#Values: Values are definitions of what we hope will identify us. These articles are mainly intended for those who wish to join us in this project—whether to pray, donate, or collaborate.
He is the Lord and foundation of the Church, the center of our love and faithfulness. In Him we are united by love, in a deep relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Beta Values #2: Jesus, the Center
The Trinity allows us to understand the essence of God—a God who, though sovereign, is deeply interested in us; a God who sends Himself to participate in human history in the person of Jesus, to reveal the character of God perfectly, to rescue us by giving His life for love, since we are like lost sheep or prodigal children who have fled home, and to give us a path to follow. That is why He is our center, and we need nothing more.
When praying to the Father, Jesus says:
“Righteous Father, the world has not known you. But I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I in them” (John 17:25–26).
That is, the Father sent the Son to make Himself known. It is not just about conveying information about God but about sharing the love the Father has eternally had for the Son with those who believe in Him. This reveals a kind of salvation that a solitary God could never offer: the Father delights so deeply in His eternal love for the Son that He desires to share it with all who believe. Ultimately, God’s love for the world is the overflow of His love for His Son.
Jesus Christ, God made man, is the culmination of God’s creative and redemptive work (Matthew 1:21–23; John 1:1–51; Philippians 2:1–10). This incarnate Son, model of our creation, comes to dwell among us to lead us to the new creation, to fully restore us, and to offer us salvation. In seeing God in Jesus, we understand that He not only wants to forgive us, but also desires that we be so united with Him that we begin to live His life. In receiving God’s great love and following Him, we begin to walk His path of love (1 John 5:9–11).
Without the cross, we would never have imagined the depth and seriousness of what it means to say that God is love. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). On the cross, we see the great holiness of God’s love—the light of His pure love destroys the darkness of sin and evil. On the cross, we see the intensity and strength of His love, which is by no means bland, but majestically strong as it faces death, battles evil, and imparts life. This is why the Gospel of John shows us that the cross is the climax of the revelation of God’s character. This pursuit of God for us, in love, is nothing less than “the mysterious witness that God gives us that we are not, have never been, and never will be alone. We are not left to our own devices when it comes to our relationship with God.”
Thus, the Father’s love for the Son is offered to us like a cascade of love:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Remain in my love” (John 15:9).
Through Jesus, we affirm that the Father loves us and has given us “the right to be called children of God” (John 1:12). This, in turn, enables us to respond to His love:
“We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
We have been created to know His love and to love the Lord our God.
Finally, His love is not limited to a past act, but continues to work: He not only came for us, but He also dwells in us through the Holy Spirit to make us one with Him (John 3:14–17). The first of the Spirit’s three roles, along with uniting us to Christ, is to form Christ’s character in us (Galatians 5:22–23) and to empower us to bear witness to Christ (Acts 1:8).
However, when we displace Jesus from the center of our faith, we inevitably replace Him with something else. For example, if we exalt the power of the Holy Spirit without keeping Jesus at the center, we distort our understanding of God. Jesus Himself taught that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Him and guide us into His lordship (John 14 and 16). In practice, this means that if we recognize Jesus as the Lord, the Chief Shepherd, and the model of the servant who lays down His life for love, then any Christian leader who considers themselves the owner and lord of the sheep is deeply mistaken—no matter how much power may seem to be manifested through them (2 Corinthians 10–12).
Prevenient grace is our experience of God’s determination (most vividly seen in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, but also subtly and powerfully present in our daily experiences of God’s love) to be in relationship with us.
— William H. Willimon, in This We Believe
The Holy Spirit is God present.
— William H. Willimon, in This We Believe
Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still don’t know me? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”
— John 14:6–10
The God Wesley discovered (or perhaps more accurately, the God who discovered Wesley—like in the stories of Luke 15!) is not only sovereign power and glory, but also love that seeks and finds.
— William H. Willimon, in This We Believe
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us: because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
— 1 John 4:7–16
The gospel of Jesus Christ—the message He proclaimed, the life He lived, and the ministry He practiced—set in motion a redemptive movement destined to fill the whole earth.
— Free Methodist Church Book of Discipline, 2023