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Doctrinal Statement

Greetings!

Given that we are at beginning stages of this new church, we do not yet have an official doctrinal statement. This is one of those things that the Elders of Emmaus do not want to rush! The Elders are currently studying through a doctrinal statement and will continue that process over the next few months. This is such a foundational document, we want to make sure that it’s tight — not too complex and yet not simplistic, and, of course, true to scripture.

In the meantime, please refer to this blog post for a statement that accurately represents what I believe. My hope is that this statement will help you to understand the doctrinal leanings of Emmaus until the official document is ready.

This statement comes from The Gospel Coalition and it accurately represents what I believe. The official doctrinal statement of Emmaus will most likely look something like this but with the addition of scripture references.

Thank you for your patience!

Joe Anady

Statement of Faith

 

  1. The Triune God.  We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who know, love, and glorify one another. This one true and living God is infinitely perfect both in his love and in his holiness. He is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and adoration. Immortal and eternal, he perfectly and exhaustively knows the end from the beginning, sustains and sovereignly rules over all things, and providentially brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the praise of his glorious grace.
  2. Revelation.  God has graciously disclosed his existence and power in the created order, and has supremely revealed himself to fallen human beings in the person of his Son, the incarnate Word. Moreover, this God is a speaking God who by his Spirit has graciously disclosed himself in human words: we believe that God has inspired the words preserved in the Scriptures, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, which are both record and means of his saving work in the world. These writings alone constitute the verbally inspired Word of God, which is utterly authoritative and without error in the original writings, complete in its revelation of his will for salvation, sufficient for all that God requires us to believe and do, and final in its authority over every domain of knowledge to which it speaks. We confess that both our finitude and our sinfulness preclude the possibility of knowing God’s truth exhaustively, but we affirm that, enlightened by the Spirit of God, we can know God’s revealed truth truly. The Bible is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it teaches; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; and trusted, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises. As God’s people hear, believe, and do the Word, they are equipped as disciples of Christ and witnesses to the gospel.
  3. Creation of Humanity.  We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in his own image. Adam and Eve belonged to the created order that God himself declared to be very good, serving as God’s agents to care for, manage, and govern creation, living in holy and devoted fellowship with their Maker. Men and women, equally made in the image of God, enjoy equal access to God by faith in Christ Jesus and are both called to move beyond passive self-indulgence to significant private and public engagement in family, church, and civic life. Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church. In God’s wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways. God ordains that they assume distinctive roles which reflect the loving relationship between Christ and the church, the husband exercising headship in a way that displays the caring, sacrificial love of Christ, and the wife submitting to her husband in a way that models the love of the church for her Lord. In the ministry of the church, both men and women are encouraged to serve Christ and to be developed to their full potential in the manifold ministries of the people of God. The distinctive leadership role within the church given to qualified men is grounded in creation, fall, and redemption and must not be sidelined by appeals to cultural developments.
  4. The Fall We believe that Adam, made in the image of God, distorted that image and forfeited his original blessedness—for himself and all his progeny—by falling into sin through Satan’s temptation. As a result, all human beings are alienated from God, corrupted in every aspect of their being (e.g., physically, mentally, volitionally, emotionally, spiritually) and condemned finally and irrevocably to death—apart from God’s own gracious intervention. The supreme need of all human beings is to be reconciled to the God under whose just and holy wrath we stand; the only hope of all human beings is the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can rescue us and restore us to himself.
  5. The Plan of God.  We believe that from all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and to this end foreknew them and chose them. We believe that God justifies and sanctifies those who by grace have faith in Jesus, and that he will one day glorify them—all to the praise of his glorious grace. In love God commands and implores all people to repent and believe, having set his saving love on those he has chosen and having ordained Christ to be their Redeemer.
  6. The Gospel. We believe that the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ—God’s very wisdom. Utter folly to the world, even though it is the power of God to those who are being saved, this good news is christological, centering on the cross and resurrection: the gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed, and the authentic Christ has not been proclaimed if his death and resurrection are not central (the message is Christ died for our sins . . . [and] was raised”). This good news is biblical (his death and resurrection are according to the Scriptures), theological and salvific (Christ died for our sins, to reconcile us to God), historical (if the saving events did not happen, our faith is worthless, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied more than all others), apostolic (the message was entrusted to and transmitted by the apostles, who were witnesses of these saving events), and intensely personal (where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual persons are saved).
