What We Believe

We believe the Bible is God’s holy and divine Word.  It is not sent nor delivered by “human will” but that “men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God and afterward commanded his servants to commit this revealed Word to writing.  We receive it as holy for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith without error.

[2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; Exo. 24:4; Jer. 36:2; Prov. 30:5]

 

We believe in one true God who in character is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, all powerful, all knowing, present everywhere, full of truth, faithful, personal, wise, just, wrathful, sovereign, good, righteous and set apart as holy.  God is one single essence and in whom is three distinct persons; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who being one God are equal in deity, power, and glory.  God created heaven, earth and all other creatures, but did not abandon them to chance but leads and governs it according to his holy will.

[Deu. 33:27; Isa. 55:8-9; Col. 1:15; Heb. 13:8; Rom. 1:20; Job 36:26; Ex. 6:3; Isa. 46:10; Psalm 139:7; John 14:6; 1 Cor. 1:21; Rev. 16:7; Rom. 21:5; Gen. 15:2; Luke 18:9; Psa. 116:5; Ex. 15:11; Mat. 6:9; John 14:7, 24; 15:26; 16:7-11; Gen. 1; Job 36:31; 1 Cor. 15:27]

 

We believe that God created Adam and Eve, male and female, in His own image and originally good, just and holy.  However, they disobeyed God’s commandment, subjected themselves to sin and its corruption, and severed all relationship with God.  Thus Adam and Eve made themselves and their future offspring guilty before God, subject to physical and spiritual death, wicked, perverse corrupt in all their ways, and separated by sin from God.

[Gen. 1:26-27; 31; 2:16; 3:6-7; Rom. 5:12, 19]

 

We believe that Jesus Christ is God in a human body, fully God and fully man, that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life. He offered himself as a penal, substitutionary sacrifice for sinful humans.  By his blood shed on the cross, Jesus redeemed believers by, paying the price that was ours to pay, enduring the wrath of God that was ours to endure, reconciling us to the Father, and bringing forgiveness of sins.  We believe Jesus Christ was literally raised from the dead in bodily form, returned to heaven and sits today at the Father’s right hand as King, High Priest, righteous advocate until he returns to Earth again to establish God’s kingdom in all its glory.

[John 1:14; Heb. 2:14; Phil. 2:7-8, Luke 1:34-35; Col. 1:19; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 2:2; Gal. 3:13; Rom. 3:25; 2 Cor. 5:18; Heb. 9:22; Rom. 3:27; John 20:1-9; Luke 24:51; Acts 7:56; John 14:3, Rev. 20; 22:7]

 

We believe that salvation is by God’s grace alone, by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, as revealed in the scriptures alone.  No work, ritual, ordinance, or human effort no matter how godly or good can produce salvation.  Only by the power of the Holy Spirit may one received faith in Jesus Christ, who has fulfilled God’s righteous law on our behalf.  This saving grace, by the power of the Holy Spirit, sanctifies believers and enables them to do good works as an obedient and joyful response to salvation.  By trusting Jesus, believers are declared righteous and recipients of eternal life.

[Eph. 2:8; Rom. 3:22; Eph. 2:9; Matt. 5:17, Acts 26:18; Eph. 2:10]

 

We believe that Jesus Christ pours out his Holy Spirit on believers as a seal for the day of redemption.  The Holy Spirit regenerates the hearts of believers and makes them new and so also produces true faith in Jesus Christ by which one is saved.  The Holy Spirit continues to work in the believer to produce good works as a response to saving grace and for the glory of God.  Following conversion, the Spirit indwells, guides, instructs, equips, revives, empowers and anoints believers for ministry and witness in the world. We also believe that all the gifts of the Spirit described in the New Testament, are operative today and are designed to testify to the presence of the kingdom and to empower and edify the church to fulfill its calling and mission.

[Acts 2:3: 2 Cor. 1:22; Tit. 3:5; Jam. 2:14-26; Rom. 8:11; John 16:13; John 14:26; 1 Cor. 12:4-11; Rom. 8:10-11]

 

We believe that water baptism and the Lord’s Supper are sacraments instituted by God and the means of which God works in us through the power of the Holy Spirit to seal his promises in us, to pledge good will and grace toward us, and also to nourish and sustain our faith.

