Values & Beliefs
1 Peter 3:15
Our Values
Are driven by our vision: To be a church of Jesus Christ, entirely devoted to the glory of God.
Knowing God
& worshipping Him in spirit and in truth
- Seeking first the kingdom of God
- Honouring the excellency of our Tri-une God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
- Submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all things
Evangelism
to every tribe, tongue & nation.
- Treasuring and proclaiming the gospel.
- Leading the lost to salvation.
- Building God’s holy, universal Church.
Loving the saints
both locally and universally
- Deepening our understanding and love of God’s word.
- Worshipping God as a community in truth, goodness and beauty.
- Bringing believers to fruitfulness.
Our Beliefs
God: Our Father
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine yet distinct Persons. This is commonly known as the Holy Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God is the Ruler and Creator over all things, perfect in both his love and his holiness, and is therefore worthy of all glory and worship.
Jesus: Our Saviour
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. Jesus lived a sinless human life and offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of humanity by dying on a cross. He arose from the dead after three days to demonstrate His power over sin and death and to validate that the way of salvation is through Him alone. He ascended to heaven, where he exercises all authority and will one day return again to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The Holy Spirit and His Minstry
The Holy Spirit is a distinct Person who is also fully God, co-equal with the Father and the Son. Along with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit has existed in a loving relationship throughout eternity.
Jesus promised that He would send the Holy Spirit to the church as another helper, who would be with the church as Jesus was with the disciples. Because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the church has not been left alone but has all that it needs to accomplish The Great Commission and be preserved in all generations until Jesus returns.
The Holy Spirit’s ministry is critical in bringing people to faith in Jesus and He bring glory to Jesus by applying to the church all that He has accomplished in His victorious life, death, and resurrection. In this way, Jesus’ ministry is central to all that the Spirit does.
The Holy Spirit works to illuminate believers’ minds to grasp the truth of the Bible leading them into all truth. He produces within them His fruit, and empowers them for service by granting gifts according to His sovereign purposes. All gifts that He gives are giving for the common good of the church and the building up of the saints. Believers are encouraged to seek out the best gifts, but the Holy Spirit determines those which are necessary in the life of the church in its own place and time.
All believers have the baptism and indwelling of the Holy Spirit in common because He is given to all believers as a seal and guarantee to all future inheritance.
The Bible: How We Know God
We believe that human beings do not have to guess or speculate about who God is or what he is like. While the Bible is for us, it is not primarily about us. Instead, the Bible is God’s Word to humanity about himself, revealing his will, nature, character, being and his saving work in the world. The sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments comprise the totality of Scripture and were penned without error by human authors, under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit, serving as our highest written authority in this world. We believe that all of Scripture ultimately points to and climaxes in Jesus, who is the Word become flesh. We are called to enjoy, study, and submit to the Word of God.
Humanity: Beautiful and Broken
We believe that God created Adam and Eve in his image and placed them in the Garden of Eden to live out their identity as his creation in loving harmony with himself and one another. However, Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God, believing Satan’s lie that they could instead become like God. This is when sin entered the world, marring our relationship with God, one another, and ourselves. We are sinners by nature and by choice and our sin has alienated us from God, placing us rightfully under his just and holy wrath. Incapable of regaining a right relationship with God through our own efforts, our greatest need is the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can rescue us and restore us to himself.
The Gospel: God Saves Sinners
Although people are completely sinful, God had a plan in place to lovingly save and redeem a people for himself. Throughout the Old Testament, we read what God will do to save his people from their sins. In the New Testament, we see this plan fulfilled perfectly in Jesus Christ who came and lived a perfect life of obedience before God, died in our place by being crucified for our sins, and was raised from the dead on the third day. This is the “gospel” or “good news.” The Holy Spirit draws us to Christ our Saviour and gives us faith to believe in him. “Whoever believes that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead will be saved.” The gospel alone is the power of God for salvation. It is the inexhaustible promise that satisfies our restlessness by restoring us into relationship with God, giving us eternal life with him both now and forever. Salvation cannot be earned or achieved through our good works, only received by faith. In this way, salvation from beginning to end is entirely a work of God's sovereign, electing, undeserved grace.
The Sacraments: Baptism & Holy Communion
We believe that Jesus gave his church two primary sacraments or symbols to be observed regularly: water baptism and Holy Communion. By repentance of sin and faith in Jesus, the Bible instructs us to be baptised in water by immersion as a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Baptism is the outward demonstration of our inward change of heart; therefore we do not baptise infants but confessing believers who have willingly trusted themselves to Christ. Holy Communion is a regular observance the church shares together as a reminder that Jesus alone is the great Saviour who died on the cross, in our place, for our sins, to bring us to God. The bread and juice/wine represent Christ’s body that was broken and his blood that was shed for us. We believe that observance of these two sacraments is for confessing Christians only.
The Church: God’s People
While our new relationship with God is personal, it is not individual. We are not only saved from sin, we are saved into God’s family. We believe that in the confession and true repentance of our sins to Jesus, we are now seen as totally blameless and holy in our relationship with God. No longer children of wrath, by grace we have become children of God whom God sees in the same way that he sees his Son, the Lord Jesus. This is what the church calls “justification.” The community of people who believe this are “the church.” All those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, are part of the universal Church, that in turn, regularly gathers in local churches around the proclamation of God’s Word and the sacraments.
The Restoration of all Things
We believe in the personal, glorious, bodily, and imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ where he will consummate his kingdom. We trust in God’s promise that a day is coming when he will banish sin, sickness, death, decay, and Satan. Those who have rejected God will be eternally separated from him in Hell, while those who have accepted the immeasurable gift of his forgiveness will receive eternal life with him in Heaven. When Jesus returns, he will usher in the New Heavens and New Earth where we will live peacefully and joyfully in harmony with God and one another forever.
Read our Constitution
A more detailed document on the values and beliefs of Clarence Valley Community Church