STATEMENT OF FAITH
Section: Conclusion
STATEMENT OF FAITH
Whether one agrees with having a formal or informal membership is irrelevant. It is the decision of the local body of believers what type of membership dynamic they will use with its members. A church must decide what system is best for them in their cultural and contextual climate so that the many duties and responsibilities of believers can be lived out without any hindrance. Therefore, freedom in Christ is given for a church to make this kind of decision indicative to their situation. For RHC, a formal membership process fits our church’s needs.
Rededicating Your Life to Christ
Perhaps you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior but you have been away from fellowship with the Lord. We can never lose our salvation but we can lose fellowship with the Lord due to many issues. For example, a child can lose fellowship with his or her parents due to bad behavior. However, that child is always their child. The union always remains but the fellowship can be broken. Likewise, the same can happen between us and God. Even though our union with Christ can never be broken, we can stop living for Him, get involved into sinful behavior, harbor unconfessed sin, or simply become indifferent towards the Lord. If you have been out of fellowship with the Lord, He desires that you come back to restore your relationship with Him.
Baby/Child Dedication
Baby/Child dedication is intended to be a public statement by the parents that they will train their children in the Christian faith and seek to instill that faith in them. Baby/Child dedication is a symbolic ceremony undertaken by Christian parents soon after the birth of a child. The Act is intended to be a public statement by the parents that they will train their children in the Christian faith and seek to instill that faith in them. There is no implied salvation in the ceremony whatsoever. The idea of dedicating a child to the Lord can certainly be found in the Bible. Hannah was a barren wife who promised to dedicate her child to God if He would give her a son (1 Samuel 1:11). Luke 2:22 begins the account of Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to the temple after forty days in order to dedicate Him to the Lord as a firstborn.
How to be Saved
1. Understand that the Bible declares you to be a sinner who is in need of forgiveness from God due to the penalty attached to sin, which is both physical death and spiritual. Those who die physically without forgiveness will die a second death by being placed in Hell for all eternity. However, God has provided the means of that forgiveness, which is found in the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:23 & 6:23 – “All have sinned”, “The wages of sin is death.”)
2. Therefore, believe (trust/be persuaded/rely on) that Jesus Christ is God who came in the flesh and was the perfect substitutionary sacrifice on your behalf when He died on a cross for your sins, was buried, and rose physically from the dead on the third day. Trust/believe that Jesus, the Messiah, is your substitute for and as your Savior from the penalty of sin (John 1:1 “The Word was God” & Romans 5:8 “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”)
3. Since Jesus accomplished the work of salvation on your behalf, you must understand that salvation is a gift from God that cannot be earned nor worked for. It is provided to the individual by grace and through the means of faith. Faith (trust/believe/be persuaded by/rely on) in Jesus the Messiah’s death as your substitute for your sins, His burial and resurrection is the only necessary condition for salvation. (Ephesians 2:8, 9 – “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”)
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I ask you to forgive me of all my sins. I believe you are God who came in the flesh and lived the perfect life I couldn’t live. I believe You died on a cross for my sins, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day. I receive and trust You as my Lord and Savior. Thank you for saving me and giving me eternal life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Pastor Brandon Holthaus
What are we doing?
- Love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
- Love People of all Nations.
- Share Jesus the Messiah.
- Make Disciples of all Nations.
What are our values?
- A maturing relationship with the Messiah.
- Biblical authority as God’s perfect standard for life and faith.
- Biblical hospitality to all people to know the Love of the Messiah.
- Ministry excellence since we serve the Messiah.
- Ministry integrity since we are accountable to the Messiah.
What makes us successful in the eyes of the Lord?
We worship the LORD.
- Love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
- We read and study the Scriptures.
- We pray.
- We obey.
Love People of all Nations
- Our family relationships are growing.
- Our church family relationships are growing.
- I’m involved in a Bible Study.
- I give care to the believers at church.
- I serve at church.
Share Jesus the Messiah
- We are prepared to share the Gospel to the Jew first and the Gentile.
- We are proactively developing relationships with lost people.
- We engage in witnessing opportunities with lost people.
- We are supporting missionaries who are taking the Gospel to the nations.
Make Disciples of all Nations.
- We are personally accountable to other believers.
- We are involved in equipping other believers.
- We are multiplying disciples.
- We are using our spiritual gifts to edify one another.
How are we doing it?
- We worship, serve and connect weekly.
- We reach and equip regularly.
Where is the Lord taking us?
We believe God is calling us to be a light in the darkness to a lost and ever-darkening world. The Gospel of Jesus Christ (the Good News about the Person and work of the Messiah) provided the way for sinners to move from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light. Once we receive this truth by faith personally, we’re compelled to share the effects of this spiritual change with others and to grow in our relationship with the Messiah.
To learn more about the beliefs and doctrines of RHC, please view our Statement of Faith. For more information or to connect with RHC, we encourage you to Contact Us.
ROCK HARBOR CHURCH
We're On a Mission
Rock Harbor Church is a community of believers devoted to God’s Word. Founded upon an unwavering commitment to “anchor ourselves to the rock of Christ,” we teach the entire Bible verse by verse from Genesis to Revelation, and seek to apply its truth to our daily lives in order to go deeper in our walk with the Lord. We are a growing body of believers committed to reaching our culture with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that the Bible is God’s Holy Word, and that it contains God’s perfect plan to redeem humanity from sin, through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
We defend God’s absolute truth in a relativistic culture. We desire to ground our understanding of current events from a biblical and prophetic perspective. We protect our people by warning of the growing apostasy inside and outside of Christendom. We value the Biblical family unit which was created by God to be the bedrock of a society. Therefore, our desire is to preserve our marriages and seek to protect and prepare our children to encounter a culture that is hostile to a biblical view of the family. We support the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, and the Lord’s plan for them.