Sola Christos

We are a reformed church and when the Reformation happened the Reformers came up with the 5 solas, sola being Latin for 'alone'.

1. Sola Christos - Christ alone, no saints, Mary or others are need to get to God
2. Sola gracia - grace alone not good works is the means of salvation
3. Sola fidei - faith alone is the way to access all the promises of God not religious rituals
4. Sola scriptura - scripture alone is the final rule of faith and life for the church
5. Soli Deo gloria - For God's glory alone

I thought it would be helpful to blog through these over the next weeks to remind you of the great truths to which we adhere.

Sola Christos - Christ alone

In this day and age we have an obsession with ‘lite’ things that look like the real deal but have half the calories. ‘lite’ beer, ‘lite’ chips there is an obsession with low calorie foods that don’t have real substance so that we can still fit into last year’s jeans and look good on the beach for summer!

Sadly the church has often become Jesus-lite. It may still look like the real thing, but the one person who should be the centre of everything is often conspicuously absent. In fact at a recent service in a mainline church that I attended, I heard Jesus spoken of just twice: once in a scripture reading the other at the end of a prayer. A church without Jesus is NOT a church at all.

Scripture teaches that Jesus is the centre of all things and the fullness of God as Paul reminds the Colossian church Colossians 1:15–17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

This means that everything we do revolves around Christ. Whether it is preaching up front, teaching children, spending time in rest or working a 9 to 5 job. Jesus is the centre of the life of a disciple.

Jesus is the head of the church and anything that does not point to the head, Christ, needs to be cut out or reshaped into something that is Jesus-full! Too often the church clouds Jesus in all sorts of other things to the point where he is often almost completely hidden. When Jesus is hidden we've lost everything. The Reformation was a reaction against the church taking Jesus out of his role as the only mediator between God and humanity and placing other things or people alongside or sometimes even above Jesus.

We have nothing else to proclaim and nor do we need anything else to proclaim other than Jesus crucified for sin: 1 Corinthians 1:23–24 We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Those looking for truth need us to preach and teach about Jesus. This narcissistic world needs Jesus, not self-serving religion. The hurting need Jesus power and healing, not self-help. The sinner needs Jesus and not do-good moralism. The lost need the Truth and not feel good story telling. Those who are despondent need the work of the Spirit of Christ and not a pep-talk.

Everything we do needs to point people to Jesus and so the writer of Hebrews reminds us Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Our job as Jesus leaders, full of the Holy Spirit is to point people to Jesus as John the baptizer did, and we must become less that He might become more. Jesus is everything. He is a treasure of greater worth than anything and when we’re all for Jesus everything else pales into insignificance! Perhaps we might also get to the point that Paul did when wrote Philippians 3:8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Jesus leaders should have that kind of passion and priority so that they might lead people to Him!