Starting Point Class 1 (Cornerstone Church)

That's it there, yeah, starting point. That's kind of the notes and everything else are resources that kind of go with it, starting point. Now, as we're going through the class, make notes or if you have any questions that we don't have time to get to, write them down.

And we're going to try to leave a significant amount of time in the third session for any questions you have about the church, about theology, about anything that's just kind of on your mind that you'd like to talk about.

So we're leaving space, especially for the last, and you can write it on a note card, you can write it on just a piece of paper, and we'll try to get to all those things in the last class. So if you notice, if you go all the way to the back, the end of the course, we're going to try to leave that time in the third week for questions.

Alright, so starting point. Here's the kind of table of contents of how the course goes. Next week we have a treat. Rick Thompson is going to come in and do a lot of the stuff about the beginning of the church and how this particular church was formed back in the 80s and 90s, how this building and all.

But what we're doing today, especially, is a statement of faith. We might get a little beyond it, but we really want to cover the 10-point statement of faith. This really is the core of what it means to be evangelical free, because evangelical free churches are independent.

They're congregationally run. So what is it that binds all of us together? There's something like 1 ,500. We all agree on this statement of faith. So it's not in depth to the minutest detail, but it is the major things that are important for us to believe.

In order to be Christian, it's really an exposition of the gospel as you kind of look through what the 10 points are. Let's do this today. If you don't mind reading out loud, then we'll have somebody read it.

If you don't feel like reading, then don't. So just lift your hand up if you don't mind reading out loud so I know who's going to do that. That way you don't have to just hear me talk the whole time. I'm already going to preach later.

We've got one reader. Anybody else? Two? Okay. Alright, no problem. Alright, so you are first, Sharon. So let's start with God. We'll just take them one at a time.

We believe in one God, creator of all things, holy, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in a loving unity of three equally divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to redeeming people for himself and to make all things new for his own glory.

There is so much amazing language packed into that. Let me just expound on a few things. First of all, it starts with, we believe in one God. It's kind of the Shema of Israel, Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, where the thing that Israelites would recite every day was, the Lord our God is one.

The Lord our God is one. Jehovah Elohim is one. God is actually one being or essence, but he exists in three persons. So, would it be right to say that the Father is not the Son? Think about it. But yes.

Yes, why would you say yes?

Because you know they're the same person, they have two distinct roles.

You're close. There is a difference between being and personhood. So, here is the sense in which they're the same. There's really only one being or essence of God. But there's three persons. So, it's correct to say the Father is not the Son, because when you say Father and Son, you're referring to their personhood.

The Father is one person, the Son is another person, and the Holy Spirit is another person. Three persons in one. So, they're essentially one. There's a being of God that's so united that you could really say that there's only one God.

The Shema of Israel. Jesus reaffirms that, by the way, when asked what the most important commandment was. I believe it's Mark, chapter 9. He says, the Lord our God is one. So, there's only one being, one essence of God, but that God exists in three persons.

So, you could write this down. The Father is not the Son, is not the Spirit. There's a distinction between persons, even though there's only one being or essence. Come on in. Hey, what's up man? I was just being nosy.

Oh, you were just being nosy. We're having our new members class. I see, I was just checking you guys out. Hi everyone. I thought it might be someone coming to join. So, the doctrine of the Trinity is that God is three in one.

Okay, so would it be correct to say that God exists in different modes or roles? The God of the Old Testament is the Father. Then Jesus appears, and God is appearing in Jesus, and then finally the Spirit.

But, it's only just different modes of the one person. That's modalism. Very good. So, modalism, like Oneness Pentecostals teach, someone like T .D. Jakes teaches Oneness Pentecostalism. That's not the doctrine of the Trinity.

When Jesus was baptized, the Father speaks from Heaven. The Son is baptized in the water, and the Spirit descends from Heaven. All three persons, not just different modes at different times, but all three are always existing.

So, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons, one God. A couple other important words in our Statement of Faith. Notice, limitless knowledge. Any idea why that was added to the Statement of Faith in 2008?

Limitless knowledge. There was a teaching that was coming out from Clark Pinnock and a few other theologians called Openness Theology. And it was really a hyper-Arminianism that God doesn't know the future.

God is learning as people make their free will choices. And he's discovering, and his plan is being molded with time. But the Scripture teaches that God has limitless knowledge. So, this was a refutation of Openness Theology.

The idea that God's not omniscient, that he's a learning God. And he's just kind of reactive as he sees the free will choices of man. He reacts to those things. No, the teaching of the Scripture is that God has known all things, even the future.

