What We Believe and Why It Matters

Good morning Cornerstone. Today we begin a month of going back to the basics of who we are as believers and who we are as a church. Today we will talk about what we believe and why it matters.

First and foremost as Christians we believe in the gospel . We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ it's a message about what Jesus did right? Now for many of you the message of the gospel may seem like something you've always known and something we talk about maybe too much but what really is the gospel message? The gospel message is the reality that mankind sins we do wrong, evil things to one another and before God. We are selfish, self seeking creatures. But the gospel is also the reality that there is a just God. God really does judge sin. The problem is, God doesn't judge sin on a sliding scale. He judges sin against a set standard if you will. He judges sin against perfection. So, while you might be better than your spouse or you might be better than your sibling or your coworker you still send and as the Bible teaches the wages of sin is death

Romans 6:23 ESV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

so God is a just God who judges sin with absolute authority. And God doesn't compare us to each other where we might win out relatively. God judges us absolutely . So what does this mean? It means that you and I will be punished or judged for every sin in our life at some point. We will be judged for everything from stealing candy from a cookie jar literally when we are children 2 an actual theft that we committed or to a crime or to some other send that we can commit in our lives against God or against one another God will judge sin so every human being can take comfort in the reality of God's judgment because who doesn't want bad people to get what's coming to them?

I don't know if you saw this story ... the one about GameStop. In short a few weeks ago several hedge fund managers made a move financially that was based on their prediction that GameStop would fail ... in other words they moved money around in such a way that they would make money when the GameStop company lost value. What happened next was a product of the world we live in. Millions of individual investors gamers, and other individuals got on a number of investing sites and bought 10s of millions of shares of GameStop they got mad at the big bad hedge fund investors and they decided to get even by driving up the price of GameStop. They wanted justice they didn't want the big bad rich hedge fund managers to hurt a company that they loved they wanted a sense of justice they wanted what felt right

The problem in the GameStop story is that the GameStop Corporation is fundamentally weak and struggling a lot with their business model with the advent of online gaming really challenging them. There are many good reasons for their stock to fall and So what hundreds of investors tried to individually do to get back at these big companies they may regret later because they made a rash decision to do what felt right but they only lost money in a moment . And there's a good chance that GameStop is not going to do well in the future.

What do I mean mean by sharing this story? I mean, our culture wants what is right they want a feeling of justice but they are confused about what righteousness and justice really look like. What the Bible promises is an unchanging standard of justice. It promises the justice of God. Eventually, God wins.

So how does this loop back to the gospel message?

When we say we believe in the gospel we believe that God judges everyone and that leaves everyone vulnerable to judgment.

Even for those who don’t believe in God they still experience the hurt, pain, and guilt of sin.

We don't like pain we run from the pain and hurt of guilt . We run two drugs an alcohol we run to watching TV shows endlessly. We do whatever we can to hide from the guilt that is in our lives today more and more men and women feel the pain of guilt and tried to hide from it by excusing it or redefining right and wrong. But then they still commit sins and hurt those they love they still see sin in the world around them and in their own heart they see the capacity to hurt greatly those they love dearly

So what does the gospel message offer to a world that is hurting? That is stinging from injustice ? That is embroiled in angry disagreements? Well, the gospel offers Jesus it's simple as Jesus and it's enough theology to fill countless books.

The Bible teaches that what Jesus did on the cross paid for all the sin we could ever commit he paid for all the hurt we could ever do to other human beings into ourselves.

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus didn't just spend a few years walking around teaching. Jesus sacrificed himself. He put our needs above his needs. In fact the Bible says that Jesus the son of God actually learned obedience from what he suffered. He learned to obey God by sacrificing himself in obedience to save you and I.

Hebrews 5:8 ESV

8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

The Bible teaches that all we have to do to receive the forgiveness that Jesus sacrificed for is too simply accept it and to accept him as Lord Can you imagine that? Can you imagine just being forgiven? I think far too many of us who have grown up in the church take the forgiveness of the gospel for granted. Many live with the reality of homes with transactional relationships-- if you hurt me I will get even.

