Jesus

JESUS

If the Bible makes no other point, it shouts this one: GOD LOVES US!

Why Jesus?

God’s love had no beginning and is incredibly patient. All we need to do is respond, not try to earn what is freely offered. God has said in many ways, “I love you!” I have demonstrated that love to you by all I’ve done for you. I have even sacrificed my Son, Jesus, to pay the price for what is unacceptable about you – your sin. Now, live because of my love. Respond to me: love me with your whole being: give yourself to me in thanksgiving, not as payment. Live life fully, in the freedom of knowing you are loved.”

Jesus is the Good News

“Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: "a virgin's womb and an empty tomb". Jesus entered our world through a door marked," No Entrance" and left through a door marked "No Exit."“

-Peter Larson

“I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher ... You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool ... or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Jesus lived for you.

Some 2,000 years ago God lived on earth as a real man, fully human and fully God at the very same time. His name was and is Jesus, which means Emanuel, God with us. Scholars may disagree about some things of Jesus’ life, but one thing almost all agree on, is the fact that a real man named Jesus lived in Israel. But it is how he lived that really matters. He lived Perfectly, without sin. While only on earth, for a short lived 33 years, he lived in a way that no one has matched in 100 years of life, or every human being put together has been able to do. No one is more loved. No one is more hated. Jesus chose to enter into human history and the mess of it all and live his life that way for you and me. A life we can never live after the fall and in our broken state separated from God due to our sinful nature. Jesus tells us that he has come to give us life, life abundant, and life eternal - not condemnation. And we can experience that right here on earth by claiming his perfectness and goodness, not our own.

Jesus died for you.

A truly innocent man, the only man without sin. Tortured, beaten, spit on, whipped, nailed, hung, pierced. This was not the way you would expect the God of the universe to go out and to suffer. He suffered the worst kind of death, and he did it all for you and me. Jesus truly paid it all. We believe he died the way he did to accomplish something none of us could accomplish on our own. The least deserving person died the most heinous death to pay for our mistakes. To become the greatest sinner ever known by taking on all the wrongs done against God and paying the price demanded for sin, death. I bet if you take a real hard look at your life, you would agree that you haven’t been perfect or anywhere near it. While in our own strength none of us are perfect, Jesus died in order to make us perfect in God’s eyes and restore our broken relationship with our creator. Will we keep messing up this side of things? You bet we will, but Jesus died for those mistakes too.

Jesus rose for you.

We believe Jesus conquered death itself and rose from the grave. We cannot explain how he did it, but we believe it to be true. Real people who walked right alongside Jesus believed he rose from the dead and saw him after his resurrection. They believed it so much that they too died for it. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we believe he paved the way for us to do the same. Sadly we all have to die here on this earth, but God made a way for us to live on forever. That way is Jesus. If you don’t believe that yet, that’s OK too. We hope and pray you will someday. And we would love to get to know you a bit in the meantime, and help you build your relationship with this person named Jesus.

Until you have been saved by Jesus, you’re the walking dead. Trapped in your sins. Spiritually unconscious. Separated from God. Salvation is God’s rescue operation: God’s plan and our hope, for God’s glory and our good.
Jesus came to earth, died on a cross, and was raised to life to rescue you from sin, make you alive, and bring you into eternal relationship with God. Salvation is not only a matter of life after death, but also the way to live an abundant life on earth with Jesus, here and now.
Simply put, Jesus is salvation, and salvation is life (1 John 5:12). That’s why CSBC celebrates the empty tomb. When you are saved, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in you!
Depending on your family background or religious tradition, you may have heard a variety of ideas about salvation.
Perhaps you think it’s what happens when you walk an aisle, pray a prayer or get baptized. Maybe you believe salvation is only for “good people,” or that salvation is something you have to earn with good works or something you can lose if you do bad things.
You don’t have to wonder or doubt. Jesus wants you to know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13). That’s why the Bible — God’s Word to us — is clear about every aspect of salvation:
Jesus saves you when you repent and trust in Jesus’ forgiveness for your sins. Your salvation is God’s gift to you. It is not earned by anything you do. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Prayer is a way to communicate our belief to God.
Salvation is for ALL people. No one’s sin is greater than or too big for God’s grace. Jesus’ desire is for everyone to be saved. (2 Peter 3:9; John 3:16).
You didn’t earn your salvation, so you can’t lose your salvation. If you have put your trust in Jesus and the Holy Spirit has changed your heart, God promises that nothing and no one can separate you from Him. (John 10:27; Romans 8:38-39.)
The Bible tells us the truth of who God is. If you want to know more about God and His promises, reading the Bible is your next step. Reading the Bible every day can change the rest of your days, and God’s word—the Bible—is the primary way He speaks to us. It’s the absolute best way to discover how to follow Jesus. Reading the Bible will bring you hope, encouragement, guidance, and practical advice on the every day issues you’re facing. It is relevant to everyone, everywhere, at any time.
Baptism is going public about your faith in Jesus and communicating to the world your heart-felt commitment to following Him. It’s the next step after salvation.
Baptism is an outward expression of an inward change. It’s a public declaration of how Jesus changed your life. Being baptized shows others that you’ve decided to follow Jesus, and allows them to celebrate this decision with you (Acts 16:31-34).
Baptism doesn’t save a person; it’s a symbol and celebration of salvation (1 Peter 3:21). The power that brought Jesus back to life is the same power Jesus uses to change our lives – and that’s worth getting excited about!