That's why we have predictive prophecy, right? So much prophecy in the Bible tells things that are yet to happen. You'd think, well, wait a minute, can't man thwart the plan of God? No, they can't. They may try to, and in their own willfulness will resist God, but ultimately God even knew that.

He has limitless knowledge. So that's the doctrine of omniscience is being taught there against these Openness Theologians. He's purposed from all eternity to redeem a people for himself and make all things new for his own glory.

Any questions about who God is? Do Mormons worship the same God that we do? What do you guys think? They think they do. They think they do. Their doctrine of God is that Heavenly Father had a Heavenly Mother, and together Jesus is an offspring.

Before Heavenly Father, there was another Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, and Elohim is the offspring of that pairing. And that you keep going back to eternity past, there's an infinite number of gods, and that's why Mormons believe that they themselves can be exalted to become gods of a future planet.

See, the doctrine of God is essential. There's only one God. What's different about him? He's the creator, and he has eternal existence in and of himself. He's not created. Everything else is derivative from him.

We all depend on him to even exist. So that's the doctrine of God. Number two, the Bible.

We're going to be going back and forth between you two. Daniel, you're up. We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of his will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged.

Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises. Okay.

So, this is the basis of everything that we do as a church. We're a Bible church. We believe the Bible. Now, most churches in America still claim, we believe the Bible. However, a vast majority in practice do not believe the Bible.

They will say, well, the creation or the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus, maybe these are just myths meant to teach a moral lesson. And the Bible is in some way inspired, but it's not the very words of God.

That is heresy. And that's the direction of so many seminaries and churches over time. There's a departing away from this statement. But this is essential to the church, to believe that the Bible is the word of God.

This is how we know anything. We start with the Bible. Is the Bible a human book?

Is it a human book? It's divinely inspired and written through humans.

Very good. So, if I were to ask, is Jesus human? Yes. 100 human. The Bible in the same way is 100 human. It's also 100 divine. So, human authors in their own particular situation. So, if Paul's writing to the Roman church, here is a human man who's writing a letter in a particular context for a reason, and he's trying to explain things.

He is Paul, and he's writing to the Roman Christians, right? There's a human context, and it's very human. And yet, every word that he pens comes from the Holy Spirit. That's the doctrine. Fully human in terms of authorship, but also God-breathed.

The key scripture there, of course, is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. Every word is God-breathed. It comes from the breath of God. It's not just human. Alright, this is probably the hardest one of all the statements of faith.

The biggest hurdle, because it's so much cuts against the grain of our human nature and our wanting to feel moral and feel that we can do it and that we're okay in and of ourselves. We're good in and of ourselves.

So, Sharon, would you read number three?

We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan. In union with Adam, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God and under His wrath.

Only through God's saving work and Jesus Christ can we be rescued, reconciled, and renewed. Wow.

Some key words there. By nature and by choice. People don't become sinners just because at some point they were a blank slate and as they grew up, they were tempted and then they fell. That's not the teaching of Scripture.

The teaching of Scripture is we have a nature that we've inherited from Adam, which is sinful, and that's why everybody will sin by choice. Sin is a part of our human nature. It's inherited. It's passed on from our first parent, Adam and Eve.

So, as a result of that, we're under wrath. That's Romans 1 .18. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth. So that's the problem.

That's the bad news. And now we get to the good news. Daniel, you're up, number four.

We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one person in two natures. Jesus, Israel's promised Messiah, was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our high priest and advocate.

Okay. This article here is about the person of Christ. The Gospel begins with who Jesus is, the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. These two natures are both joined together, not just a mixture.

He is completely God, 100 God, 100 man, not just like a 50 -50 kind of mix, but he's both at the same time. Of course, that doctrine, maybe you've heard the term hypostatic union. The nature of Jesus as God and the nature of Jesus as human are brought together in this person, this second person of the Trinity.

He's one person and he has two natures. Give me an example of Jesus in his human nature from the Gospels. How do we see the humanness of Jesus? How about when he was in the temple? Ah, okay. When he was 12 years old.

12-year-old. Now, did he have to grow in wisdom and knowledge? No. On the human level. On the human. Because of his human nature, he had to grow, but was he at the same time in his divine nature upholding all things?

Well, it was interesting that when Mary and Joseph came back to find him that he was teaching the doctors and all the knowledge he had. So, in the human form that he was a human, but he was beyond his years.

I think spiritually that because he was Jesus.

That's right. Far beyond.

So, how do you split that? It's just amazing when you read that passage. They didn't even know he was missing. And then they were like, how did you know your child was missing? So, they're really human.

