What We Believe

The Bible teaches that the gospel of Jesus Christ and His kingdom is of first and foremost importance (1 Cor. 15:1-3). We are in unity with all who believe, and have believed, and hold firm the biblical gospel, which is built upon the death of Jesus for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day in fulfillment of the Scriptures. God has commanded that all people everywhere must repent and believe the gospel in order to be saved from the wrath that is to come on Judgment Day. God has given proof of this fact by raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 17:30-31). The Church exists to be a witness to these things to the world, for the praise and glory of the living God who saved us by His grace (Matt. 28:18-20).

The Gospel is the most important and relevant message for all generations and people, regardless of circumstances, because all people need the opportunity to understand the need for a Savior and how to take part in salvation. 

Do “good” people go to heaven?

The Bible says that there is no one good but God alone (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19).

Answer these questions honestly and listen to your conscience:

• Have you ever told a lie? (white lies and half-truths count)
• Have you ever stolen anything? (the value of the item is irrelevant)
• Ever looked with lust? (lustful thoughts, pornography etc.) Jesus said “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman/man lustfully has already committed adultery with her/him in his heart” (Matthew 5: 27-28).
• Have you ever used the name of God or Jesus as a cuss word to express disgust? That’s called blasphemy!

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions then, by your own admission, you are a lying, thieving, blaspheming adulterer at heart. We have only looked at 4 of God’s 10 Commandments. There are 6 more!

Have you always loved God with your whole heart, soul and mind 100% of the time (1st Commandment)?

Have you ever even considered what He commands?

Based on your answers you have failed to meet God’s standard of “good” which is defined as “moral perfection.” You are just like all the rest of us! God created you and gave you life, but you have rebelled against Him and are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Judgment. The Bible tells us that it is appointed for a person to die once, and then face judgment (Hebrews 9:27). It also says that no thief, liar, adulterer or blasphemer will enter the kingdom of Heaven (1 Corinthians 6: 9-10; Galatians 5: 19-21). Rather, Hell awaits them; a place of everlasting torment, weeping and gnashing of teeth in the lake of fire. Whoever has broken even one of God’s laws will justly be found guilty for their crimes against God.

The good news is that God does not want anyone to perish…He demonstrates His love for us in this, that while we are yet sinners Christ died for our sins. God put the punishment for sin that you deserve upon His sinless Son and poured His wrath out on Jesus Christ in your place! It is only through Jesus Christ that anyone can be saved from the wrath that is to come on the Day of Judgment, because only through Jesus, and Jesus alone, can you be pardoned.

In order to receive the free gift of salvation from God, you must confess your sins to God. Repent (turn away from your sinful life) and place your trust in Christ that He has paid your fine and taken your punishment upon Himself, and that He was resurrected on the 3rd day, fulfilling God’s promise revealed in the Scriptures. Jesus is offering to pay the debt of sin for all who will believe in Him and follow Him. The resurrection of Christ proves that only He has the authority to forgive sin, which no one else can do!

The King is offering you a pardon, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent today! “Today is the day of salvation,” says the Lord!

It is the testimony of Scripture – both Old and New Testaments – and of the Church through history that God is Triune. The biblical revelation testifies that there is only one God and that He exists eternally in three distinct and co-equal divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We believe that the Bible, in its entirety, is the inspired Word of God. As the Word of God, the Bible is the ultimate and final authority on all matters of faith and life practices. The Bible – both Old and New Testaments – contains everything that the believer needs to know for salvation. It is capable of thoroughly equipping the believer to live the life of holiness that God has called them to live. We believe that the Scriptures are completely without error in their original manuscripts and that the 66 books contained in the Bible are all of the inspired books from God – they cannot be added to or subtracted from. All doctrine and teaching is only as authoritative as it is faithfully representative of the true and intended teaching of God’s inspired and inerrant Word (1 Tim. 3:16).

The Bible teaches that God’s creation has rebelled against its Creator, and as a result it is under God’s curse and wrath (Gen. 3; John 3:16-36). As a result of this rebellion and curse, mankind’s greatest need is to be reconciled to their Creator since both God and Man are at enmity with each other (Rom. 5:6-10).

We affirm that Jesus Christ exclusively bore the wrath of God and the penalty due to those who have failed to obey God’s holy Law – in its entirety – in the place of those who appropriate this vicarious death and substitutionary payment by faith. The Bible teaches that the whole world has fallen short of God’s perfect standard of righteousness necessary to gain entrance into heaven, and that Jesus the Christ is the sole means of salvation from the coming wrath against sin (John 14:6; Rom. 3:23, 6:23; 1 Tim. 2:5).

By God’s grace, received through repentance and faith in Jesus, all who believe the gospel are declared righteous on the basis of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection in fulfillment of the Scriptures on the believer’s behalf by the Just and Holy Judge of the universe (Rom. 3:21-26, 8:1-4). By making Jesus an offering for sin and publicly crushing Him on the cross under the curse of God, God demonstrated His justice and wrath against sin for the whole world to see, while also demonstrating that He can now justify (i.e. declare righteous) the one who has faith in Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for their own sin, forever changing God’s disposition towards those in Christ from that of wrath to that of favor (John 3:36; Gal. 3:1-4:7).