  7. The Redemption of Christ.  We believe that, moved by love and in obedience to his Father, the eternal Son became human: the Word became flesh, fully God and fully human being, one Person in two natures. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, was conceived through the miraculous agency of the Holy Spirit, and was born of the virgin Mary. He perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father, lived a sinless life, performed miraculous signs, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven. As the mediatorial King, he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, exercising in heaven and on earth all of God’s sovereignty, and is our High Priest and righteous Advocate. We believe that by his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus Christ acted as our representative and substitute. He did this so that in him we might become the righteousness of God: on the cross he canceled sin, propitiated God, and, by bearing the full penalty of our sins, reconciled to God all those who believe. By his resurrection Christ Jesus was vindicated by his Father, broke the power of death and defeated Satan who once had power over it, and brought everlasting life to all his people; by his ascension he has been forever exalted as Lord and has prepared a place for us to be with him. We believe that salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. Because God chose the lowly things of this world, the despised things, the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, no human being can ever boast before him—Christ Jesus has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
  8. The Justification of Sinners.  We believe that Christ, by his obedience and death, fully discharged the debt of all those who are justified. By his sacrifice, he bore in our stead the punishment due us for our sins, making a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice on our behalf. By his perfect obedience he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf, since by faith alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God. Inasmuch as Christ was given by the Father for us, and his obedience and punishment were accepted in place of our own, freely and not for anything in us, this justification is solely of free grace, in order that both the exact justice and the rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners. We believe that a zeal for personal and public obedience flows from this free justification.
  9. The Power of the Holy Spirit.  We believe that this salvation, attested in all Scripture and secured by Jesus Christ, is applied to his people by the Holy Spirit. Sent by the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as the other Paraclete, is present with and in believers. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and by his powerful and mysterious work regenerates spiritually dead sinners, awakening them to repentance and faith, and in him they are baptized into union with the Lord Jesus, such that they are justified before God by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.  By the Spirit’s agency, believers are renewed, sanctified, and adopted into God’s family; they participate in the divine nature and receive his sovereignly distributed gifts. The Holy Spirit is himself the down payment of the promised inheritance, and in this age indwells, guides, instructs, equips, revives, and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service.
  10. The Kingdom of God.  We believe that those who have been saved by the grace of God through union with Christ by faith and through regeneration by the Holy Spirit enter the kingdom of God and delight in the blessings of the new covenant: the forgiveness of sins, the inward transformation that awakens a desire to glorify, trust, and obey God, and the prospect of the glory yet to be revealed. Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace. Living as salt in a world that is decaying and light in a world that is dark, believers should neither withdraw into seclusion from the world, nor become indistinguishable from it: rather, we are to do good to the city, for all the glory and honor of the nations is to be offered up to the living God. Recognizing whose created order this is, and because we are citizens of God’s kingdom, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, doing good to all, especially to those who belong to the household of God. The kingdom of God, already present but not fully realized, is the exercise of God’s sovereignty in the world toward the eventual redemption of all creation. The kingdom of God is an invasive power that plunders Satan’s dark kingdom and regenerates and renovates through repentance and faith the lives of individuals rescued from that kingdom. It therefore inevitably establishes a new community of human life together under God.
  11. God’s New People.  We believe that God’s new covenant people have already come to the heavenly Jerusalem; they are already seated with Christ in the heavenlies. This universal church is manifest in local churches of which Christ is the only Head; thus each local church” is, in fact, the church, the household of God, the assembly of the living God, and the pillar and foundation of the truth. The church is the body of Christ, the apple of his eye, graven on his hands, and he has pledged himself to her forever. The church is distinguished by her gospel message, her sacred ordinances, her discipline, her great mission, and, above all, by her love for God, and by her members’ love for one another and for the world. Crucially, this gospel we cherish has both personal and corporate dimensions, neither of which may properly be overlooked. Christ Jesus is our peace: he has not only brought about peace with God, but also peace between alienated peoples. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both Jew and Gentile to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. The church serves as a sign of God’s future new world when its members live for the service of one another and their neighbors, rather than for self-focus. The church is the corporate dwelling place of God’s Spirit, and the continuing witness to God in the world.
  12. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  We believe that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. The former is connected with entrance into the new covenant community, the latter with ongoing covenant renewal. Together they are simultaneously God’s pledge to us, divinely ordained means of grace, our public vows of submission to the once crucified and now resurrected Christ, and anticipations of his return and of the consummation of all things.
  13. The Restoration of All Things.  We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels, when he will exercise his role as final Judge, and his kingdom will be consummated. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust—the unjust to judgment and eternal conscious punishment in hell, as our Lord himself taught, and the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness. On that day the church will be presented faultless before God by the obedience, suffering and triumph of Christ, all sin purged and its wretched effects forever banished. God will be all in all and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace.