And then they found him in the temple teaching. Right.

The doctors. So, in his humanness, did he have to sleep? Yes. Did he have to eat? Yes. Absolutely. He was fully human. As a baby, he was dependent on his mom. Can you imagine the God who is at the same time upholding all things and the nuclear fission of the sun is happening, not just because God as a deist kind of God just created it and spun it into motion and by the laws of nature it just functions.

No. We're told in Colossians that he upholds all things by his power. He's actively, Jesus is the creator of all things and he's sustaining all things at all times. And yet, in his human nature, he's dependent on his mom.

See, these two natures. It's impossible for our brains to wrap around how he's able to do that. But that's the doctrine of the person of Christ. Fully God and at the same time, fully man. Only Jesus fits that bill.

Okay. He's Israel's promised Messiah, conceived through the Holy Spirit. Of course, he had a very supernatural birth by the Holy Spirit. He does not inherit Adam's sin. He has no seed of Adam to inherit sin.

He lives a sinless life, crucified under Pontius Pilate, arises bodily from the grave. Not just a mystical, spiritual rising. No, he physically, that body that died, came out of the grave. Resurrected in newness of life.

He ascends to heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father. Aren't you glad we have a high priest and advocate that having died and risen, he is at the Father's right hand. And every time I still fall short of his glory, I have an advocate at the right hand of the Father.

Pleading his own blood as the ground for my salvation. He's the high priest at the right hand of the Father. Amazing, that's who Jesus is. That's the good news. Okay, now we go to the work of Christ. I think Sharon, you're up?

Okay. We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed his blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.

Wow. Okay, there's a teaching afoot nowadays that we really don't need the scriptures to prove the gospel or to use the gospel. There's people who want to unhitch the gospel from the Old Testament especially because the Old Testament God seems a little nasty and he seems a little harsh, whereas the New Testament God is just loving and much easier to sell.

And Jesus in the New Testament speaks more about hell than anybody else. So obviously that teaching is false. But to the person who would say you don't need the scriptures, all you need to know is that Jesus rose from the dead and you don't even need the Bible to prove that because we know just from history that the apostles were willing to die for their testimony, their eyewitness testimony, and there's no other explanation than that Jesus rose from the dead.

To those people, they say that you don't need the scriptures for the gospel. You only need to prove that Jesus rose from the dead. Here's the problem with that thinking. Even if we could prove that Jesus rose from the dead, even if we could gather enough evidence from Josephus and whoever, Tertullian, the early church fathers, and from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as merely historical witnesses, even if we could convince somebody that Jesus rose from the dead, we've yet to preach the gospel.

Here's why. We need to understand the meaning of his death. What was accomplished in dying? We only know that by the scriptures. By his stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray and God has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah chapter 53 teaches that Jesus died as a substitute. As our representative, the new Adam, the new Abraham, the Davidic king, as our representative, he lives a perfect life that we cannot live. He fulfills all righteousness, whereas we fall short at every point and we break every law.

If you're guilty of breaking one, you're guilty of all of it. Jesus lives a perfect, sinless life. And then, as an atoning sacrifice, a substitute in our place, he lays down his life for his friends. That's the meaning.

So look here in number five, those words, as our representative and substitute. This is the substitutionary atonement. It's the meaning of the atonement. He dies in our place, not just as an example of somebody who's moral and righteous, not just as a moral influence to make us be more selfless, not as a payment to Satan.

That's a ransom view of the atonement. No, he dies as a substitute in our place. Substitutionary atonement, the meaning of the cross, and all of those other things come out from that. So he is an example of righteousness.

He is someone that we follow and learn to be sacrificial because he's sacrificial. But it all starts here. The meaning of the atonement is substitution. As our representative, he dies in our place, sheds his blood.

He's an all sufficient sacrifice. What did he say on the cross? It is finished to tell us that it is finished. He has fulfilled all righteousness and purchased our salvation in his dying. Wow. That's the only ground of justification of our salvation.

By ground, we mean the basis. It's the only reason that we can be justified. It's because he died in our place. Okay, number six. Are we up to you, Daniel?

Yes. All right. We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that he does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of its guilt. He regenerates sinners. And in him, they are baptized into union with Christ and adopted as heirs in the family of God.

He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips, and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service. Okay.

Very good. Ministries now of the Holy Spirit. There's not just two persons, father and son. There's three persons of the Trinity. So what does the Holy Spirit do? There's a number of things listed here.

I'm going to give you a verse for each one. Number one, he glorifies. John 16, 14. You see that? He glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. The role of the Holy Spirit is like someone who operates a spotlight.

