What We Believe
The following are the core beliefs of Refuge City Church based on the foundational truths taught in the Bible. All of our teaching and ministry is rooted in and flows out of these biblical doctrines.
We are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and affirm the Baptist Faith & Message 2000
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The Bible
The Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God.
2 Timothy 3:15-16
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God
There is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, and all-wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.
Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19; Mark 12:29
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Jesus
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
Isaiah 7:14; Romans 8:34; Acts 1:10-11
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Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination, He enables men to understand truth. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He calls men to the Savior, and effects regeneration. At the moment of regeneration, He baptizes every believer into the Body of Christ.
2 Timothy 1:14; 2 Peter 1:21; 1 John 4:13; 5:6-7
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Salvation
The salvation of sinners is wholly through grace. Mankind has no righteousness or goodness of his own. We must therefore come to Him who bought us and washed us in His own blood. The change that takes place in the heart and life at conversion is a very real one; that the sinner is born again, regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
Romans 3:10, 23-24; 6:23; 10:13-14; Ephesians 2:3, 8; 1 John 5:10-12
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Sanctification
The sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit enables a believer to live a holy life.
Hebrews 12:14; I Peter 1:15,16
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Man
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God.
Genesis 1:26-30; Matthew 16:26; Romans 1:19-32; Ephesians 2:1-10; Colossians 1:21-22
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The Church
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.
Matthew 16:15-19; Acts 2:41-42; 20:28; 1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 5:1-4
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Last Things
God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.
Matthew 16:27; 24:27,30,36,44; 25:31-46; Luke 21:27-28; John 14:1-3; 1 Corinthians 4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18; Revelation 3:11
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Communion and Baptism
Communion and Water Baptism by immersion are practices to be observed by the church and are not a means of salvation.
Matthew 28:19; Romans 6:4; 1 Corinthians 11:26, 28