Other people grow up with hurts pains from childhood they can't shake. And they deal with these hurts and pains by trying to numb them in some way. Or escape them. Or they turn around and hurt others. Jesus paid a price so you could forgive yourself for your sins. Jesus paid a price so that God the righteous judge could judge you forgiven. How freeing is that? People who work in recovery ministries and people who are trying to recover from addictions in their lives recognize that one of the first steps to finding freedom from addictive struggles and cycles is learning to forgive yourself because if you can't forgive yourself then you constantly find yourself running Running from your pain.

The gospel of Jesus Christ offers us forgiveness. It offers us freedom. Not freedom to do whatever we want. Because freedom to do whatever we want ends up causing a whole lot of pain. But the gospel offers us freedom from suffering guilt for all that we have done. It offers us the peace of knowing that God loves us and has forgiven us.

So what do we believe? We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe in a message From God that we can live forgiven lives. Forgiven lives are peace-filled lives.

We believe that Jesus also showed us how to live. That’s why we call our self Christians because we live lives imitating Jesus.

Ephesians 4:32 ESV

32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Think about it, if you can live a life where you know that God has forgiven you and loves you how does that give you peace? If you can live a life with great capacity to forgive others around you how does that give you freedom to live in this world without fear?

you don't have to fear living with broken relationships.

You don't have to bear the pain of guilt and the burden of bitterness.

You don't have to fear what comes in the life after this one.

You know that your heavenly father loves you regardless of how your earthly father did.

The Bible says you can have a peace that passes understanding.

Philippians 4:7 ESV

7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

If you think about it, that's one of the greatest perks of Christianity. It's one of the greatest benefits of the gospel. Peace. Feel that idea.

We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We also believe that Jesus called us to share about him with others.

Matthew 28:19–20 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus called us to go into all the world and teach other people about him. Jesus called us to do this thing called making disciples. What are disciples?

The 12 men who followed Jesus had their lives so transformed by their experience of Jesus that they could never forget Jesus. They died defending what they believed in. They traveled the world to tell others about Jesus. Their lives were so transformed by spending time with Jesus that they had something to live for.

You see we believe that God sent Jesus to save the whole world. And Jesus didn't just fly in like Superman and protect us from the big bad devil. Jesus took his time. Jesus lived on the earth for some 30 three years. Jesus spent three years getting to know and investing in his followers. Jesus didn't want to save a country like an Avenger from the Marvel movies. Jesus wanted to save the hearts and souls of men and women.

Jesus wants to save and redeem your family, your friends, your neighbors, the waitress at that restaurant, your coworkers, he wants to save the world. He wants to transform lives.

We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ and we believe that Jesus wants to transform lives with the message he entrusted to us.

We share Jesus with others both because he told us to share and because we want others to know the forgiven, peace-filled life He offers.

I don't know about you but one of my favorite experiences in life is to discover a TV show five seasons in. I love to discover a book series about three or four books in. I love that when I finally discovered Tom Clancy he'd already been writing for some 30 years. When I was in high school the famous left behind book series came out. How many of you are familiar with that? That was seven books talking about the end times . It was an insanely popular Christian book series. And it was insanely hard to wait on each new book to be written and released. What am I getting at here?

We believe that God sent Jesus to change our world. And if you just encounter the gospel right there and embrace what Jesus did it will transform your life. And if you really understand how awesome Jesus is you will want to get the back story. You will want to read the other books in the series and watch the other seasons. You should want to read the other parts of the Bible. Because if you really want to understand how awesome Jesus is you need to understand the rest of the Bible.

We believe the rest of the Bible points to Jesus. And we believe in the rest of the Bible God teaches us how to understand the world we live in.

You see from the very beginning the Bible teaches us that mankind is tempted to take control of his life. Mankind so quickly turns to things that We want control rather than the God who made us.

We believe that Genesis shows us the beginning and the cost of sin. In short, sin separated mankind from God. From the very beginning of mankind we grappled with the desire to put ourselves first. Serving ourselves hurt others and that made us worthy of God's judgment.

so also in Genesis God gave mankind the practice of making sacrifices. From the very beginning God wanted to show us that we could pay for our sins or cover our sins with blood. It sounds weird but that's what the Bible teaches. Honestly though, does it really sound weird? We've always understood that there must be a payment made for a wrong done. Every culture has this concept of making sacrifices to their gods.