We affirm that salvation is not attained by religious works, but by the grace of God alone (Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-7). Salvation is a present tense possession and is received by the individual through repentance and faith alone (John 3:36, 17:3). Repentance is a turning away from sin and rebellion against God, and turning towards God as Lord (1 Thess. 1:8-10). Faith is trusting completely in what Jesus has done as Savior, knowing that on our own merit we deserve condemnation from God for our sin. When this happens, the individual is “born-again” – the new life in Christ includes the privileges of adoption and inheritance in the coming Kingdom of God’s beloved Son and an appointment as an Ambassador for Christ in this life by the King of the universe (Joh. 3; 2 Cor. 5). True salvation will produce an active lifestyle of loving obedience and service to Jesus Christ our Savior and we can be sure of our salvation based on the fruit of our lives and the promise of God (e.g. 1 John)

Salvation is a work of God in the individual, and God’s predestined purpose for each person He redeems is to have His amazing, transformative grace work towards conforming that person more and more into the image of His beloved Son, Jesus (Rom. 8). Without sanctification, it is right to question whether or not the grace of God is active in the individual’s life (2 Cor. 13:5; 1 John). As a “present tense possession,” biblical salvation should be evident and is the sure foundation of a future hope of living eternally in the presence of the living God.

The Word of God describes two on-going sacraments of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Church. The first, water baptism, is the outward act of obedience in regards to what God has already done in the believer’s life, and is a public testimony to the world that the person belongs now to Jesus. Baptism is for all believers and allows them to publicly identify with Jesus.  It is the first step of a life of obedience to Him as the initiation into the fellowship of the Church, and is performed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The second sacrament, the Lord’s Supper, is a remembrance of the sacrificial and substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ and will be performed by the Church until He comes again. Communion is our active participation in Him with the body of Christ. Both sacraments are intended for those who are born-again believers.

We affirm the bodily, personal, second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ will physically and visibly return to earth for the second time to establish His kingdom and to render judgment upon all of Creation. This will occur at a day and time undisclosed by the Scriptures. We affirm the final judgment which will determine the eternal status of both the saints and the unbelievers, according to their relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Bible tells us that man and woman were created by God as distinct acts of creation, and that being male and female was an aspect of how they were created in His own image (Gen. 1:27, 2:7 & 18-19). Marriage is the joining of these distinct genders into one flesh.

“Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife…”, “…For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife…”, “Each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.”, “Finally the time came for him to marry her.”

It is our sincere belief that marriage, as ordained by God, must be between one man and one woman. No other can be performed or condoned (Jer. 29:6; Rom. 7:2; Gen. 21:21; 29:21; 1 Cor. 7:2, 36 & 39; Gen. 2:23-24; Eph. 5:22-23, 25, 28-29, 31 and 33).

Further, the Bible teaches that while sex within marriage is pure and honorable, sex outside marriage is sinful and will be judged by God (Heb. 13:4). The seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” protects the sexual relationship between a man and woman who are united in marriage by forbidding marital infidelity, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, bestiality, and the use of pornography (Exo. 20:14).

Biblical marriage is a lifelong covenant or sacrament between one man and one woman (Matt. 19:4-6). Biblical marriage promotes the bearing and rearing of children and exercise of stewardship over creation (Gen. 2:25). The essence of a Christian wedding is the Divine blessing of the bride and groom as they exchange vows while God receives the worship of the congregation as they witness those vows and as they offer Him prayer and praise.

At Living Water Bible Church, we believe that marriage ceremonies are worship services, and as a policy, we will only perform them for active Church members. Marriage is a gift given to a man and a woman to bind them together in marriage with the blessing and recognition of God and in the worshipful presence of those who gather.  If those couples who are bound in true marriage before God wish to have their marriage recognized by the state, they must do so before or after the worship service of their own accord.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” – John 14:15

In modern American churches the commandment to evangelize the lost has been all but forgotten; one could even argue purposefully ignored. It is estimated that only 2% of Evangelical Christians regularly share their faith (by which we mean purposefully share the true Gospel of Jesus Christ).

We believe that purposefully and properly sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ (according to the Great Commission) is a commandment for all believers, not simply a calling for some. However, we do recognize the Office of Evangelist according to Ephesians 4:11-12, as a specific calling to serve the church in order to teach, equip, encourage and lead the church in the command to evangelize. We see displayed for us through the Prophets that it has always been the will of God that His people share His message: “Then He said to me, ‘Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD’ ” (Ezekiel 37:4).  This was modeled for us by Jesus (John 4:7-30) and the disciples (Luke 10:1-23). This act of obedience and love was further modeled by all of the Apostles post resurrection as recorded in the Book of Acts and many of the epistles. The Apostle Paul considered those whom he witnessed to be his hope, and joy, and crown of boasting (1 Thess. 2:19). Paul puts it most succinctly when he tells us that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).  It has been clearly understood throughout the history of the Church that God’s people are expected to share the message of salvation through the atoning blood of Christ, to the lost.

We evangelize the lost and train the people of God to do so, because our Lord commanded it and since “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10) it is vital that we exercise obedience to all of God’s commandments.  We evangelize the lost as a loving response to God because we “were dead in the trespasses and sins in which (we) once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:1-5).

LWBC is a “Family Integrated Church” where the children participate in all teaching and worship together with the entire body.  This means that we understand the vital importance of Christians of every age growing in their faith together, as one faith community.  We do not believe the Scriptures teach us to divide and separate families into several categories, but rather to teach, train, and equip each church member together as one.  We believe the separation of children from the rest of the Church body over the last 50 years has been a detrimental experiment that has done far more harm than good with nearly 90% of young people leaving the faith after high school.  We seek to return to the biblical teaching that our children are just as part of the Body of Christ as the parents are and they are able to learn, serve and obey Christ far more than this culture gives them credit for.

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