Okay, be honest with me. How many of you have owned a pet rock? Anyone? Okay then, how about a Chia Pet? Surely someone has had one of those. What, nobody will admit to owning either one? Why not?

Life is full of useless and worthless things; still, we chase after them. Don’t we. Take a moment to reflect and I’ll bet you can think of at least one thing you bought that turned out to be worthless. At least one thing that you pursued, that turned out to be fake, hollow, or dissatisfying. At least one thing you don’t tell anyone about because you’re embarrassed you bought it. But hey, at least you haven’t bought a screen door for a submarine yet. Or, have you?

Have you ever thought about worthless things from a spiritual perspective? Scripture teaches us that our righteousness is as filthy rags to God. That sounds pretty worthless to me, how about you. So then, is there a righteousness that isn’t worthless? Is there a righteousness that is pleasing in God’s sight?

The answer of course is yes, and it is His righteousness imputed to us by grace through faith in His son Jesus Christ. But how do we acquire this righteousness? By faith alone or by faith plus works? This question was asked in our session last week and time constraints prevented us from discussing it fully. This question is one of the most important questions in all Christian theology and it has been debated for centuries. In fact, it was one of the key issues that led to the Protestant Reformation. Maybe you’re heard of the Five Solas. If not, you will tomorrow.

Join us for the journey as we take a slide side trip from Romans into the Book of James to answer this critically important question: Salvation, is it by faith alone or by faith plus works? There are many views on this topic but what does Scripture say and what do we as Baptists believe? Come and find out.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Pop in that old Rich Mullins favorite on your way to church and find out what he has to say about screen doors and submarines. It won’t answer the question but it will get the wheels turning before our discussion.

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You can download the Bible study materials for this session for your personal use and watch the Zoom video of the in-class session by following the links below:

PowerPoint Slides
PDF File
Video

Follow this link to find other studies in this series: TRANSFORMED: Knowing & Doing God’s Will.