St. James Lutheran Church of Columbus, Ohio - Making an impact on our community through the Word of God.

St. James Lutheran Church centers on Christ crucified for our salvation. We enjoy and encourage congregational participation in the services, which include singing, prayer, and the giving of our thanks for all of God's benefits to us. our Pastor preaches Bible-centered sermons which proclaim God's Word to us and strengthen us in our faith in Jesus Christ. We hold true to the Christian faith as defined in the Nicene, Athanasian, and Apostles Creeds. Our renewed relationship with God comes by grace alone, faith alone, and Scripture alone.

We've all struggled to make sense of the world around us. In times of confusion and conflict, we often find ourselves caught up in the mixed signals. Most people fight for spiritual clarity at some point in their lives. We at St. James Lutheran Church believe that this clarity comes solely through a relationship with God, and that this relationship is a gift from Him through His Son Jesus Christ.

People worship many things. Beauty. Wealth. Power. Respect. These are common focus points in our lives but they never seem to have the staying power one would expect from "the best in life." Once you die, these things are gone forever. So what DOES last beyond death?

Love lasts forever.

But not just any kind of love. The Bible says that God is love (I John 4:8). God is the perfect, all-knowing being who originally created humanity as a perfect creation. He made us to love us and to give us the ability to freely love Him in return. Free will was a big part of our relationship with God; after all, aside from in science fiction, a robot can't love its master.

Humans were given free will to choose to obey God as a child obeys its father, but we disobeyed God. Our ancestors disobeyed God's simple rules and as a result, ruined the perfect, loving relationship we had with Him. Humanity was hopelessly lost, condemned to an eternity of hell and suffering, completely removed from God, who created us!

Why would a God who loves us put us in Hell?

God is perfect and just. His judgment is absolute because he is absolute. He can't tolerate evil because it is against his perfect nature. The good news is that something drastic was done by God to restore the relationship between us as He originally intended. He offered us a substitute for us in our pitiful condition so that we can get back to him where we belong. He doesn't want our fallen nature to cause us to be lost forever.

God loves us so much that he sacrificed his only Son Jesus Christ to take the fall in our place. Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. He was born of the Virgin Mary some 2,000 years ago, in order to give Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. During His life He submitted himself to His Father's will, perfectly obeying Him where we failed. He proclaimed the Gospel, calling people to repentance, forgiving people their sins, and freeing them from sickness, disease, demon-possession, and death. Finally, He gave Himself into death on the cross at Calvary, allowing himself to be punished for our sin instead of us. In this way he paid ALL of the price of the wrongs we've done in our lives! But Jesus did not stay dead. The third day after His crucifixion God raised Him from the dead. Afterwards, He showed Himself alive to more than 500 witnesses at one time (I Corinthians 15:6). 40 days after His resurrection He then ascended into heaven, where He now sits at His Father's right hand, interceding for us until He comes again to judge the living and the dead. Through faith in Him we are given new life, forgiven of the garbage and evil that comes from our sinful hearts, and brought into a new relationship with God, one in which He is our loving heavenly Father and we are His dear children, who live under His love and mercy now and forever! We do not need to fear His judgment on the Last Day. We will go to live with God in His kingdom of glory for all eternity.

Great news- God's gifts are free to you and me. They've been purchased by Christ. They are received by faith. Faith simply trusts that God's promises in Christ are true. When He says that Jesus died for your sins, so that you might not perish but have eternal life, by trusting in these words this gift becomes yours. While many boast in the fact that they accepted God's gift, God tells us to boast in Jesus, the Gift Himself, and He reminds us that even the ability to believe in Him is in fact a gift itself which God gives us as His Spirit works through His Word, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.

Some believe that once they've heard the message about Jesus and the forgiveness of sins He's achieved for us, they don't need to hear this good news anymore. But because Christians are still sinners in this life, they constantly need to hear the good news that God continues to forgive their sins and grants them His mercy for Christ's sake. Christianity is not about you; it's about Jesus. The more we listen to the words of Jesus, eat of His holy Supper, and focus on what He has done for us, the more we will live as the children of God He created us to be. So, a Christian continues to be a learner of God's Word. The Word shows us that we have failed at keeping God's commandments and reminds us that for this we deserve death, but it also tells us that God is merciful towards us and forgives our sins for Christ's sake. In Baptism God adopts us into His family, cleanses us with the blood of Christ, clothes us with Jesus, and gives us a new birth. Now with the help of God's Word we can learn how to live as God's dear children, learning how to obey His commandments not in order to get ourselves into heaven, but because heaven is already ours in Jesus.

Prayer is conversation between you and God, conversation which begins with your listening to God speak to you in His Word. God's Word informs you not only how to prayer but what to pray for. The more you know God's Word, the more you'll know how to pray. God's Word also teaches you that for Christ's sake God hears your requests and will answer them according to His will. The Lord's Prayer is the prayer our Savior gave His people to pray. It's not only an example of how to pray, but it's an actual prayer that we can pray. At Our Savior's we pray the Lord's Prayer at every service.

The Bible says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23) and "There is no one who does good, not even one" (Psalm 14:3). Though we may be good citizens in this world, we've all been infected with sin from the moment of our conception. Before God, "all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). But the Bible also says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). The "Him" who has taken our iniquity/sin away is Christ. As the Apostle John writes, "The blood of Jesus [God's] Son cleanses us from all sin" (I John 1:7). In Jesus, you stand before God now holy, righteous, and blameless, with your sins removed from you as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

The Bible is God's complete and only written message to us. It's main figure is Jesus. It's main message is God's salvation in Him. According to Jesus, the whole Bible/Scriptures speak of Him (John 5:39). It's a collection of books written over a period of 1,500 years by various authors, all of whom were either eye-witnesses of the persons and events they record or were given their information from the eye-witnesses. Originally written in Hebrew (the Old Testament) and Greek (the New Testament) thousands of years ago, it comes in many translations. Regarding the character of the Bible, the Apostle Paul writes, "All Scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16), and the Apostle Peter writes, "For no prophecy was ever produced y the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). And Jesus says in His prayer to the Father, "Your Word is truth" (John 17:17).

In 1517 a devout monk by the name of Martin Luther issued a list of 95 points of concern with the religious practices and beliefs of the church. These 95 Theses (click here to visit the entire translation) became the flint which sparked the global Reformation, a movement meant to restore the pure Scriptural teaching that the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation is a gift to us from God through faith in Christ apart from our works and efforts. This massive cleansing of the church resulted in many people who protested the Catholic Church (known as "Protestants") splitting away from the church and forming their own congregations all over the world. The Lutheran church stems from the German Protestants and may be found in cities all over the world.

If would like to visit you at St. James Lutheran Church and learn more about who God our Savior really is, we'd love to have you attend a weekly service. Get directions here. All are welcome! Contact us today if you'd like to learn more about what we believe, teach, and confess as Lutheran Christians, we'll be happy to answer questions and share the experience of learning with you. We want to hear from you today! For those who wish to become members of our congregation or simply want more information about the Christian faith, the pastor offers a 12-week course on basic Christian teaching using Martin Luther's Small Catechism and the Bible.

Click here to learn more about what we believe. Thank you for reading; we'd love to meet you this Sunday.