 

Copyright © 2011 The Gospel Coalition, Inc. All rights reserved.


Resolutions of Emmaus Christian Fellowship

Greetings!

As we begin this journey together as a new congregation I feel that it’s important for us to begin with a vision. The elders of Emmaus will be working with the statement below in the months to come, adding to it and perhaps taking away, until we are confident that this is indeed the direction the Lord wants for us to go as a new church. Once complete, we will align all that we do in ministry for the express purpose of accomplishing these goals. Please pray for the elders of this new church that God would give them wisdom during this formative stage.

Resolved to Proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Gospel means “good news”. The good news that we proclaim is that God, by His grace, saves sinners who trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Every person on the planet is a sinner to one degree or another. All have broken the law of God and are deserving of the wrath of God. The gospel is the message that God came in human form as the man Jesus Christ. He lived a sinless life and yet he died the death of a sinful man. We deserve death because of our sin but He, being innocent, died in our place. He paid the price for the sins of those who have faith in Him. Ultimately the good news is that God does for us what we are not able to do for ourselves; God saves us and He empowers us to live the Christian life day after day.

Certainly God can bring people to salvation in any way that He pleases and yet we know that God has determined to bring people to salvation primarily through His people, the church, proclaiming of the good news of Jesus Christ. It is imperative that we proclaim this message in our community and to the ends of the earth. The gospel message proclaimed by the church combined with the work of the Holy Spirit is the primary means by which men and women will be ushered into the Kingdom. If we are to be a God honoring, Christ exalting church, we must never loose our zeal for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Resolved to Preach the Whole Counsel of God’s Word

 

The teaching pastors of Emmaus will devote themselves primarily to the expositional preaching of God’s Word. This means that their prime objective week after week will be to study the scriptures, striving after the original thought and intent of the biblical authors, so that truth can be communicated and application made for the people of God in this modern age. The scriptures will primarily be taught book-by-book and verse-by-verse from the pulpit. Preachers will, through careful study and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, identify the main idea of a given passage and deliver that idea to the people in a way that is applicable to them today.  The preacher’s job is to explain the text, serving as God’s mouthpiece before the people of God. The preacher is obligated to speak where God speaks and to refrain where God refrains. Undoubtedly this will require the preacher to explain things that are difficult to understand and to, at times, proclaim truths that are offensive to believers and non-believers alike. The preacher is to proclaim the truth in a spirit of gentleness with an attitude of humility, all the while seeking to please God, and not the opinions of man.

 

Resolved to Shepherd the Flock of God

The pastors and elders of this new church will to be fully devoted to the spiritual care of the flock of God that has been entrusted to them (Acts 20:28, Hebrews 13:17, 1 Peter 5:1-11). They are to love, protect, nurture, feed, encourage, rebuke, listen to, tend, confront, counsel and lead the people of God in a spirit of humility and gentleness, being willing to suffer, if need be, for the good of the sheep.

This quote form Alexander Strauch is appropriate; “Shepherds are willing to bear the pain and endure the brunt of the sheep for the sheep. True elders do not commend the consciences of their brethren but appeal to their brethren to faithfully follow God’s Word. Out of love, true elders suffer and bear the brunt of difficult people and problems so that the lambs are not bruised. The elders bear the misunderstandings and sins of other people so that the assembly may live in peace. They loose sleep so that others may rest. They make great personal sacrifices of time and energy for the welfare of others. They see themselves as men under authority. They depend on God for wisdom and help, not on their own power and cleverness. They face the false teachers’ fierce attacks. They guard the communities liberty and freedom in Christ so that the saints are encouraged to develop their gifts, to mature, and to serve one another.”[1]

 

Resolved to Lead the Flock of God

The pastors and elders of this new church are to be concerned with leading the church as a whole in a direction that will result in the growth of individuals in Christ and also in the expansion of the Kingdom of God both in the San Jacinto Valley and to the ends of the earth.

