Friendship Missionary Baptist Church of Sugar Land
Our Purpose and What We Believe
I. The Purpose and the Mission of the Church
The Church is the Body of Christ, the habitation of God through the Spirit, with divine appointments for the fulfillment of her great commission. Each believer, born of the Spirit, is an integral part of this Body of Christ; as members of the Body of Christ is the Purpose of the body that meets at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church of Sugarland is to perform the missionary task as set forth in Holy Scriptures: to be a worshiping fellowship, experiencing an awareness of God and responding in obedience o His leadership; striving to eliminate sin in the lives of human beings through the acceptance of Christ as the source of building a high spiritual and moral life; for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry and for the building up of the body of Christ.
II. The Scriptures are God Breathed
The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.
III. The One True God
We believe that the one true God has revealed Himself as the eternally self-existent “I AM,” the Creator of heaven and earth and the Redeemer of mankind. He has further revealed Himself as embodying the principles of relationship and association as Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the Trinity.
Furthermore we hold that the Lord Jesus Christ, is the proper and only Begotten of the Father, but as to His human nature, He is the proper Son of Man. He is therefore, acknowledged to be both God and man; who because He is God and man is “Immanuel,” God with us.
We also hold that the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, having by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; angels and principalities and powers having been made subject unto Him. And having been made both Lord and Christ, He sent the Holy Ghost that we, in the name of Jesus, might bow our knees and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father until the end, when the Son shall become subject to the Father that God may be all in all.
IV. Who Jesus Christ Is:
The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. The Scriptures declare:
His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, His substitutionary work on the cross, His bodily resurrection from the dead, His exaltation to the right hand of God.
V. The Fall of Man
Man was created good and upright; for God said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.” However, man by voluntary transgression fell and thereby incurred not only physical death but also spiritual death, which is separation from God.
VI. The Salvation of Man
Man’s only hope of redemption is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
Conditions to Salvation
Salvation is received through repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, being justified by grace through faith, man becomes an heir of God, according to the hope of eternal life.
The Evidence of Salvation is: 1) inward evidence – the direct witness of the Spirit, and 2) outward evidence – a life of righteousness and true holiness.
VII. There are two God given Ordinances of the Church
Baptism in Water
The ordinance of baptism by immersion is commanded by the Scriptures. All who repent and believe on Christ as Saviour and Lord are to be baptized. Thus they declare to the world that they have died with Christ and that they also have been raised with Him to walk in newness of life.
Holy Communion
The Lord’s Supper, consisting of the elements –bread and the fruit of the vine– is the symbol expressing our sharing the divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:4 [KJV/NIV]), a memorial of his suffering and death (1 Corinthians 11:26 [KJV/NIV]), and a prophecy of His second coming (1 Corinthians 11:26 [KJV/NIV]), and is enjoined on all believers “till He come!”
VIII. The Baptism in the Holy Ghost
The Holy Spirit is available to all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as experienced of all in the early Christian Church. With it comes the enduement of power for life and service, the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry.
Baptism in the Holy Ghost is distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth.
IX. Sanctification
Sanctification is an act of separation from that which is evil, and of dedication unto God.
The Scriptures teach a life of “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.”
By the power of the Holy Ghost we are able to obey the command: “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
Sanctification is realized in the believer by recognizing his identification with Christ in His death and resurrection, and by the faith reckoning daily upon the fact of that union, and by offering every faculty continually to the dominion of the Holy Spirit.
X. The Purpose of Ministries
A divinely called and scripturally ordained ministry has been provided by our Lord for the threefold purpose of leading the Church in:
Evangelization of the world.
Worship of God.
Building a body of saints being perfected in the image of His Son.
XI. Divine Healing
Divine healing is an integral part of the gospel. Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement, and is the privilege of all believers.
XII. Resurrection of the Dead
The resurrection of those who have fallen asleep in Christ and their translation together with those who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord is the imminent and blessed hope of the church.
XIII. The Millennial Reign of Christ
The second coming of Christ includes the rapture of the saints, which is our blessed hope, followed by the visible return of Christ with His saints to reign on earth for one thousand years.
This millennial reign will bring the salvation of national Israel, and the establishment of universal peace.
XIV. The Final Judgment
There will be a final judgment in which the wicked dead will be raised and judged according to their works. Whosoever is not found written in the Book of Life, together with the devil and his angels, the beast and the false prophet, will be consigned to the everlasting punishment in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
IV. The New Heavens and the New Earth
“We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
