Hot topics:
Knowing what we believe about these “Hot Topics” allows us to Defend & Champion what we believe.
There are two groups of people that are important when it comes to our beliefs on Hot Topics.
People needing to be pastored.
Someone in the lobby who have honest questions about what we believe.
What we share directly impacts them
Those who are in Leadership or we are considering inviting into leadership.
What we share directly impacts them
AND they need to be able to PASS ON to others what we believe.
There are 4 places someone can be when it comes to something we believe:
They resist it. They don’t believe what we believe
They tolerate it. They don’t believe it, nor do they push against it. They tolerate it.
They believe it.
They champion it. This is someone who can disciple someone else.
Point of Healthy Challenge can happen at any time we recognize someone is no longer open and their “tolerance” of what we believe has revealed hardness of heart and pride.
* Today is NOT about Slowing Down to Teach in depth on these actual topics, it’s an Overview of What we Believe about them.
When it comes to what we believe, there are three filters to consider.
Essentials – you must believe what we believe to remain in Unity.
Non-Essentials – we may agree to disagree, but we will always Honor.
All things – walk in Love no matter where we land on what we believe.
We need you to carry God’s heart & our heart to have these Healthy, Challenging Conversations.
HOT TOPICS - What we Believe and What we require from those in leadership
MARRIAGE:
We believe God has ordained marriage and defined it as the covenant relationship between a man, a woman, and Himself. Resonate will only recognize marriages between a biologically born man and a biologically born woman.
ESSENTIAL
Matthew 19:4-5 NKJV
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
We believe that the term “marriage” has only one meaning: the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union. (Gen.2:18-25.) We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other. (1Cor.6:18, 7:2-5; Heb 13:4.) We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of marriage between a man and a woman.
Hebrews 13:4 NKJV
Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
GENDER IDENTIFICATION / LGBTQ+
We believe that God creates each person as male or female. These two distinct, complementary genders together reflect the image and nature of God. (Gen 1:26-27.) Rejection of one’s biological sex is rejection of the image of God within the person.
ESSENTIAL
Genesis 1:26-27 NIV
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
1 Corinthians 6:9 KJV
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Romans 1:26-27 NKJV
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
NOTE: Having an attraction to the same sex is not sin in itself. However, acting on that attraction is sin.
WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
We believe there is no lid when it comes to ministry calling, authority or anointing based on one’s biological gender.
ESSENTIAL
This is essential and non negotiable when it comes to our leaders. Otherwise it will create a tension in them by being led by our lead pastors.
Acts 2:17 NKJV 17 ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
We want everyone at Resonate to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Believing it is ESSENTIAL
Experiencing it is NON-ESSENTIAL
OPENNESS is Essential.
Acts 2, 10, 19
Acts 2:1-4 ESV When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
TITHING
Tithe simply means, “a tenth.” God asks His children to return to Him the first 10% of all their increase. We see this happening before the law, during the law, during the time of Jesus physically on the earth and in the New Testament. This is the baseline when it comes to trusting God with our finances and living a life of generosity.
Believing this is ESSENTIAL.
With our Staff it is ESSENTIAL. - Living it out is a continual journey.
With our Leaders OPENNESS and growth is Essential.
Matthew 23:23 NIV “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter (tithing), without neglecting the former.
Hebrews 7:5-6 NKJV 5 And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham;
6 but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.
ABSOLUTE TRUTH
Absolute truth is true regardless of how a person thinks or feels about it. It’s true for all time and circumstance. We believe the Bible and its teachings are absolutely true.
ESSENTIAL
John 14:6 NKJV
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
2 Timothy 4:2-4 NKJV
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
We believe God’s design is for marriage to be for a lifetime and God hates divorce. We do not believe that divorce alone disqualifies a man or woman from pastoral leadership.
ESSENTIAL
Matthew 5:32, 19:3, 6-9 NKJV
32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” 8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
1 Corinthians 7:10-16 NKJV
10 Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. 11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. 12 But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. 13 And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. 15 But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. 16 For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?
ABORTION
We believe that all human life is sacred and created by God in His image including pre-born babies. We are therefore called to defend, protect, and value all human life. (Ps 139:13-18; Job 14:5.)
ESSENTIAL
Psalm 139:13-18 NKJV
13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.
END TIMES
We will not try to predict or assume we fully know how all the events of the end times will transpire. What we do know is at the end there will be seven years of tribulation, the return of Jesus, rapture of the church, the Antichrist revealed
NON-ESSENTIAL
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 NKJV
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Revelation 1:7 NKJV
Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 NKJV
7 the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
10 when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.
