The Destination:

• The words “we believe” show us that Christianity is not about you or I doing amazing things for God; it’s about a community of people who publicly profess the same beliefs.
• What is the first thing we believe in? A God who can be known. Not an impersonal force, not an abstract ideal, not something deep inside us, but God the Father almighty.

Redeemer Youth Text Line: 806-318-0703. Text in questions about the lesson, God, the Gospel, the Bible, anything you want–anytime!

Go Deeper:

Beginner–One Father Will Never Hurt You (DesiringGod): "God is our heavenly Father. Jesus intimately addresses him as Father and teaches his followers to do the same (Matthew 6:9). God has lovingly adopted us who believe in Christ, and now we are his children, never to be forsaken (Romans 8:15–17)."

Intermediate–You Asked: How Do We Know If God Is Disciplining Us? (The Gospel Coalition): "Does this mean every bad thing (or only some bad things) that happens to Christians, happens because God is disciplining us? If a Christian gets the flu, or a cold, or cancer, or gets in a car crash, or loses a job — should these hardships be seen as God’s discipline?"

Advanced–God the Father Almighty: The Trinitarian Depth of the First Article of the Creed (Christ Over All): "When we confess the first article of the creed, “I believe in God the Father almighty,” we are confessing faith that God is our Father because of our union with the Son by the Spirit. But we are also confessing a truth far more sublime. Infinitely more glorious than God’s relationship to me as my Father is the eternal relation of God the Father with the eternal and only begotten Son."

The Destination:

• Next to the Bible, the Nicene Creed is the second most important document in the history of Christianity. It is not equal to the Bible, but it has been used by Christians all throughout history and all over the world as the best summary of the Gospel and the Bible’s most important topics.
• Knowing the Nicene Creed well is one of the biggest bang-for-buck investments you can make in growing as a Christian. It will help you understand your Bible better, it will help you have conversations with other Christians and non-Christians, and it will connect you to the global history of your faith.

Redeemer Youth Text Line: 806-318-0703. Text in questions about the lesson, God, the Gospel, the Bible, anything you want–anytime!

Recommended Resources:

• Kids with Creeds: Why Our Family Confesses the Faith (Desiring God)
• 5 Things You Should Know About Creeds (Ligonier)
• The Value and Role of Creeds and Confessions (The Gospel Coalition)

Redeemer Generational Ministries includes Redeemer Kids, Redeemer Youth, and Redeemer College Mission. Though these three ministries seem distinct, they have the same goal: to equip, support, and partner with parents in their God-given work of discipling their children. But how does Redeemer Youth fit into that paradigm? Phil Humbert, the new Director of Generational Ministries, and Austin Gravley, Director of Redeemer Youth, explain how Redeemer Generational Ministries work and how Redeemer Youth accomplishes our big-picture goal in outlying the upcoming Fall-Spring semester. This was recorded on Wednesday, September 2 at the Redeemer Youth Parent Night.

• Since We Are Redeemed by Grace Alone, Through Faith Alone, Where Does This Faith Come From? All the gifts we receive from Christ we receive through the Holy Spirit, including faith itself.
• “If we believe the gospel, we should praise God for giving us the grace to believe it, for he is the only One who made the difference for us. Therefore, the Christian life must be marked by gratitude and humility. In and of ourselves, we are no better than our non-Christian neighbors. The only difference is that something (or, rather, someone) absolutely wonderful has come into our lives and changed everything.” - Mika Edmondson

Recommended Resources

• New City Catechism Commentary: “If salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone—if we are saved and forgiven and accepted based not on our good works, not on our deserving, but on what Jesus has done for us—is there still a place for good works and obedience in the Christian life? The Bible gives an emphatic answer: yes.”
• Don’t Be Like Moses the Pragmatist (9Marks): “ In his worst moments, Moses was a pragmatist. He had a performance-based approach to the prophetic ministry. He assumed that it was up to the prophet to get the results. If people listened to him, then he was doing his job; if not, he should find some other line of work. This explains why Moses was always worrying about whether people would listen to him.”
• A Whole World Hangs on a Word (Desiring God): So when Paul says, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God,” part of his meaning is that our faith is a gift of God. It is a divine creation. It is the work of grace when we were dead. 

• Since we are redeemed by grace alone, through Christ alone, must we still do good works and obey God’s Word? Yes, because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, also renews us by his Spirit; so that our lives may show love and gratitude to God; so that we may be assured of our faith by the fruits; and so that by our godly behavior others may be won to Christ.
• “So, though we’re saved by grace, we’re saved to a life of joyful good works and obedience. Not to get God to love us, but because God does love us, and we want to be like his Son, who said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” - Ligon Duncan

Recommended Resources:

• New City Catechism Commentary: “If salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone—if we are saved and forgiven and accepted based not on our good works, not on our deserving, but on what Jesus has done for us—is there still a place for good works and obedience in the Christian life? The Bible gives an emphatic answer: yes.”
• Good Works and the Christian Life (Ligonier): “Obedience, however frail and feeble, is evidence of our love for Christ. Far from undermining the gospel of grace, good works are the perfect complement to the gospel.”
• The Gospel Is Good News Before It’s Good Advice (Christianity Today, gift link): “There is a risk, that is, in emphasizing the utility of Christianity. We might lose sight of a very simple truth about the Christian faith: The gospel is good news before it is good advice.”