The Bible teaches that he gave a way for people to deal with their sins. And that was by making sacrifices.

The story of the Old Testament, the first half of the Bible is the story of God's relationship with a special people right? We believe that through that relationship God promised to bless the entire world. We believe that in the Old Testament we see so much about God's character and how God works.

Through the New Testament we learned the story of Jesus and the forgiveness that God brings through him. Forgiveness that we've already talked about today right.

But also in the New Testament we see the God created this thing called the church. He made it something special. He made it a living community. He made it a place where we can call one another family. The way that God made the church different was through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We believe that on the day of Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost God sent his Holy Spirit into the lives of every man in woman who has placed their faith in Jesus. God sent his spirit to live inside of us. This spirit counsels us, convicts us of sin, and leads us into righteousness. Into doing the right thing.

I suppose talking about this idea of God's spirit also relates to something else we believe right? We believe that somehow God exists as God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. Through dozens of examples and verses throughout the Bible we see evidence of God's nature. We believe that God is 1 God with three persons. it's called the Trinity. No one fully understands God as Trinity but we see evidence of how it works.

So the church, Jesus said he will build the church and the gates of hell will not stand against it. Jesus called the church his bride. Jesus loves the church. The church is a community where God builds disciples in family. We believe in the church. We believe in the family of God , a community that can weather anything.

So we believe in the gospel, we believe that the Bible tells the story of Jesus, we believe in the church, we believe in the Trinity, we believe.

Why does it matter what we believe?

It matters what we believe because our faith explains the world to us. It matters because these beliefs of ours give us hope for the future , our community to encourage us, and the power to transform our lives. It matters what we believe because what we believe defines how we live.

When Ann Nelson found the solution to what was causing her pain and believed in it and got doctors to believe in it she got healing. When Rick Rollins received a diagnosis that he needed emergency heart surgery and he got the surgery he saved his life. When Keith and Cindy wrightsman realized they were getting sick and went to the doctor and were told they had the coronavirus they took actions to get solutions to get healing. You see when it comes to our health we take actions based on what we believe to be the problem. We've got an appointment for Isabel to correct hopefully what has been causing her fevers for a year now. We believe we know the problem and therefore we believe we know the solution.

Our belief shows us how to take steps to save our lives and cause our lives to thrive.

Why does it matter to our community what we believe?

Why can't we just let everyone around us believe whatever they want? Why can't we just live and let live? Why can't we just coexist?

Well, if what we believe about Jesus and God are true then not sharing the gospel with our family members is like Ashley and I not pointing out obvious signs of diabetes or leukemia to someone. It's like us seeing a painful devastating problem in their lives and saying nothing.

Our community is full of poverty. Our community is full of men and women living in the grips of addictions. Our community is full of men and women believing they can find happiness in serving themselves. Our community is full of men and women finding greatest meaning in their job and in their success and in their money.

Our community is full of men and women in chains tied to their sin. Men and women who cannot escape the guilt that surrounds the decisions they've made. Men and women unable to forgive each other. Men and women who have been hurt and are hurting others.

The gospel offers freedom and forgiveness. The gospel offers hope. The gospel offers love. That's what we believe. That's why it matters. It matters that we believe and the very son of God who came to earth to save us from the sin in this world.

What's the problem?

The problem is far too often we've made church more about old traditions and habits then about the gospel. We spend more time talking to each other about our health problems and families and less about the power of the gospel. Consequently we end up looking more like caricatures to the world outside. And men and women in droves find little use.

So today I invite you to remember what we believe.

We believe in the Gospel message of forgiveness from God.

Through this forgiveness you can forgive yourself and others and live in peace.

We believe Jesus showed us how to live transformed lives and told us to share with others.

We believe God created this thing called the church through the work of His Holy Spirit.

We believe in a message far to life-changing and important to keep it a secret.