Last week we began part two of our Visual Theology message series. You’ll recall that there are four main sections that we want to look at – four reasons why we study theology.
#1. We want to grow close to Christ,
#2. we want to understand the work of Christ,
#3. we want to become like Christ, and
#4. we want to live for Christ.
Those four things really summarize the four basic goals of the Christian life!
So last week we began looking at “Understanding the work of Christ” and we started with a super-condensed summary of everything that God has been doing since time began. We saw how all of history is part of God’s unfolding drama. It’s like God is the ultimate writer and director, the world is the stage, and all of mankind are the actors.
And we divided up this drama into four main acts.
- Act 1 is Creation where God created the world and made everything good.
- Act 2 is the Fall where mankind chose to rebel against God and thus introduced sin and its consequences into the world.
- Act 3 is Redemption where God sent his Son Jesus to save us from our sin and it’s terrible consequences.
- Act 4 is New Creation where God will finally eliminate sin and will once again make everything right.
And we discovered that we are currently living in Act 3 – where everyone of us has the opportunity to respond to God’s gracious offer of redemption which was made possible for us by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now is the time to make that decision. Now is the time to invite others to make that decision. Because at any moment, we could move into Act 4 when Christ returns to judge and eliminate sin and to restore His good creation for all who have been redeemed.
So last week really was a really big picture of what God is doing in the world.
Now today we’re going to shift our focus just a little bit. This morning, I want to spend some time talking about doctrine.
Now the word ‘doctrine’ is just about as intimidating as the word ‘theology’ – but it isn’t as scary as you might think. Doctrine really just means ‘teachings’. In the context of the church, it simply refers to what we believe and teach about God, about the Bible, about salvation, about ourselves, about the church, and all that stuff.
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