• What do justification and sanctification mean? Justification means our declared
righteousness before God, made possible by Christ’s death and resurrection for us. Sanctification means our gradual, growing righteousness, made possible by the Spirit’s work in us.
• The Bible uses big words that are sometimes to understand, but when we understand the words the Bible uses to explain how God works in our lives, it helps us marvel at how good, gracious, and powerful our God is.


Recommended Resources
• New City Catechism Commentary: “The whole world gets it all backward. Other religions get it all backward, where our works and our efforts to overcome imperfections might make us pleasing to God. You never can get there that way. God reckons us as acceptable, makes us his children, counts us as righteous; and because of that righteousness we then spend a lifetime becoming what we already are.”
• What Is the Difference between Justification and Sanctification? (The Gospel Coalition): “Justification happens outside of you, you are declared righteous. Sanctification happens inside of you, you are made righteous.”
• What role does sanctification play in salvation? (9Marks): The experience of salvation begins with regeneration and justification, continues with sanctification, and is fulfilled in glorification. All who are regenerated and justified are being sanctified. All who are being sanctified will eventually be glorified.

● What Do We Believe by True Faith? Everything taught to us in the gospel. The Apostles’ Creed expresses what we believe in these words: We believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Recommended Resources

New City Catechism Commentary: “The only thing I can contribute to my salvation is my own sinful nature. It’s about coming to God with an awareness of our humble need—coming in faith, repenting of my sins, and laying out before God my sense that I need him. That’s the beginning of salvation.”
There is No Faith So Little That it Is Not Saving (The Gospel Coalition): “There is no faith so little that it can’t be saving. Faith does not have to be strong to be saving, it just has to be real. The smallest faith, if it is real, receives the same strength of Christ in salvation as the strongest faith.”
What Saving Faith Sees in Christ (DesiringGod): “Saving faith glorifies Christ by looking away from self to Christ alone — to his all-sufficiency, including his blood and righteousness, without which we could have no right standing with God. To which I say, with all my heart, Amen! Let us be willing to die for this. As many have.”

• What is Faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in Jesus Christ is acknowledging the truth of everything that God has revealed in his Word, trusting in him, and also receiving and resting on him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel.
• It is not the strength of our faith that saves us; it is the object of our faith that saves us. We do not put our confidence in how strong or smart our faith is, but on what Jesus has done for us by his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Recommended Resources

• New City Catechism Commentary: “The only thing I can contribute to my salvation is my own sinful nature. It’s about coming to God with an awareness of our humble need—coming in faith, repenting of my sins, and laying out before God my sense that I need him. That’s the beginning of salvation.”
• There is No Faith So Little That it Is Not Saving (The Gospel Coalition): “There is no faith so little that it can’t be saving. Faith does not have to be strong to be saving, it just has to be real. The smallest faith, if it is real, receives the same strength of Christ in salvation as the strongest faith.”
• What Saving Faith Sees in Christ (DesiringGod): “Saving faith glorifies Christ by looking away from self to Christ alone — to his all-sufficiency, including his blood and righteousness, without which we could have no right standing with God. To which I say, with all my heart, Amen! Let us be willing to die for this. As many have.”

• How Can We Be Saved? Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross; so even though we are guilty of having disobeyed God and are still inclined to all evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of our own but only by pure grace, imputes to us the perfect righteous- ness of Christ when we repent and believe in him.
• “My hope does not live because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith does not rest upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me.” - Charles Spurgeon

Recommended Resources

• New City Catechism Commentary: “My hope does not live because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith does not rest upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me.”
• Dressed in His Righteousness Alone (Desiring God): “In justification, Christ’s righteousness does not become ours as some sort of personal possession. It is counted or reckoned as ours. Why? Because we do not perform the acts of justifying righteousness. Christ, as our substitute, lived the perfect life we couldn’t and died the death we deserved. The righteousness of Christ must therefore primarily and exclusively belong to him.”
• The Greatest Issue We Face (Ligonier): “How can an unforgiven person become forgiven? How can an unjust person be justified or be considered just in the sight of God? There are not many issues in theology more serious than that.”

• What Happens After Death to Those Not United to Christ by Faith? At the day of judgment they will receive the fearful but just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them. They will be cast out from the favorable presence of God, into hell, to be justly and grievously punished, forever.
• “The real issue is not how a loving God would allow there to be a hell. The issue is, if Jesus Christ would experience hell for me, then, truly, he must be a loving God. It’s not “Why would God allow hell?” It’s “Why would God experience hell for me?” And yet he did.” - John Lin

Recommended Resources

• The New City Catechism Commentary: “The real issue is not how a loving God would allow there to be a hell. The issue is, if Jesus Christ would experience hell for me, then, truly, he must be a loving God. It’s not “Why would God allow hell?” It’s “Why would God experience hell for me?” And yet he did.” - John Lin
• 5 Things You Should Know About Hell (Ligonier): "...the Bible’s many descriptions of hell are intended to magnify the grace of Christ who has saved us from it, and to fuel a zeal in us to warn others to flee from the pains of hell by turning to Christ in true faith and repentance."
• The Uncomfortable Subject Jesus Addressed More than Anyone Else (The Gospel Coalition): "Some months ago, R. C. Sproul was asked which doctrine he struggles with most. He replied: 'Hell.' It’s comforting to know a theological giant like Sproul still wrestles with something I’ve struggled with my whole Christian life."
• Will Hell Really Last Forever? (Desiring God): "Christ Jesus our Savior is worthy of eternal praise because he endured, for us, the righteous judgment that would have been ours for eternity."