GBA 2012 04 Martin Grubb

Our opening session today was led by Martin Grubb and sought to give the biblical basis for church membership. He began by describing how things are arranged in his own recently constituted church at Charlesworth, quite similar to the 54 churches represented at this assembly. A line is drawn and some are within and some are without.

The question, however, is whether such an arrangement is biblical.

He began by looking at the 1689 Confession and noted how

1. The doctrine of the church is important

2. Scripture is sufficient - there is enough here to know how the church should be organised

3. The visibility of the church is emphasised

Rather than looking at proof texts he took us then to Corinth to show how biblical this is. The situation in Corinth is very much like the situation we are in today. Among the many things he helpfully pointed to were these:

1. There was a church in Corinth to which people belonged

2. We know how the church came into being from Acts

3. All sorts of people belonged to the church

4. Those who belonged had been changed by God

5. A clear line is drawn between those within the church and those outside

6. There is a distinction between the church and the congregation

7. They have many questions and know where to go with them

8. It has the fearful power to hand people over to Satan

9. It has an especial care for its own

10. It welcomes believers from other churches

Grace Assembly 09 7

In his second message (on Wednesday night) Martin Grubb looked at the question: What do we long to see God do through our endeavours and what does God need to do to us in order to make us effective in his hands? His answer (looking at Luke 5): We need to learn to break people's hearts from the experience of being broken hearted ourselves.

The story of evangelism in the early church is dominated by two very different men - Peter and Paul. Luke (expanding on other accounts) tells us that Peter began his career of evangelism by being shattered by Christ. This is exactly how Paul began. If we are to break people's hearts, we need to be broken men ourselves. We are talking about conviction of sin.
Here we see Peter's piety. It is an example to us. Martin made six main points about Peter
1. His experience began with trusting Jesus in the face of death
We need to get a biblical idea of death.
2. His experience showed itself by serving the cause of Christ
It's great when people are eager to do something. Will you serve Christ?
3. His experience involved a crisis in obedience
It often affects the areas where we are most competent. It's not easy but we must obey.
4. His experience involved falling on his knees in shame and utter confusion and astonishment
5. His experience involved a fearful forgetting
6. His experience involved trusting Jesus for the future and following him
Such experiences prepare great evangelists,which is what we need. Once again it was a great message full of wonderful anecdotes that we have only sketched rather generally here. It stirred you to evangelise. One of the best was the fear of the Bible shown by people who have seen an atheist Martin knows reading one.

Grace Assembly 09

The programmes for the next Grace Assembly, May 19-21, are now out. Hope you can read some of the detail. (Try double clicking pics).