It is true that Pastors are to be concerned primarily with people and with the proclamation of truth, but they are also to be concerned with systems, structures, and even facilities that will help to further the gospel of Jesus Christ and bring spiritual depth to the people of God. The leadership is responsible to provide a vision for the church that will, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, result in the lost coming to faith, the spiritual growth of Christians, the raising up of new leadership, the planting of new churches, and the sending out of missionaries. Leadership is a spiritual gift that is vital to the life of the church. The Elders are responsible to make sure that visionary leadership is present within the church, be it through the ministry of the Lead Pastor or through one of the Elders.

Resolved to Disciple Men and Women, Boys and Girls

A disciple is a follower. We exist to make followers of Jesus Christ locally, and to the ends of the earth. Not only is required that we preach the gospel, we must also, as Matthew 28:20 commands, teach men and women to observe all that Christ has commanded us.

We will encourage men and women to grow in Christ through preaching, small group bible studies, discipleship triads, and classes of various kinds, but ultimately we desire to help people to grow in Christ by coming along side and developing authentic relationships with them. Information is important for growth in Christ, but transformation takes place when the Holy Spirit moves on individual hearts in the context of community.

Resolved to Serve the Church, Community and Nations

 

The church is called to proclaim the gospel to a lost world, but we are to do so with a servant’s heart, taking every opportunity to bring relief to a world that is suffering both physically and spiritually. Christ Himself did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. As His followers, we should advance His kingdom with the same attitude. The church is to serve humanity by ministering to the sick and needy, lifting up the downtrodden, and protecting those who are weak and vulnerable. We are to love people by meeting their physical needs as well as being concerned for their spiritual needs. The church should never have to choose between one or the other. Just like Christ, we are called to minister to people both in the physical realm and in the spiritual, and never should we forsake one in favor of the other.

Resolved to Support Missionaries

Because we are materially rich in comparison with the rest of the world we believe that we will be held accountable for how we manage the abundance that God has given us. Our desire is to support those who are spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth as much as we possibly can.

Resolved to Send Missionaries

It is not good enough for us to simply send money and expect that others will do the hard work; we must also send our people to the nations. Certainly there are situations where other people are in a better position to take the gospel to a particular area, and in such circumstances we should be willing to pray and send, but we must also be willing to go. Our prayer is that the Lord will begin to call people to full time missions from amongst us. We will help train, encourage, and send such people as opportunities arise.

Resolved to Plant Churches

We believe that we should be sending missionaries to the ends of the earth and also planting churches locally. There is a great need here in the San Jacinto Valley for Bible teaching churches. We are praying that God would even now begin to call men and women into full time ministry so that they can be sent out for a new work. We will help train, encourage, and send such people when the opportunities arise.

Resolved to do all things for the Glory of God and for Our Joy

 

At the core of our ministry is this understanding that all things exist ultimately for the glory of God. This world, human beings, the church, they all exist ultimately to point to God as being supreme above all else. Is He is holy, and righteous, sovereign over all things and He alone deserves our praise.

 

Resolved to Pray

 

We acknowledged that God does not need our prayers. He is not bound by our prayers, nor is He limited in any way by the lack of our prayers, and yet we know that God moves when His people pray. By His grace and mercy God has determined to involve us in His work in the world through prayer. We will be a people who attempt great things for God but only after we humbly submit to God and move forward in full dependence upon Him.

In His Grace,

Joe


[1] Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership (Littleton, CO: Lewis and Roth, 1995), 98.