If we would be right with God, we don’t need to improve ourselves. We need a complete restart. Jesus did not come to make us better people. Jesus came to make us NEW people.

JESUS BECAME AND IS OUR SUBSTITUTE

Jesus lived the life you and I should have lived (fulfilled the demands of God’s law, His way), Jesus fulfilled the demands of breaking God’s law, being sent to die on a cross (essentially becoming the greatest sinner that ever lived and the wrath deserved for you and I taken out on Him), raised from the dead, and establishing His power and victory over sin (that same power and promise offered to us [you and me] - absolutely free!).

Romans 3:20-24; Ephesians 2:8; Ezekiel 33:11

We Believe:

He was born a miraculous birth, of a virgin, He lived a sinless life, He worked miracles and gave us an example to follow. He is fully God and fully man and now sits at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us.
John 1:1-5; Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:15
Without the resurrection there is no faith, Christianity, or any hope for the future. He rose from the dead, appeared to eyewitnesses, and is still at work today through the Holy Spirit. His resurrection isn’t just about our future, but the importance of our present life. “On earth as it is in Heaven” isn’t simply a habitual prayer, but becomes a legitimate reality.
John 11:25-26; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; 1 Corinthians 15:14; 1 Corinthians 15:17
We are not saved by the gospel of “try harder”, or our good deeds, nor do we have the ability to earn our way into Heaven or a right realtionship with God simply on human effort. We are saved by the gracious act of Jesus being our substitute.
Our God is a loving God; however, He is also a Holy God. Isaiah 55:8-9
Too often today we hear, God is “nice”, and God is “love”, and so faith and grace become simply an understanding that by just believing in or having a knowledge of God, everything will turn out “nice”. But we look all around us at the brokenness of this world and our own lives and quickly realize, things, this world, and our lives are anything but “nice”. NOTHING functions as it should, including us (you and me included).
Necessity of New
“The appeal of nice is strong. It plays to our vanity and pride. Jesus confronts us with the need to be made new. He does this three times in John 3 alone:
“Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
“Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
“You must be born again” (John 3:7).
If we would be right with God, we don’t need to improve ourselves. We need a complete restart. In fact, the Bible uses several theological concepts to describe what Jesus means:
Regeneration, which means being born again, with an emphasis on the divine source of that new life (1 Pet. 1:3).
Re-creation, which means being made anew as part of the end-time new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15).
Transformation, which means being given a new nature (Col. 3:10).
A radical change must occur in us. One word the Bible never uses to describe what Jesus is talking about is “reformation.” You might reform a church, but not a dead heart. The personal change that Jesus says we need goes much deeper; it reaches down to our very nature.
According to Scripture, God made us to worship him, to love him, and to find in him our deepest satisfaction. That was our nature as he originally created it. But when our first parents rebelled against God, they didn’t just break a rule; they corrupted their nature. Theologians call this “original sin,” and we’ve all inherited it. Created with a nature to love God, we now have a nature bent on loving self. From birth, Paul says, we’re dead in our sins, and walk in the passions of our flesh (Eph. 2:1–3). We’re like dead men walking.
This is why nice doesn’t work. We must be made new.”
The False Gospel of Nice
July 13, 2017 | Michael Lawrence