We believe that the Bible is God's true Word. It is His revelation to us of all that we need to know and understand about ourselves and our relationship with Him. What does He reveal?
He reveals what we already know but don't want to face up to. We are sinners who are under His judgment for that sin. He reveals the depth of the sin in us. But He also reveals that He has done something about our sin. Something we could never do ourselves. He paid the debt we owed.
We all know that wrongs need to be righted. That those who do wrong deserve a just punishment. That comes from God. He is the ultimate Judge of all people. The problem is, we all come under that judgment.
But out of love for the world (John 3:16) He sent His Son to enter the world as a man and to live the perfect life we failed to live. Then, not stopping there, Jesus Who lived perfectly and did NOT deserve death, willingly went to His death in order to pay our death debt for us. But because death could not hold Him, He rose again so that He might give His forgiveness and life to all who believe in Him as their Savior from sin and death.
There is much more that the Bible and our church teaches, but this is where it all begins. Please contact us to learn so much more.
Jesus was more than a first century carpenter who had some nice ideas but got himself into trouble for them and ended up nailed to a cross. The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus is God become man. The holy God, Creator of the Universe, became sinless man. He was promised from the beginning. His coming was foretold and described in detail throughout the Old Testament. But the Old Testament told more than that He was coming. It also clearly stated what He would do - be crucified and die for the sins of the world.
That is why He came. Because man is in trouble that he can't get himself out of. He is in a deep pit that he keeps digging deeper. Others have tried to help, but they only gave "advice" and "rules" that at first sounded good, but none worked. They left man in his pit.
But Jesus came down into the pit, solved the problem of sin and lifts us out of our pits and raises us to new levels of joy and hope. By His death on the cross He paid what we deserved to pay for our sins so that we would not sink down into hell. Rather, by forgiving us, He restores us to the living relationship God originally intended us to have with Him. And this relationship will last forever. To learn more about Jesus and what He did for you call or visit either congregation.
Let's get something straight before we go any further. Man sins. We know it. What we don't know is how to stop. What we don't know is how to do right. Which means that people dislike the commandments because they are right. Because they remind us that we sin and that we can't stop ourselves. They point at what we do and say, "That is wrong."
Let's look at what sin is. The Bible uses a number of words. One is transgression. It means to go beyond a boundary or limit. We do that when we attack others, invade their space, step over the line in our conduct or in how we treat others. Another word is iniquity. It means uneven or unequal. We don't have a balanced life and we don't treat the world and others in a balanced way. We get into addictions. We emphasize one thing to the harm of another thing - like being into ourselves and not into the ones we claim to love. Another word is sin which means to miss the mark. That means we aim for all sorts of things that we think would be good and wonderful for us, but we never hit what we aim for. Scripture tells us that is because we are supposed to be aiming for knowing and pleasing God. When we aim for anything else, for pleasing ourselves, we miss both knowing and pleasing God ANDpleasing ourselves. As a matter of fact, by doing so we make ourselves miserable.
The commandments then have three jobs. The first one is to tell us how we should live. That is a positive thing. The commandments, rightly understood, make life go better when we follow them for they were written to keep us out of trouble and the misery that comes with it. The second job, and the most important, is that they show us how deep our sin is. They accuse us and point the finger at us and point out that we do not live up to even our own standards, let alone God's. This most important job is also a positive thing because once we admit that we have done wrong and deserve judgment for it, it shows us that we need Someone who can get us out of this mess; we need Jesus. The third job of the law then is to guide those who, having been restored to a relationship with God, in how to live in the ways that please Him and bless us.
Please call or come to worship to learn more about the predicaments our sin get us into and how God sent His Son to get us out of them.
Martin Luther's last name is not King. Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk whom God used to restore a proper understanding of the Bible and it's truths to the Church. He DID NOT try to start a new denomination. He was simply a faithful Roman Catholic teacher who saw the need to correct what was being taught.
What he did was return to the Bible to get his information. Because there were few Bibles (Guttenberg was just getting started at Luther's time) people studied from the writings of those who wrote about what others wrote about the Bible. In this process, a lot of Biblical truths were skewed. Luther went back to the originals and let the Bible say what it said. He held the Bible to be the final word.
This led to putting Jesus and His redemptive work for mankind back at the center of the Bible's message. This produced the Reformation that reformed the teaching of the Church. (And, which began the modern era).
Luther was born in 1483 in Eisleben, Germany. He grew up with his father wanting him to be a lawyer. But some close calls in his life scared him into entering the monastery and becoming a monk. Taking his vows seriously, Luther tried his utmost to fulfill what was expected of him. Instead he discovered that the harder he tried, the more he hated God for demanding so much.
However, his zeal got him promoted and he was sent to university to become a doctor of the Bible. As he studied, he began to see that what he was taught did not line up with what the Bible said. More and more he came under the conviction that the teachings of the Church had been corrupted with human thinking. In order to correct this, he mailed his thoughts (theses, 95 of them) to the Wittenberg Church door. This was the bulletin board of the day.
He was inviting discussion, but instead he got a load of bricks dumped on him for challenging the status quo. But, thanks to Guttenberg, his writings were widely distributed across Europe and were well received by many people. He was kicked out of the Church and was declared a heretic.
For a while he had to hide for his life. But soon enough people and leaders were convinced that his teachings were true Bible teaching that he had enough followers to keep him safe in their territory. His teachings were widely accepted and although wars were fought across Europe because of them, they set people free to know Jesus as the true and only Savior from sin.
He did not start a church, but his followers were derisively called Lutherans so often that they decided to wear the name with pride. Not in the man, but in the truths that he restored to the Church. To learn more about this man and about this church that bears his name, please contact us.
