Through about 40 authors and nearly 2,000 years God chose to reveal Himself to man. From beginning to end it is “profitable for reproof, correction, instruction, and training in righteousness.” The Bible has been supernaturally preserved for us, and faithful scholars have plumbed the depths of its meaning. We “study to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed.” This means we regularly hear, read, study, memorize, and meditate on God’s word because we believe that God still speaks to His people through His word. The Bible is central in our preaching, and teaching. We encourage individual members to read God’s word, and to test everything we teach against the authority of God’s word. We attempt to apply it to our daily lives. We marvel at the miracle of how the Bible has come down to us. Today, it is available to the majority of the people of the world in their heart language. We believe that the major translations of God’s word into our modern tongues accurately convey the words that God intends us to have. We advocate study in a variety of good translations and conservative commentaries to draw out the meaning for our lives. We also urge a consistent use of one translation for devotional reading as an aid to memorization. It is through God’s word that the Holy Spirit can lead us to salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.

God

We believe that God is Spirit and those who worship Him must do so in spirit and truth. God is the Creator and Sustainer of all that is. He has revealed Himself to man as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The term “Trinity” does not show up in Scripture, but the concept is surely taught there. Jesus is identified as “The Word made flesh and dwelt among us…” The Apostle John said of Jesus, “… He was in the beginning with God, and was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made…” The Bible also describes the Spirit’s roll in creation. Jesus spoke often of the Father and of the Spirit. We believe that God is One, and there is none like Him. Many have a hard time conceiving of this, and think we worship three Gods, but the early church came to understand that the Eternal and All Powerful God who is before all others revealed Himself to us as One in three Persons.

Father

We want to be sure that we read this concept of God in the right direction. Not everyone has had a good earthly father, and so we must be careful as we share that God is “Our Father, who is in heaven…” It is important to draw the ideal of an earthly father from the concept of our heavenly father, and not the other way around. Jesus even spoke of His Father and used a most intimate expression much like a child might lovingly refer to her “Daddy.” He taught us that God loves us and has compassion towards us “…like a father has pity on his children.”

Son

Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God’s unique, “one of a kind” Son. The baby born in Bethlehem, whose coming we celebrate with Christmas, grew up and became the One known as the Christ, which is the Greek term for the Hebrew concept of the Messiah, or God’s Anointed. In fulfillment of hundreds of Old Testament prophesies, Jesus came and was “Immanuel,” God with us. He lived a sinless life, and died on the cross as a substitute for sin. He rose from the dead that first Easter Sunday, and ascended to the Father “… where He ever lives to make intercession for us.” He will come again to receive His people to Himself, and reign in glory. No one knows the time of His return, so we should be watching, and faithfully following Him, and working, and praying that His kingdom of love will come on earth as it is in heaven.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is not some impersonal force as some believe, but is referred to variously as the “Spirit of Jesus,” or the “Spirit of the Lord.” We believe that God is present and active in the world, and by His Spirit He draws people to faith in Jesus as God’s only hope of salvation. No one can be saved apart from the work of the Spirit of God. He is also referred to as “the Spirit of Adoption” by whom we call on God as “Abba, our Father.” He comforts us and is therefore also called “the Helper,” or “Comforter.” We should not fear that the Spirit of God will cause us to do things which are foolish and irrational. The Spirit is who God is. Of course, when we yield to God, and are filled and controlled by God, we may speak boldly for Christ. The world always thinks that is foolishness. We are instructed to “speak to one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, always making melody in our hearts to God… and to be thankful…” To express thanksgiving for all things, and to sing praises to God is evidence of the Spirit of God working in us the fruit of the Spirit; God’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self control.

Man

Man is created in God’s image and has the capacity to respond to Him. But through disobedience God’s good creation was marred, and we all now live in a fallen world, affected by sin. Some ask how God could be all powerful and all loving when there is such evil in the world. God did not make us to be little robots without the capacity to choose to love, and obey Him. But because God decided to give us the freedom to choose to respond to Him; that opened the door for the possibility that sin would come in. Sin brings death, and all of us are tainted by sin, because we are all sinners. We live in a world where sin is so pervasive that it is practically impossible for anyone to remain innocent for very long. We all soon come to realize that we ourselves are actually guilty, because we all fail to keep God’s Law. Because we are created by God, and since He has shown such incredible mercy towards us all, we should realize that every human being is potentially a child of God through faith in Christ. God has “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” We are all His by virtue of His creation. Everyone can be His through faith in Christ. “Whosoever will may come.” This means that all people should be afforded respect and dignity, regardless of their circumstances, culture, race, ethnicity, or religious upbringing. It should not surprise us when unregenerate mankind acts in sinful ways. He is simply acting out of his fallen nature. The fact that “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whosoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life…” indicates how precious we are to God. It requires of us who have become a part of God’s family of faith that we share this Good News with all men.

Sin

Sin in a simple definition is breaking God’s Law. We may try and obey God as we come to know Him and His Law, but we find that we always fall short. We might fail to do things we should, or we may do things which we should not do. The Bible describes sin using a word indicating “crookedness.” Something in our relationship gets twisted, and is not right. We could wander ignorantly down the wrong path, or we might actually rebel against God’s ways. Many times sin comes down to choosing sin and self rather than desiring to follow God. Jesus said that the path is broad that leads to destruction, but the narrow way is hard, and there are few who find it. The Bible speaks of “missing the mark.” The only person who ever lived a perfect life and never sinned is Jesus. “He was in all points tempted like we are; yet without sin.” Sin separates us from a Holy God. The Bible says that our attempts at living a righteous life are “like filthy rags.” “None is righteous; no, not one.” All religions of the world attempt to deal with the sin problem in one way, or another. Religion is mankind reaching up towards God, but Christianity is God coming down to where we are.

