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1) The One True God is the Triune God of Grace - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - Whom Alone We Must Worship and Serve.
2) The Eternal Son of God Came to Us as a Human Being in Jesus Christ
3) Holy Scripture is the Word of God Written, Through Which, in the Power of the Holy Spirit, We Truly Meet the Triune God.
4) The Triune God is Sovereign Over All.
5) Humanity Has Fallen Into Sin.
6) We are Made Right With God by Grace Alone Through Faith Alone.
7) Election: God Chose Us to be His Children and Servants.
8) The Holy Spirit Makes Us More and More Like Jesus.
9) A Life of Obedience.
1) The One True God is the Triune God of Grace - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - Whom Alone We Must Worship and Serve
In the Old Testament, we learn that the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the creator of the entire world and the constant redeemer through the mighty acts of the people Israel. In the New Testament, we see the LORD, Israel's God, actually is the Triune God, who reveals Himself to be the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He has entered into covenant faithfulness with His people and will not leave us or forsake us. back to top 2) The Eternal Son of God Came to Us as a Human Being in Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time, God the Son took up our humanity as He came to us as Jesus, the man from Nazareth. Jesus is both fully God and fully human. He is all that God has to say to us, in word and deed, about who He is and how He loves us. And Jesus is all we have to say to God, as the one man who lived a life of perfect obedience to Him, on our behalf. In Jesus' relationship with His Father, and in His promise of the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, we come to know that the one God is Triune: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. back to top 3) Holy Scripture is the Word of God Written, Through Which, In the Power of the Holy Spirit, We Truly Meet the Triune God. One of the great achievements of the Reformation was the recovery of Scripture as our sole authoritative source for knowledge of God and its return to the ordinary people of God. The traditions of the church could be helpful in interpreting the Bible, but must always remain beneath the Word of God written. The Reformers affirmed at the same time that what needs to be known about God from Scriptures can be known by ordinary people who engage in a plain reading of the Bible. The Bible is clear enough in its essential teaching for all who read with prayerful reliance on the Holy Spirit to speak through the Word. back to top 4) The Triune God is Sovereign Over All. Our religion is not simply a human invention. Nor is it subject to human whims for change and supposed corrections. We do not have the freedom to decide how we would like the Lord to be. God is, and He has made himself known to us, in Jesus Christ and the Scriptures. While what we may know of the Triune God is true and reliable, we always recognize that we never know all there is to know about Him. The Lord God is high and holy, completely other, beyond our grasp and control, and splendid in His glory. God is moving history toward its appointed end. The Triune God of grace is in control. He reigns. He alone is Judge. He alone is worthy of our praise. We never have dominion over Him. God alone reigns. back to top 5) Humanity Has Fallen Into Sin. The Scripture teach us that, although the God created us good, through our own willful choices, humanity sinned against Him. The sin of our first parents rocked and wracked the world with terrible consequences. Now, by nature, we are prone to suppress the truth and to choose against our God and our neighbors again and again. There is nothing we human beings do in this world that is not without the taint of our sin. We are helplessly lost in our sin. This means the death of ever hoping to get to the Father on our own. Such a realization is the beginning of crying out in repentance and faith for the rightness and goodness that only can come from the Lord Himself. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, come to us as a man, has enacted perfect obedience, free from sin, on our behalf. back to top 6) We are Made Right with God by Grace Alone Through Faith Alone. Our salvation from our sins and our sinfulness are all from Christ Jesus. We never can earn our way into God's favor, whether by our good works, zealous worship or many prayers. The Father forgives our sins by the work of Jesus Christ alone. Christ's death alone takes away the guilt of our sin. Christ's faith and obedience alone, the living sign of His covenant faithfulness, comprise our reconciliation with God. He gives us Christ's righteousness. Our record before God is replaced with Jesus' record!When this happens, we believe in who Christ Jesus is and what He has accomplished. We confess that He is our Lord and Savior. But even this belief and confession is a gift of God, the result of the Holy Spirit's work inside us. Salvation is all of God. We simply rest in what He has done for us. back to top 7) Election: God Chose Us to be His Children and Servants. God chose us to believe in Him now that we might spend the rest of our lives serving Him and telling others about Jesus. The essential teaching of election is the awareness that we do not make our way to the Father; He has come all the way down to where we are to claim us. Election, then, is not to a life of ease but to one of service. Those whom He calls, He sends to bring His message to a lost world. If we know Him, it is because He chose us. If He chose us, He sends us to tell others, "Believe the good news and discover your chosenness!"
back to top 8) The Holy Spirit Makes Us More and More Like Jesus. Sanctification means "to make holy," and it refers to the work of the Holy Spirit to form Christ in us. For we not only receive a new record of righteousness in Christ, we receive a new nature. God places His own Spirit within us and a wonderful series of benefits begins: - The Holy Spirit unites to Jesus Christ so that all belongs to Him comes to belong to us (John 16: 14-15).
- The Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside us, fashioning us more and more in the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).
- The Holy Spirit opens our hearts and minds to the Scriptures so that we might be transformed by hearing the Word (John 14:26)
- The Holy Spirit prays within us, crying out to the Father for us and through us (Galatians 4:6).
- The Holy Spirit assures us that we are children of God (Roman 8:16), and His presence is the guarantee of our salvation (Ephesians 1:13).
- The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be faithful witnesses to Christ (Act 1:8) and enables us to do the ministry and works of Jesus (see Matthew 10:1 and John 14:12).
Of course, the old, sinful nature still remains in us and, thus, the new and the old are in conflict. Christian growth involves a hard struggle. We can never do it on our own. We live in constant need of "the sanctifying work of the Spirit" (I Peter 1:2). The person of the Holy Spirit, then moves us to live in obedience and empowers us to keep going even after we fail or when the way is difficult. His work will continue until we meet Jesus in heaven at the last. back to top
9) A Life of Obedience.
The people of God, Christ's Church, bring His word and His love to a broken world. We are in the world, even though we do not belong to this world (John 17:16). We serve the world even though we are aliens and strangers here, passing through on our way to our heavenly homeland. Psalm 84 notes that those who "have set their hearts in pilgrimage" to the city of God cause the dry, desert lands to become a place of springs as they pass through. With the Holy Spirit prompting us and empowering us, with the grace of Jesus cleansing us, with the love of the Father beckoning us, we both gather for worship and move out in service to God. So, even though the church does not belong to the world, it strives to love to world as Christ did.
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