[Acts 2:38-39; Matt 26:17-30; 1 Cor. 11:23-25]

 

We believe water baptism is the sign and seal of God’s promises to his covenant people.  Having abolished circumcision, which was done with blood, Christ established in its place, the sacrament of baptism.  By it we are received into God’s church and set apart from all other people and alien religions, that we may wholly belong to him whose mark and sign we bear.  Furthermore, baptism does for our children what circumcision did for the Jewish people.  That is why Paul calls baptism the “circumcision of Christ.”

[Gal. 5:2-6; Rom. 6:4-7; Col. 2:11-12}

 

We believe that in the Lord’s Supper our Savior Jesus Christ has ordained and instituted the sacrament to nourish and sustain those who are already regenerated and engrafted into his family, which is his Church.  Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood.  He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacrament in our hands and eat and drink it with our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior.

[1 Cor. 11:17-34; Mark 14:22-25]

 

We believe that the Church is made up of all believers in Jesus Christ from all times and in all places.  They are united together in Him by the Holy Spirit.  The Church will celebrate the sacraments together as well as teach one another through the preaching of the gospel and hold one another accountable to the faith.  Jesus, the Head of the Church sets apart individuals called by the Holy Spirit as ministers and pastors to preach the Word of God and administer the sacraments, still others are Elders and Deacons to oversee its mission and ministry and administer discipline.  The Church is figuratively, the body of Christ having been united by faith in him.  The believers who make up the Church are Jesus’ ambassadors to the world, proclaiming his gospel and coming kingdom, by word and deed, until He returns.

[Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 11:23-25; Eph. 4:3-4; Col. 3:16; Eph. 4:11-13; 1 Tim. 3:1-8, 12-13; Col. 1:18; Phil. 2:1; 2 Cor. 5:18-20]

 

We believe that Satan, though created by God as an angel, through his pride and rebellion became the enemy of God and having lead many former angels in rebellion against God is the head of all demons.  He is both the originator of sin, the tempter, a “murderer from the beginning,” the “god of this age” and “a liar and the father of lies.”  Neither equal in power with God nor able to stop His work, under God’s limited control, Satan (and his demons) have restricted ability.  Jesus Christ by his death and resurrection, has defeated Satan and we await his full and final judgement in the lake of fire.

[Isa. 14:12-15; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6; Gen. 3:1-6; 2 Cor. 11:3; Job 1:12, 2:26; 1 John 3:8; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 20:10]

 

We believe in the literal return of Jesus Christ at the end of the age to judge all human beings in person before him.  The believer to eternal glory and the unbeliever to eternal punishment.  We believe He will bring His kingdom into full reality in the new heaven and new earth and an end to Satan’s kingdom of darkness.

[Rev. 22:20; Rev. 20:11-15; Rev. 21; Isa. 65:17-25; Rev. 20:7-10; Matt. 25:41]

 

We believe that when the Christian dies that person passes immediately into the blessed presence of Christ, there to enjoy conscious fellowship with the Savior until the day of the resurrection and glorious transformation of the body.  The saved will then forever dwell in fellowship with their great Triune God.  We also believe that when the unbeliever dies that person is consigned to Hades, there to await the Day of Judgment when that person shall be punished with eternal separation in Hell from the presence of God.

[1 Thess. 4:13-17; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:50-55; Matt. 25:34, 41, 46; Rev. 20:15]

 

We believe that every human being is created in the image of God.  Therefore every human being including pre-born babies, the aged, the physically or mentally challenged, and every other stage or condition from conception through natural death, has inestimable value.

[Gen. 1:26-27]

 

We believe Jesus brings both grace and truth to humanity and delivers God’s final definition and intent of marriage as between one man and one woman for life.  We believe that sexual relations between two men or two women were never part of God’s plan and is a distortion of His design in creation and should be avoided and thus such marriage prohibited.We believe the Church must help our brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attraction to come to understand that their identity and value is found not in sexual orientation, but in their relationship with God, in and through Jesus Christ.  We believe that together, we must fight the temptation to place ourselves in the judgment seat, judging and condemning brothers and sisters in Christ who experience same-sex attraction. We must recognize that we all yearn for God’s love and are fallen sinners in need of God’s mercy and redeeming grace, because our truth will not be heard until our grace is felt.  It is the same grace Jesus showed to the woman caught in adultery.

[John 1:17; Eph. 5:21-33, Rom. 1:26-27; Matt. 7:1-5; John 8]

 

We believe that God wonderfully and absolutely creates each person as male or female.  These two distinct, sexes together reflect the image and nature of God.  Rejection of one’s biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person.

[Gen. 1:26-27; Psalm 139]