The Spirit is very often not seen or glorified in and of himself. He turns the spotlight on the second member of the Trinity and illuminates and lets us see Christ in all of his glory. His role is to glorify the Son.

John 16, 14. Now, of course, the Spirit himself deserves glory as well. They're one in being, their essence. Regenerates. John 3, 3. Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. What does it mean to be regenerated?

One of the things the Spirit does is regenerates. Right now, make you new. Very good. Give you a new life. He takes this heart of stone that's dead in sin and opposed to God, and he takes that out and gives me a heart of flesh that feels and loves God, that's awake and alive to God, that's spiritually alert.

It's a new birth to make you new. Very good. If anyone's in Christ, the old is gone, the new has come. All right, what is this baptized? The scripture is 1 Corinthians 12, 13. He regenerates sinners, and in him, they are baptized into union with Christ.

Now, this is not water baptism. This is Spirit. The Spirit baptizes.

What does that mean? Well, it's getting to know him more on a personal level. When you're baptized with the Holy Spirit, with evidence of it, because you're knowing Jesus, and then you're baptism through water, dunking, whatever you want to call it, and then you eventually, a lot of people ask and ask and ask for the evidence of being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

It's in God's time. For us of them that have been baptized with the Holy Ghost, it's an awesome feeling. It is. It's not just something, if you keep on praying for it, God opens that door for you, and he blesses you with the Holy baptism.

You're just never the same after that.

All right. 1 Corinthians 12, 13 says that all of you who have believed in Christ, this is a loose translation, have been baptized into the body. The baptism is an identification with Christ. It's when you're included in the body of Christ.

Now, subsequent to that, there can be fillings of the Spirit that are distinct and powerful, and it can happen again and again, and it can be subsequent to salvation. But the baptism of the Spirit is something that happens to you when you believe.

So you might not be walking in all the gifts of the Spirit at that moment. You might not be experiencing the fullness of everything that God has for you, but there's a spiritual baptism. I'll give you an example.

Acts chapter 10, verses 44 to 48. While Peter is still preaching, the Holy Spirit falls on those who believe. Right? And the evidence that the Spirit is upon them. And then after that, they get baptized in water.

So the essence, we don't have much time here to go into it farther. We can talk more on the last day. The essence of baptism is identification. When you get dunked in water, you are identifying with the Son of God.

You're saying, He was crucified and rose from the dead. I am now identified with Christ in baptism. I'm crucified with Him, and I'm raised to newness of life. I'm with Jesus. I'm dead with Him, and I'm alive now in newness of life.

The spiritual baptism is when you're then identified with Christ in the unseen kingdom. All believers worldwide, you are part of the body of Christ. You're included and identified by God in the family of God.

Does that make sense? Yep. And there will be subsequent fillings of the Spirit that come for those who have the Spirit of God. He indwells us. All right, we'll just give you a list of the rest. We don't have time to really get into them.

Some of the ministries of the Spirit. He adopts Romans 8 .15. He indwells Romans 8 .9. He illumines or illuminates. So He makes the Word of God come alive to us. That's John 16 .13. He guides us, John 8 .14.

And He equips and empowers us. That's the gifts of the Spirit. I think John is talking a little bit about that. 1 Corinthians 12. So the ministries, plural, of the Holy Spirit. He's doing all of these things in us.

He's the member of the Trinity that lives inside of us and empowers us and equips us and guides us, leads us. Very important. All right, next we have the church. Sharon.

We believe that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God's grace through faith alone and Christ alone. They are united by the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, of which He is the head.

The true church is manifest in local churches whose membership should be proposed only of believers. The Lord Jesus mandated two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, which visibly and tangibly express the gospel.

Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer. Okay.

Very good. So there's one universal church. It includes every believer in the world who's belonging to Christ, right? But that manifests in local churches. So that's why we come together. We have membership.

We join in what's happening here. It's the local church, which is not the same thing as the universal church, but every true believer is part of the universal church. Now, what were the two ordinances mentioned here?

Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Now, we don't call them sacraments. We call them ordinances. Ordinance means ordained or commanded by Christ. A sacrament, though, has kind of the Roman Catholic view that it's actually saving you, that you're, by doing this thing, you're maintaining your justification and keeping yourself in the grace of God.

So we use the word ordinance rather than sacrament. Okay? So these are ordinances. They're not part of what saves us, although they're good and important to do. They're ordained by God, and in a sense, they nourish us, don't they?

Do you guys ever feel closer to the Lord when you take communion? When you examine your heart and pray and you receive the symbol of the body and blood of Christ, it nourishes you. It's a means of grace in that way, not conveying salvation, but for sanctification and growing closer to Him.