Calvinism and Youth

Recently, because of much talk about the biblical truths of Calvinism, there have been questions regarding our approach to these doctrines in the Youth Ministry at both the junior high and high school levels. Our approach is to rightly handle the word of God by teaching the biblical truths revealed in scripture while respecting the age and emotional state of our students. It is not, nor has it ever been, our intention to systematically teach our students the five points of Calvinism. Our junior high and high school ministries are centered on teaching God’s word exegetically, verse by verse, book by book; therefore, these topics arise and have to be addressed, to a certain extent.  When this occurs, we must use wisdom and discernment on how to clearly and honestly present God’s truth while respecting the age and spiritual level of the believer, especially the junior high students.  We believe that the junior high students should be taught the doctrine of totally depravity (sin has made man completely spiritually dead) while graciously and gently handling the other points, should they arise in a passage of study.  With the increase in age and maturity, we believe these doctrines can be handled a little differently for the high school students.  While remaining sensitive and respectful of their age, we believe that students should be exposed to these doctrines as they come up in our weekly study of scripture. Though these truths may be difficult to understand, we believe that respectfully and lovingly discussing these issues is an extremely healthy activity for our high school students. We want to have a youth ministry that spurs students on to thinking, asking questions, and learning how to come to their own conclusions through the combination of personal study of scripture and consideration of insights from other believers. Our desire for our students is that, upon their graduations, they leave our ministry having been thoroughly taught the word of God, having established a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and ready to be ambassadors for Christ at their colleges, in their places of work, and to their friends and families.

 


Must I Become a Five Point Calvinist to Join Emmaus?

I’m almost saddened to be in position where I need to answer this question, but the reality is that I do need to address this. Some of you who attended the BFC congregational meeting on May 22nd probably left with the impression that I left BFC purely because I am Calvinistic in the area of the Doctrine of Salvation. That is true, but only to an extent.

I acknowledge that Pastor Gil and myself do not see eye to on every point of doctrine, but the truth of the matter is that there were many other issues that contributed to the elders and myself deciding that it was time to move on to start a new work. I think this is important for you to hear; not because I want to throw mud at anyone, but because I want you to have a correct understanding of the importance this doctrine has held, and will continue to hold, in my ministry. The short answer to the question, “must I become a five point Calvinist to join Emmaus?” is, definitely not! I think that a few points of clarification will help you put all of this together.

First, though I personally am convinced that the five points are true to scripture, I do not expect all Christians to agree with me on this. I have held these views for about ten years, but I do acknowledge that understanding this doctrine has been a process. It would be unfair of me to expect that you, especially if this topic is new to you, would agree with me fully and immediately. Some of you might someday come to agree with me fully, and some of you may never see eye to eye with me on all five points, and that’s fine.

Second, though I personally am convinced that the five points are true to scripture, I do not feel that Calvinism should be the only focus or the obsession of the church. Churches need to have balance. We must be theologically sound – otherwise how could we possibly know God or what He requires of us? But we also must fellowship, worship, pray, serve, and evangelize. A healthy church is both deeply concerned with the Word and with deeds. We need to be a people who study God’s Word and live in obedience to it. My hope is that we would be a balanced church; that we would be theologically deep people who love God, love one another, and serve.

Third, it is important for our elders to see eye to eye on this issue to a greater extent than I would expect from the congregation. That said, even amongst elders there needs to be room for disagreement. I think that as elders we should lead by example when it comes to respectfully disagreeing with one another on the “finer points” of theology. I want you to understand that you are welcome to worship, grow, and serve at Emmaus even if you don’t agree with me fully on this issue.

Fourth, I think the fact that I have been a “Calvinist” for ten years is significant. I have worked at BFC as a Jr. High Directer, a Youth Pastor, and as an Associate Pastor, and not until recently did my theology become an issue. It became an issue, not because I decided to make it one, but because a few people in the congregation decided to bring this issue to the forefront. In some ways, I’m glad they did. God has a way of using situations like this for His glory. The point I am trying to make is that my theological view points, though they are important to me, will not be crammed down anyone’s throat from the pulpit. I am as committed to exegetical, Christ centered preaching as I have ever been. We will study the Bible at Emmaus primarily verse by verse, and chapter by chapter in much the same way that I have always preached (though I hope to improve). My passion is preaching and I fully intend to explain the Scriptures every Sunday, nothing less and nothing more.

Long story short, I love 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 point Calvinists (and even Arminians :-)) and hope that we have a variety of folks worshiping and serving together at Emmaus, loving God, loving one another, and serving locally and to the ends of the earth spreading the good news of Jesus Christ all the way.

Blessings,

Joe Anady



"Him we proclaim,
warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom,
that we may present everyone mature in Christ."
(Colossians 1:28, ESV)

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