Trails Church Base Camp

Conversion is “our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Christ for our personal salvation.”

Repentance: involves a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of sin, and a sincere commitment to forsake sin and walk in obedience to Christ.

What do we mean by “saving faith.”

Union With Christ: Being united to Christ means that believers are personally joined to the living, incarnate, crucified, resurrected, and reigning Jesus by His Holy Spirit through faith.

Union with Christ is likened to that of a building and its cornerstone (Eph. 2:20–22), a vine and its branches (John 15:1–8), the members of a human body and its head (Eph. 1:22–23; 1 Cor. 12:12), and the union between husband and wife (Eph. 5:31–32; 2 Cor. 11:2).

Believers are justified in Christ, sanctified in Christ, adopted in Christ, preserved in Christ, and glorified in Christ! We possess eternal life in Christ (Rom. 6:23); we are justified in Christ (Rom 8:1); glorified in Christ (Rom. 8:30; 2 Cor. 3:18); sanctified in Christ (1 Cor. 1:2); called in Christ (v. 9); made alive in Christ (15:22; Eph. 2:5); created anew in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17); adopted as children of God in Christ (Gal. 3:26); elected in Christ (Eph. 1:4); and raised with Christ (Col. 3:1).

Justification

CHBC Statement of Faith: We believe that the great Gospel blessing which Christ secures to such as believe in Him is Justification; that Justification includes the pardon of sin, and the promise of eternal life on principles of righteousness; that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer's blood; by virtue of which faith His perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us of God; that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity.

Justification is a legal or judicial declaration by God that we are righteous in His sight … not because of our works but because He imputes or credits the righteousness of His Son as our own. We are counted righteous in Christ.

We are justified by faith alone, in Christ alone, not by our works.

In the last few episodes, we’ve looked at the person and work of God the Spirit and, in today’s episode, we are beginning a survey of how God has worked from eternity past, and is working into eternity future, to reconcile a chosen people to Himself through the atoning work of Christ on the cross.

A discussion on salvation: examining the way that God applies our salvation in our individual lives.

Order of Salvation

1) Election: “an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them or because of their foreseen faith or goodness, but only because of His sovereign good pleasure.” Acts 13:48; Ephesians 1:4-5; I Thessalonians 1:4-5; 2 Thess. 2:13

2) The Gospel Call (invitation): no one would be saved without someone sharing the Gospel with someone, they cannot be saved - Romans 10:14

* External Call and Internal Call

3) Regeneration “new birth” - Acts 16:14

As a church, one of our biggest aims is to help train, equip and mobilize our members in the gifts that God has given them so that they might be a blessing to our church and that God might confirm some gifting and callings in their life so that they might serve our church in greater ways and/or be sent out of our church to help plant new churches and pastor/bless unhealthy churches as solid church members.  To help us in this task of training and equipping, we developed these Preachers Forum evenings and are praying that God would raise up preachers, sound technicians, worship leaders, children's ministry volunteers and launch team members that will serve our local church and, we pray, God might call some of them to help plant healthy churches and ministries out of our church.

This episode is the recording of one of our sermons from our August Preachers Forum and is given by Chris Wold, one of our Pastoral Apprentices at the Trails.

In this episode, we are going to be talking about the gifts given to us, as Christians - and how these gifts are not to be for our individualistic enjoyment and pleasure, but rather have been entrusted to us by God for the joy of those around us within our local church contexts

definition: a spiritual gift is any ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church; it includes gifts related to natural abilities (teaching, showing mercy, or administration) and gifts that seem to be more ‘miraculous’ and less related to natural abilities (like healing or distinguishing between spirits).

Lists of spiritual gifts in the Bible ( Romans 12:6-8; 1 Corinthians 7:7, 12:8-10, 28; 1 Peter 4; Ephesians 4:11); all spiritual gifts much be empowered “by one and the same Spirit” (1 cor. 12:11) and that they are given for the “common good” (12:7) and that they are all to be used for edification, for building up the church (14:26).

From these lists in the above verses, we learn a number of things.

What does the Bible teach about being baptized by the Spirit?  Does this experience mean that we will naturally speak in tongues as a result? And if you haven’t ever spoken in tongues, does that mean that you haven’t been baptized in the Holy Spirit? Better yet, here’s the question we aren’t asking, but should be: are there two tiers of Christians?

We explore these topics in this episode of BaseCamp.

