Our Vision for a Healthy Church

An expositional sermon takes the main point of a passage of Scripture, makes it the main point of the sermon, and applies it to life today.

Biblical theology is sound doctrine; it is right thoughts about God; it is belief that accords with Scripture.

The good news is that:

The one and only God who is holy made us in his image to know him (Gen. 1:26-28).

But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23).

In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn from their sin and trust in him (John 1:14; Heb. 7:26; Rom. 3:21-26, 5:12-21).

He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted (Acts 2:24, Rom. 4:25).

He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness (Acts 17:30, John 1:12). If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God (John 3:16).

He is gathering one new people to himself among all those who submit to Christ as Lord (Matt. 16:15-19; Eph. 2:11-19).

A biblical understanding of conversion recognizes both what God does and what people do in salvation. In conversion, God gives life to the dead (Eph. 2:5), gives sight to the blind (2 Cor. 4:3-6) and gives the gifts of faith and repentance (Phil. 1:29; Acts 11:18).

And in conversion, people repent of sin (Mk. 1:15; Acts 3:19) and believe in Jesus (Jn. 3:16; Rom. 3:21-26).

A biblical understanding of conversion recognizes that only God can save, and that he saves individuals by enabling them to respond to the gospel message through repenting of sin and trusting in Christ.

Evangelism is simply telling non-Christians the good news about what Jesus Christ has done to save sinners and urging them to repent and believe. In order to biblically evangelize you must:

Preach the whole gospel, even the hard news about God’s wrath against our sin.

Call people to repent of their sins and trust in Christ.

Make it clear that believing in Christ is costly, but worth it.

According to the Bible, church membership is a commitment every Christian should make to attend, love, serve, and submit to a local church.

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In the broadest sense, church discipline is everything the church does to help its members pursue holiness and fight sin. Preaching, teaching, prayer, corporate worship, accountability relationships, and godly oversight by pastors and elders are all forms of discipline.

In a narrower sense, church discipline is the act of correcting sin in the life of the body, including the possible final step of excluding a professing Christian from membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Supper because of serious unrepentant sin (see Matt. 18:15-20, 1 Cor. 5:1-13).

Scripture teaches that a live Christian is a growing Christian (2 Pet. 1:8-10). Scripture also teaches that we grow not only by instruction, but by imitation (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1). Therefore churches should exhort their members to both grow in holiness and help others do the same.

The Bible teaches that each local church should be led by a plurality of godly, qualified men called elders.