Who is Jesus?

Some say Jesus was a wise man, some say He was a liar, some say He was a lunatic. But we believe that Jesus is Lord. He is the one who can make us worship and live as we were meant to live. Jesus has transformed the lives of millions of people over the last 2000 years, and He continues to do so, including ours here at Southside Bible Church.

We offer an informal 7-week course called Christianity Explored for people who want to learn more about Jesus and investigate the Christian faith. We have eyewitness accounts of Jesus during His life; we are not interested in blind faith. We base our trust in Jesus on solid evidence. No prior Bible knowledge is required, no question is too silly to ask, and no fee is charged. To find out when the next course is run, please send us a message and ask us (there is a contact form below).

Everyone is welcome, no matter what age, culture, nationality, background, or religion.

The reason we need Jesus is because of our broken relationship with God.

God tells us in the Bible that we are made for a relationship with him. He is the source of life and breath and all things. In His wisdom He created us in His own likeness. We were made to live in relationship with Him, to enjoy His goodness forever, and to listen to Him – because His perfect wisdom is what is needed for humanity to survive and thrive in the world He made.

But the problem is all of us reject God in our thinking, our words and the things we do. We have all sinned as we turned away from God and do things our own way instead of God’s way. Because of our rejection of God, who is the source of life, we will be judged and remain separated from Him and His goodness forever. In our rejection of God, we are completely unable to restore our relationship with God by ourselves – and we are unable to advocate for ourselves.

But in His love and desire to have a relationship with us, God became the man Jesus Christ who entered history as a man 2000 years ago. Jesus died on a cross in our place. We deserved to be the ones to die as a penalty of our rejection of God; Jesus didn’t deserve to die because He never sinned. But Jesus substituted himself for us on the cross and took the punishment that we rightly deserved. Jesus rose from the dead three days later conquering death and providing eternal life for all who trust in him.

When we place our trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection we are forgiven for our sins and are restored in relationship with God

No. Coming along to church does not make you right with God, nor does it forgive your sins, nor does it win favour with God.  As we place our faith in Jesus Christ, He is the one who forgives us and restores us into a relationship with God. So, we do not need to come to church to be right with God.

But that answer is also; Yes! If we are right with God, He says clearly in His word that we should gather together with other Christians to read the Bible, pray, and encourage each other to live as God’s people. So our relationship with God through Jesus must manifest itself in our lives as we live in community with other Christians in church.

Even if you don’t believe in God you are more than welcome to join us at church. In fact, there will be others like you at our Sunday celebrations, and we would love to have you come along!

When we gather together at church we read and explain the Bible. Rather than just blindly guessing and having a fictional understanding about who God is, we encourage people to open God’s word in the Bible and find out for themselves who He is. By coming to church, we hope you will find out who God is as the Bible read and explained. You will also witness how our Christian faith makes a difference in the lives of the people at Southside. You will meet a community that is welcoming, friendly and caring.  While we are a long way from being perfect, you will witness a community that is changed by the love of Jesus and power of the Holy Spirit.

We encourage all people regardless of their faith journey to join with us at church or one of our Fellowship Groups.

If we want to know who someone is, we need to listen to what they say and observe them in action. In the same way, if we want to know who God is then we should listen carefully to what He says in the Bible and observe His word and works.

Using the same criteria by which we judge other historical works, not only is the Bible reliable, it is more reliable than any other comparable writings. The Bible was written over a period of about 1500 years, with the last book being written down about sixty years after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The 66 books of the Bible were written by over 40 authors in history as God spoke through them, clearly revealing for humankind who He is and who we are as His creation. The Bible has been carefully translated to us in our language (and countless languages around the world), and its cohesion, internal and external reliability cannot be explained except to say that what is written in the Bible is true.

Ultimately, Christians believe that the Bible is reliable because it is from God and reveals God to us as He spoke through people in the past. In the Bible we see that God makes promises and clearly fulfils those promises. His greatest promise that we see throughout the entire Bible is His rescue plan for us from sin and death that is made known to us in Jesus Christ. Through the Bible, God who is unknown makes himself known in our world in history.