Check out our past episodes on the person and work of the Holy Spirit:

The Holy Spirit: Who He is: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KDDNsk4SV40OH1LDA3HkB?si=9ed997f3f6ff454a

The work of the Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testament: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7tPmJXwaxAhN4U3E8XhDnK?si=ccde8a2ca55e48a3

How God the Spirit works in us: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4McogHO2mrsScA17LqVfM7?si=6c7e001b90c94c40

In this episode, we share our latest members meeting discussion about how a healthy local church needs men and women committed to growing as disciples ... but it doesn't stop there.  In order for a church to be healthy, we need to also be just as committed to helping those around us grow in their health as christians. 

In this episode, we begin a new series discussing what a church is.  This might seem like a silly podcast series, as we all might have a gauge understanding of what a church is ... but how certain are we that our definition matches what we see throughout the pages of Scripture?

So, we seek out to recover the fundamental truths of what a church is and how local churches are created by God for a very specific purpose.

The definition that we are borrowing in this episode series is this one: “A Church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to Scripture, they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical sacraments of baptism and communion, are unified by the Spirit, are discipled and disciplined for holiness, and scatter to fulfill the great commandment and the great commission as missionaries to the world for God’s glory and their joy.”

In this episode, we pick back up on this theme of regeneration and talk about conviction, union with Christ, sanctification, intercession and assurance

Does God actually say you can’t have sex outside marriage?

Does God actually say homosexual behavior is wrong?

In this episode, we discuss Sex, Marriage, and Same-Sex Attraction from a Biblical worldview.

God’s Design for Marriage & Sex

Definition of Marriage: A covenantal, bodily union of one man and one woman, open to the gift of procreation, symbolic of the relationship between Christ and the church.

1. Procreation is one of the designed ends for marriage.

2. Marriage is a picture of two distinct parties in covenantal union.

The “sexuality of Jesus":

1) First, the fact that Jesus has a sex – he is male..

2) Second, by “sexuality of Jesus” I mean that Jesus is himself a sexual being. As a real human person, he took on a body capable of sexual activity. And yet: he refrained from sex.

Same-Sex Attraction

1) We must recognize the reality that fallen people have fallen desires.

2) Scripture equips us to offer an answer to the question, What if someone is born that way?

3) We must on one hand affirm that all sins make us deserving of condemnation.

4) Our posture toward believers who experience same-sex attraction must be one of compassion, kindness, gentleness, and speaking the truth in love.

Application Points:

1.We should honor marriage 

2. We should honor singleness

3. We should cultivate strong friendships

For Further Reading/Listening:

- https://www.wchurch.ca/IsGodAntiGayConference

- https://www.desiringgod.org/books/recovering-biblical-manhood-and-womanhood

Whether it’s in a courtroom, in a conference room, in a coffee shop, or even within the walls of a local church, at one time or another we’ve all found ourselves participating in or watching two people engage in a conversation, where one person is in disagreement with or at least questions the validity of another person’s claim. In other words, it doesn’t take very long to find out that in life not everyone always agrees with what you believe about any given topic. And the topic of manhood and womanhood, as it is taught in the Scriptures, is one of those areas that Christians haven’t always agreed upon – which will be the focus of our episode

In this episode, we will consider a series of questions/objections to the Bible’s teaching, broken into two major categories—biblical objections, that is, based on particular biblical texts, and then more general objections.

Biblical Objections

1)  Eph 5:21: Paul says that all Christians are to “submit to one another.” So, Doesn’t the Bible then teach mutual submission? And doesn’t that rid us of any idea that the husband is the head of his wife or that a wife needs to submit to her husband?

2) 1 Tim 2.12: isn’t Paul teaching that women can preach/teach in the gathered congregation, at least under the delegated authority of the elders?

3) Doesn’t Galatians 3:28 remove gender as a basis for distinction of roles in the church?

4): Didn’t Priscilla teach Apollos in Acts 18:26?

5) Leveling of gender roles as a hermeneutic thrust of Scriptures?  Doesn't Scripture move towards abolishing gender distinctions all together?

The redemptive thrust of the Bible does not at all aim at abolishing gender distinctions and roles, but rather at redeeming them.

6) What about Deborah’s leadership in the book of Judges? Doesn’t that undermine the understanding of gender roles we’ve been teaching in this episode series?

General Objections:

Does teaching male headship encourage domestic abuse?

The Bible nowhere justifies a man abusing a woman in any way, be it physical, verbal, or emotional. And the Bible nowhere calls a woman to submit to such abuse.

If God has genuinely called a woman to be a pastor, who are you to say she can’t be one?