Salvation

God had a plan to make things right “…before the foundation of the world.” In His infinite wisdom He knew we would sin, and so He put in place a plan of salvation whereby we as guilty sinners could be put right with a Holy God. In the Old Testament God used the Law and the sacrificial system to point to a time when the Messiah would come as the perfect sacrifice for sin. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus became our substitute when He willingly laid down His life on Calvary’s cross. When Christ died it was the ultimate picture of God’s love and mercy. Paul wrote of what God did through Jesus, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The Great Exchange happens when an individual realizes how great God is and what an awesome price has been paid to secure our salvation, and then turns from sin and self to God. This repentance and faith is what God requires. John wrote, “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.” He takes on our sin and shame, and we get from Jesus forgiveness and right standing with God. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This may seem far too simple. We might think we must do something to earn our salvation. God says through Paul, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast…”

Becoming like Christ

The previous verse in Ephesians 2 goes on to say, “… for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” It is God who works in us “… both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” We could never earn our salvation. Jesus has paid the penalty of our sin and offers us a relationship with God that includes forgiveness and freedom from guilt, purpose, and meaning in life. We do not do good works in order to be saved, but the Bible says that if we are saved we will do good works! The process of walking in the Spirit and becoming like Christ is a life long journey. We will have many falls and set backs along the way, but “God is faithful!” “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling.” Jesus will present us before God, blameless! The Bible indicates that we are put right with God by repentance and faith, and we are urged to walk by faith, and “…grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.” “If we say we have no sin we lie, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Walking with Christ and becoming like Him is a process of listening to the leadership of the Holy Spirit as we read God’s word, finding ourselves stumbling, and needing to agree with God concerning our sin, and then allowing the Spirit of God to pick us up, dust us off, and set us walking again. The person who will grow more like Christ is not one who is perfect and never falls, but the individual who, when he falls, puts his trust in the finished work of Christ, and continues to get up, and follow Him.

The Church

The church of Jesus is called the Body of Christ, with Jesus as our exalted Head. The Church consists of all believers in Jesus who have been justified by God and who have been made to become His children by faith in Jesus. “He came to His own and His own received Him not; but to as many as received Him, He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believed in His name…” Though Jesus prayed that His disciples might be one even as He and the Father are One, so that the world would believe that God sent Him, there have always been divisions and disagreements in the church. Our lack of unity is a great deterrent to our witness in the world. True believers want to love as Jesus loves, and though we may not always agree on how to do church, we should always be humble, and kind in our dealings with those who claim to follow Jesus. It is not likely at this point that the Church will ever be united on earth, and it may be that in some ways different denominations emphasize different aspects of God’s character and His Truth. Those things which all Christians believe and hold in common far exceed the differences among us. In the great divide between Catholic and Protestant believers the crux of that disagreement may be characterized as a different view of sources of authority. Catholics hold to two sources of authority; the Bible, and the teachings of the church. Protestants of all sorts generally hold to the Bible alone as the sole authority for faith and practice. Even as that is said, all churches have their traditions of men which can creep into their practice, so again, we should always be humble and patient with others. Baptists have been around for a little over 400 years now, and are a part of the Protestant branch of Christianity. In particular Baptist generally hold to several key maxims. Among these would be convictions concerning

• Believer’s baptism. (No infant baptism)
• autonomy of the local church (No hierarchy can tell a congregation who their pastor should be, or can dictate what they can and cannot do, must give, etc.)
• separation of church and state (this grows out of the experience of being a persecuted minority)
• the priesthood of the believer
• liberty of conscience (you cannot force anyone to believe)
• soul competency (we are individually accountable to God)
• cooperation to do missions, and education

The two symbols of being part of God’s family

Baptism and the Lord’s supper are seen to be symbolic representations of our unity with Christ. We do not teach that they have saving power in, and of themselves, but that they are an important part of Christ’s command and example to His disciples. We teach that baptism by plunging a new believer in water (immersion) best pictures Christ death, burial, and resurrection. Sharing the common elements of the table with His disciples Jesus taught us that our doing this “… shows forth His death until He comes.” We believe His body was broken for us, and His blood was shed as the New Covenant; given for the remission of sins.

End Times

Ever since Peter announced in His sermon at Pentecost that we are “in the Last Days” people have wondered when Jesus would return to turn time into eternity. The Bible says clearly that “no man knows the day or the hour, not even the Son.” We are not to be ignorant about what God has in store for His children, but history has shown countless examples of foolish “date setters” who led many astray, and into error. Perhaps the best thing to do is to “always be ready to give an account for the hope that is in you.” We are to live everyday in expectance that our Lord could come back, and we would therefore want to be found faithfully serving Him. The Bible makes it clear that we are to witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that “one day every knee will bow and tongue will confess…” Christians need not be afraid concerning the coming of the Lord, but we are to pray, “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.” The Bible says that there is “therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…” Whether the Lord returns in our lifetime, or whether we die, and the Lord “receives us to Himself that where He is there we may be also…” either way, the final state of believers is to be present with the Lord. We should be dedicated to growing in Christ-likeness and telling everyone we can about the Good News of God’s salvation. Paul says that “…to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Jesus Christ who was with God in the beginning, and by Whom everything that was made was made, will one day bring His creation to its proper conclusion. The Bible teaches that “… the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout; with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”