We gladly affirm the biblical truth that everything God does is for his glory, but the climactic display of God’s glory is his unimaginable grace shown in the gospel, wherein Jesus sheds his blood to purchase a people for himself. This “people” is the Church, which means that the local Church stands as a visible testimony to the infinite grace and glory of God. For this reason, Emmaus Church exists firstly and primarily to see God glorified; we only want to be a part of the Church that Jesus is building, so we hope and pray that the day Emmaus Church ceases to fundamentally exist for God’s glory is the day Emmaus Church ceases to exist at all!
GOD GLORIFIED
CHURCHES MULTIPLIED
Since the apex of God’s glory is visually testified through the local Church, and since man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, we are ferociously committed to seeing local Churches multiplied! We believe that healthy congregations are not peripheral to God’s plan of redemption, rather, they are absolutely crucial. Indeed, the great commission to “make disciples of all the nations” cannot be fulfilled without local Churches, since it is within the context of the local Church that discipleship primarily takes place. Therefore, by God’s grace, Emmaus Church doesn’t simply affirm the good of Church planting in the abstract, we exist to be a Church-planting-Church.
DECLARE THE GOSPEL
The gospel is all we have as a Church. The good news that God the Son—the second person of the Trinity—took humanity upon himself as the God-man to live a perfect and sinless life and to die on the cross as a substitute for sinners, and to then be resurrected three days later to make a way for sinners to be reconciled to God is our greatest hope! We bank everything on this message as a people, and we believe that the greatest good we could perform to a lost and dying world is to declare this gospel. This consists of words and unambiguous claims: “God is righteous and holy.” “We are broken and sinful, and thus deserve his wrath.” “God pours his wrath out on Christ at Calvary to atone for the sins of all those who would be united to him by faith.” God builds his Church by this gospel, and if we thus hope to glorify Him and multiply churches, we must declare this message, and we do so gladly!
DISPLAY THE GOSPEL
The grace that we receive through the gospel has a backbone! It doesn’t simply come into our hearts and lie dormant, satisfied to leave our lives the way they were when we were slaves to sin, rather, it stirs us up to love and good works that reflect the gospel! We display the gospel in our words and deeds and attitudes towards one another (that is, the Church), and towards our neighbors and communities. The glorious truth of the gospel we proclaim compels us to live in a way that accords with our proclamation, so we long to see God glorified and churches multiplied particularly when we not only declare the gospel, but also display the gospel.