doctrinal distinctives

The idea behind the label “lordship salvation” is per haps best summarized by the great champion of justification-by-faith-alone theology Martin Luther when he  said: “Faith alone is that which saves; but faith which saves is never alone.” The idea here is that while it is indeed faith alone that justifies man before God, true faith in Jesus as Savior cannot stand on its own apart from recognition of Him as the Lord to whom one lives in obedience. While good works themselves cannot save, they serve as evidence of the presence of saving faith  and true knowledge of Christ. Good works are seen as the natural and inevitable outgrowth of the seed of faith; hence any claims to saving faith apart from the presence of such works justly fall under concerned uncertainty.  
 

The salvation of sinful humanity is fundamentally the work of God. Before the foundation of the world, God, in His sovereign grace, had chosen a people for Himself, setting His affection and grace upon them. In love,  God chose certain individuals to be the recipients of  His promise; that is, out of all the peoples of the earth,  He chose some to know and enjoy Him and experience  the blessing of His salvation. Therefore, faith is a gift of grace that is given by the mercy and pleasure of God, so that no one may boast. Apart from this work of grace, sinful man cannot choose of his own accord to worship God and pursue His righteousness. God’s sovereignty in salvation is comprehensive—that is, from first to last, all of salvation is His doing.  

Borrowed from the theological emphasis of John Piper (Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church), “Christian hedonism” refers to the notion that Christians should have as their motivation in life the pursuit of pleasure in God. This is because of the profound truth that “God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him.” The resulting diagnosis is that humanity is fallen not in virtue of their pursuit of pleasure per se, but due to their failure to pursue what is truly satisfying, namely, God Himself.

The key text here is found in Mark 8:34−38 where, among other things, Jesus says, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” This results in an incredible paradigm for how a true, satisfying, Christ honoring life is gained: by living in a manner that loses entitlements to all else when the gain in return is Christ and the advancement of His Kingdom.
 

We are unapologetic in our emphasis on the importance of developing a well-informed, knowledgeable Christian mind. We believe that biblical instruction that is internalized in the heart and thus renews the mind by the power of the Spirit is the best catalyst to bringing about transformation in one’s life. The value here is not for everyone to become a Christian genius; rather it is for each to heed Christ’s call to love God with all of who we are, including our minds (Matt 22:37).

Complementarianism, in contrast to egalitarianism, holds that there exists a permanent, God-ordained, normative order between men and women when it comes to roles in the home and in the church. The emphasis here is not on differences in value, but on differences in roles only. We affirm a proper, biblically-sensitive perspective on male headship in both the church and in the home. The most obvious and significant application of this in our church is reflected in that women are restricted from serving in the office of pastor/elder.

Human personhood as male and female is part of God’s wonderful plan for His creation. Our true identity, as male and female persons, is something given by God, not an expression of an individual’s autonomous prefer ence. Therefore, it is not only unwise but hopeless to try to make ourselves what God did not create us to be (e.g., transgenderism). Sin has also distorted sexual desires by directing them away from God’s original design—a distortion that includes both heterosexual and homosexual immorality. God has designed marriage to be a covenantal and sexual union of one man and one woman as a means to signify the covenant love between Christ and the Church. Therefore, a marriage union between homosexual persons is inconsistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption and will not result in human good and flourishing.  

We believe that Christianity does not simply consist in being saved, but in living saved. Far too many church goers seem to place singular emphasis on the significance of conversion as the pinnacle of the Christian experience when in fact it should more properly serve as the doorway into an entirely new experience of living – living in the fullness of life that Christ alone can offer.

What is contained in the womb of a mother is a valuable human person being formed in the image of God. The gospel of life stands against the culture of death and the modern holocaust of the unborn. The unborn are fearfully and wonderfully made because it is God who knits all children together in their mother’s womb. In a culture where abortion is touted as a woman’s right to choose, the moral duty to honor the right of the unborn to life supersedes the personal inconveniences and hardships that may come from the pregnancy. Once  the personhood of the unborn is recognized, the right to treat them any way we wish is forfeited. As Greg Koukl states, “If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary. But if the unborn is a human person, then no justification for abortion is adequate.”