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What We Believe
We believe that we are:
Saved by GRACE Alone,
Sola Gratia
through FAITH Alone,
Sola Fide
in JESUS CHRIST Alone,
Solus Christus
according to HOLY SCRIPTURE Alone,
Sola Scriptura
for GLORY TO GOD Alone!
Soli Deo Gloria
What does this mean?
Sola Gratia: Grace Alone
We are all sinners and we all deserve God's judgment and eternal condemnation; we do not deserve His unconditional and steadfast love. However, God loves us all, even when we rebel against and reject Him. God's unconditional love for us is known to us through His grace and mercy, which is made manifest only through Jesus Christ, His only Son. Jesus provides us all a narrow pathway to eternal salvation through repentance and belief in Him.
God's gift of grace and mercy is given to us freely and willfully. Our salvation has nothing to do with our own merit, for none of us can save ourselves. That is why God Himself, through Jesus Christ's suffering and death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, rescues everyone who repents and believes in Him, which all comes from the Holy Spirit.
Blue is the color of the Church season of Advent; the looking forward with hopeful and confident anticipation of Jesus Christ's return to judge all the earth. God's grace is sufficient and all we need.
Sola Fide: Faith Alone
It is not our good works or faithful efforts that save us from the wages of sin and their consequence; eternal condemnation. Only Jesus Christ's sacrificial suffering and death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead atoned for all our sins. Jesus willingly took all our sins onto Himself and bore them on the cross. Jesus, the perfect, innocent, and sinless Son of God, received God the Father's full punishment and wrath in our stead and fully paid the penalty for our sins.
Everyone who hears this great news and repents and believes in Him, automatically and immediately receives the free gift of eternal life that His selfless sacrifice freely offers to us. God the Father turns His wrath away from us because He sees Jesus' selfless sacrifice instead of our sins.
Faith (belief) and repentance go hand-in-hand. You cannot have faith in Jesus if you do not have a repentant heart and you cannot have a repentant heart without faith in Him. The Holy Spirit creates and stokes faith in Jesus within our hearts. If you stop rejecting His love and sacrifice for you and therefore believe in Him as your Lord and Savior, then you are made able to repent of your sins. Repentance means fleeing from temptations and sin rather than living in that sin.
Green is the color of the Church season of Epiphany and Pentecost; the encouragement and growth of one's faith in Jesus Christ. One's faith will actively thrive only through His love, grace, and mercy.
Solus Christus: Jesus Christ Alone
Jesus Christ is the only Son of God and is also the Son of Man. Jesus is both fully God and fully human, not half God and half human. He is one of the three Godhead-members of the true Triune God, Yahweh (YHWH). Jesus was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. He lived a perfect, sinless life during His time here on earth because He is fully God and God cannot sin.
Jesus Christ's perfect and blameless life and ministry made Him the perfect and last blood sacrifice needed for the atonement of all our sins. Eternal life and salvation from our sin is found in Jesus Christ alone; no other human can offer forgiveness from our sins. Jesus' love for us allows us to love one another through good works in His name. Jesus provided His commandments to us in summary: we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength - and likewise, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Love conquers all evil.
Red is the color of Jesus Christ's Passion; His willful and freely given blood sacrifice as the perfect, unblemished Lamb of God for the atonement of all our sins.
Sola Scriptura: Holy Scripture Alone
The Bible is the verbally inspired and written Word of God. It is inerrant (without error), infallible (incapable of erring), unchanging (timeless), sufficient (all we need), and the source of all truth (known and unknown). God's Word reveals to us His Law, which lays all our sins bare, convicts us of them, and sentences us to eternal death for them. God's Word also reveals to us His Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, which saves us from all our sins and makes us righteous in God's sight. Sadly, not everyone who reads the Bible will believe and some will even attack those who do believe. To the true believer: have no fear of such attacks and continue believing boldly.
The Bible is the sole authority for the Christian faith, doctrine, and practice. All 66 books of the Bible were originally written by around 40 different authors, all whom recorded their own eye witness accounts, as well as recorded countless other eye witness accounts, of the events contained within. The Bible was written on 3 different continents, in the languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, over the course of centuries. The Bible is a living book because it's the living Word of God.
The 39 books of the Old Testament describe God's creation of the entire universe, our fall into sin, and points to our redemption and salvation provided to us by God, through Jesus Christ. The 27 books of the New Testament describe Jesus' miraculous birth, His life and ministry, His innocent and sacrificial death on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension into heaven. Everything written after His ascension further explains how to live a Christian life, spread His Gospel message to all the earth, and points us towards His coming again to judge all the earth.
Purple is the color of the Church season of Lent; the fulfillment of every Messianic prophecy by Jesus.
Soli Deo Gloria: Glory to God Alone
Our salvation is a completed work of God for His glory. We cannot contribute anything to our own salvation. For this reason, we are commanded to live our entire lives to glorify God in all things. By God's grace and mercy, and through the faith He provides us, He moves in our hearts, minds, and souls, enabling us to sincerely repent and believe in Jesus Christ. This belief should produce a profound joy within us, enabling us to do good works in His name. These good works are not for our salvation, they are to show our neighbors His love in us and for us to be living witnesses of His love.
God gave us all free will, meaning that He cannot force us to sincerely repent of our sins nor can He force us to sincerely believe in Him. However, He is always there with us and He is always trying to get us to repent and believe in Him through His Holy Spirit. We can only choose to reject His free gift of love, grace, and mercy. Beware, if you reject Him, He will reject you when your, or all, time ends.
If you stop rejecting Him, therefore automatically allowing Him to do His work in you, it will produce a genuine worship, praise, and adoration of God that will well up inside you as a living spring of eternal life. You will then be enabled to turn your back on the sinful desires of your flesh and instead face Him. The Holy Spirit calls us all to His Gospel message. If we accept it by not rejecting it, God will enlighten you with His blessings and the fulfillment of His promises, He will sanctify you, and He will keep you in the one true faith in Him through His Holy Spirit, always.
Along with white, gold is the color of the Church season of Easter; Jesus Christ's ultimate victory over all sin (past, present, and future), all death (temporally and eternally), and Satan.
We confess the Apostles Creed:
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
And I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."
What is the Holy Trinity?
God the Father
The Almighty Creator of all that exists, known and unknown.
God the Son
God the Father's only Son, Jesus Christ, who humbly stepped down from His throne in heaven, to become a human, in order to suffer and die for the sins of all human beings and to rise back to life from the dead; the ultimate victory over all sin, death and Satan.
God the Holy Spirit
Our Holy Advocate who creates faith in us through God's Word and Holy Sacraments.
All three persons of the Holy Trinity are coequal, coeternal, and coessential as the One True God.
We say the Lord's Prayer:
"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen."
If you would like more information about
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, visit: www.lcms.org.
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