A Gospel Driven Church

RBCNC is a Gospel-Driven Church. This means we distinguish between the "two words" of Scripture: law and gospel. Both are vital to the Christian, but they do not do the same things.

The law shows us God's righteousness and our failure to live up it, thereby falling short of the glory of God. The law condemns us in our flesh and points to our need for a savior. After we are saved, it still points out these things, but because of our new hearts, we have new desires to want to keep it and therefore, it is vital that we know it as Christians.

The gospel, however, is alone the power of God to salvation. This is the proclamation that Jesus Christ, the eternal Word and God in human flesh, came to us in the womb of the virgin, lived a perfect life of obedience to God's law climaxing in his obedient sacrificial death as the Lamb of God who takes away our sins, his resurrection from the dead vindicating him as God, his ascension to heaven where he sits at the right hand of the Father as ruler of heaven and earth, and his Second Coming to judge the living and the dead. This proclamation, when believed by faith, becomes the power of God to justify the wicked and sanctify the saints until Christ returns to take them home in glory. It is good news to be received and is the opposite of our good works. It is the singular message that sinners and saints need to hear if they would have abundant life in Christ and be delivered from the power of sin, death, and the devil. This message drives everything we do as a local church, so that God might be glorified for his righteousness, goodness, mercy, grace, and truth.