The Story We Believe

We believe the Gospel is the story of all of human history as perfectly revealed by God in the Bible. The Gospel is one story that can be broken in to four acts.

The story starts with God, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, creating all things from nothing and seeing all of it as good. Mankind was the crown of His creation, creating us in His image to rule and care for the rest of His creation. Mankind was created in perfect relationship to Him and to one another.

The story takes an evil turn when the first humans turn from God, rebelling against His plan and purpose for their lives. In this act of rebellion evil, darkness, suffering, and death entered into God’s perfect and good creation. Our relationship with God, one another, and creation was severed. That which God created as good, balanced, and wholesome was tarnished by man’s rebellion’s rebellion.

Thankfully, the story does not end with the fall. Rather, God had a plan for redemption. He did not plan to abandon His creation to destruction and decay, but to redeem it. He chose a people, Abraham and his descendants, to be the instruments of his redeeming work. They were to represent Him in the world and declare Him all other people.

Through the generations of Abraham’s family, God wove the story of His plan for redemption. Through miracles, laws, kings, and prophets, God has communicated this story so that men women would come to understand His nature and trust His character. God worked in history to reveal Himself and draw rebellious mankind back into a relationship with Him.

The climax of this story of the Gospel came in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God Himself entered human history giving the clearest picture of this redemption. As a man, Jesus lived a sinless life was brutally murdered by His own people, and literally rose from death. In Jesus God bridged the gap between creation and creator, taking on flesh and living in this fallen world. In Jesus’ life we see how intended live to be lived. In Jesus’ death, God displayed and satisfied His anger at man’s rebellion. In His resurrection Jesus triumphed over man’s rebellion, Satan’s plans for evil, and man’s greatest enemy, death.

As great as it is, the resurrection of Jesus is not the end of the story. Because of Jesus’ work, every person is now offered the opportunity to enter into a personal experience of God’s redemption. Our sins can be forgiven, our past can be changed, our future can be bright, and our hope can be in our own resurrection. We can turn from our rebellion against our Creator, follow Jesus as our Savior and Lord, and rest in knowing that this story of redemption continues until God restores His creation to its original design.

Until God’s story of redemption is complete, we who discover redemption through Jesus Christ live a new kind of life right now. We find in Jesus the real source of joy, fulfillment, and truth. We live out our relationship with Jesus as we read, study, and follow His written word, the Bible, and as we live as a community with others who have also found this redeemed life in Jesus.