So these are the ordinances that we do. We don't do foot washing. There's some churches that do foot washing as an ordinance. We don't think of Yeah. Yeah. That'd be a little scary, wouldn't it? I think it'd just be more awkward to have your own feet washed than to do the washing.

It's very interesting. You have to have an ordinance that everyone showered before they came. Yeah, there you go. That's a good one. All right. Daniel, would you do Christian living?

We believe that God's justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor, and justice for the oppressed.

With God's word, the Spirit's power, and fervent prayer in Christ's name, we are to combat the spiritual forces of evil. In obedience to Christ's commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and in deed.

Okay, so now we're into the implications of the gospel. This is not what saves us. We've gone through how it's all by the person of Christ, His work that justifies us. But if we're truly born again, this is how we live.

We're changed. We're different. We live according to the power of the Spirit. By God's word, we've been transformed. Okay, Christ's return.

Sharon. We believe in the personal, bodily, and premillennial return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ at a time known only to God demands constant expectancy, and as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service, and energetic mission.

Awesome.

Okay, we are a church that believes in the second coming of Christ, and that's what motivates us to keep coming, to keep preaching, and to keep going. Now, I want you to circle the word premillennial there.

This denomination is premillennial, but there's a motion in the EFCA to drop that word and change it to glorious. The reason being is even though, like, our church probably will always be premillennial, as long as I'm pastor, I'm a premillennialist, right?

But we don't want to divide over that issue and say that someone who doesn't believe that is not a Christian. So let's say R .C. Sproul, you know, who recently passed away. He, I don't believe, was premillennial.

We're not going to say R .C. Sproul isn't a Christian, you know, he could never be a member of our church, but that's how we church, that's how we teach within this church. So there's a, I think it's in 2019, the vote's going to happen to just change that to glorious to make it more inclusive.

But just so you know where I'm coming from as a pastor, premillennial, do you guys know what premillennial is? It means that there's going to be a thousand year reign of Christ on earth, still in the future, before the eternal state.

So we're going to, Christ is going to come back and set up his kingdom in Jerusalem for a thousand years and reign from Zion. It's an amazing, I love the teaching, I think that's very biblical, but that's where we're coming from.

And lastly, number 10, Daniel, bring us home.

We believe that God commands everyone, excuse me, everyone, everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth to the praise of his glorious grace.

Amen.

Amen. Amen. So the gospel should be preached to all, it's a command to all the world to repent and believe the good news. And there is eternal conscious punishment, that's hell, that's the view of hell that we hold.

There's some other views of hell, like that everybody who's unbelieving will just get annihilated. That's not our view. Eternal conscious punishment means that there is a literal place called hell. Seems to be the teaching of the scripture for sure.

And there is also, thank the Lord Jesus, that there is a place called heaven and eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord, a new heaven, a new earth to the praise of his glorious grace. Okay, so I put at the bottom here, always reforming.

Because I wanted to make the point that a statement of faith does not have the same level of authority as the Bible. It would be possible, for example, to drop the word premillennial from the statement of faith to revise a statement of faith.

Whereas we would never do that with the Bible. It's the Bible, not the statement of faith, that holds us together. It's all built on sola scriptura. So this statement of faith is our best attempt to summarize in a 10-point formula what is the core of the gospel, what are the main things that hold us together.

But ultimately, it's the Bible alone that we stand upon. Does that make sense? So you guys have heard of the solas of the Reformation. It was sola fide, by faith alone. Sola scriptura, according to the scripture alone.

Sola Christus, through Christ alone. Sola gratia, by grace alone. Sola solidea gloria, to the glory of God alone. So, let me close in prayer. I know this was a whirlwind. I knew this would have to go fast, because there's 10 points to the statement of faith.

But for me, the statement of faith is really the most important part, because it's our faith that brings us together. It's the faith, Jude chapter 3. The faith is the reason that we're all here. That's why we are a church in the first place.

So let me close in prayer, and next week we'll pick it back up with how this church came to be and the EFCA as a denomination. What are some of the distinctives? All that kind of stuff is next week. All right, let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for this class. Thank you for all those who are becoming members. Those who are here today, plus the others who are joining us next week and in weeks to come. Lord, thank you so much that you are building your church.

Just like you said you would, Jesus. You said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So Lord, thank you for each one who's here. Help us to have great conversations, great questions, and we pray that we would grow in our knowledge and depth of insight.

Lord, that the scriptures would be alive to us through this class, especially in Jesus' name. Amen. Great job.