What We Believe
at Evergreen Lutheran Church & Preschool
Thank you for taking the time to check out what we believe, teach, and confess, here at Evergreen Lutheran Church & Preschool. If you have any questions, thoughts, or comments, please get in touch with me.
First and foremost, we believe that we are saved by God's grace, for the sake of and through faith in Jesus Christ. This means there is nothing we can do to earn God's favor or to gain eternal life. Jesus Christ, in His sacrificial love for us, has accomplished this for all people through His death on the cross and glorious resurrection on the third day. We also believe God created the whole universe along with everything in it, including us humans, who are the crown of His creation, created to be moral beings for a life of worship and service to God (Isaiah 43:7, Psalm 100).
However, we believe that we rebelled against our gracious and loving God, disobeying Him as we turned our back on His will and intentions for us, while at the same time doing what pleased us (i.e., we 'sinned'). Our sinful condition separated us from God and left us standing helpless as well as hopeless under His righteous judgement (Romans 3:12,23).
We also believe the Good News, the Gospel, that out of His sacrificial love for us, God gave His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die in the place of and for the sins of all of people of all time, and that by God's grace (God's Riches at Christ's Expense) through faith in Jesus Christ, forgiveness, life, and salvation are available to all of us (John 3:16, Romans 3:24).
This means that we believe that everyone, who by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, has faith in Jesus Christ and what He accomplished for us by His death on the cross and His resurrection, not only receives forgiveness, life, and salvation from God, but also becomes a child of God and a member of His family of faith, the church (Acts 16:31, Romans 3:22).
As Christians, God's people of faith, we believe that we are called into the church to praise and worship God, to receive the Spirit's renewal of our faith, to strengthen other believers (our brothers and sisters in Christ), and to carry out God's mission of taking the Gospel of His saving love to all people (Matthew 28:18-20).
We believe that God has revealed to us all of this Good News, along with His eternal truths, in His inspired, inerrant Word, called the Bible, and that it alone is the basis of our Christian faith (2 Timothy 3:15–17, John 17:17).
We further believe that God offers His grace, love, forgiveness, life, and salvation to all people, including infants, in the sacrament (sacred act) of baptism. In baptism, God adopts us into His family faith, surrounding us with a spiritual family to encourage us in our faith (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:39, Romans 6:4, I Peter 3:21).
Likewise, we believe in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, that God comes to us again with His grace, love, forgiveness, life, and salvation as Jesus give us His body and blood in, with and under bread and wine, assuring us of His promises to all of us believers (Matthew 26:26-29, I Corinthians 10:16-17 & 11:23-25).
Even though all Christians continue to battle sin and the devil, we believe that we show love to God though living lives of loving service to other people, practicing forgiveness, kindness, patience, humility and unselfish service for the sake and in the Name of Jesus Christ (John 13:31-34, Romans 13:8-10, I John 3:16-18).
Finally, we believe that God will raise up all people on the last day and that every person who has a faith relationship with Jesus, believing in Him as Lord and Savior, will be given eternal life as a gift of God's grace (I Thessalonians 4:13-18, Hebrews 9:28, II Peter 3:8-13).
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