Ok so Friday nights talk is very difficult to sum-up however I’ll give it a go! John took us through the life of the church from Acts 2 all the way till 2012 in half an hour. And as one not studied too much into church history I speak as one informed not the informer! So my summery is this.
‘The true church of God has been and is consistently being pushed into distraction and consistently has to remember her mission. However Jesus is accomplishing His mission of redemption of the world.‘
It seems that God is well used to using sinful, mixed-up people, people who are being saved to achieve His plan of redemption of the world. I was greatly humbled to be proclaimed a part of King Jesus’ great work. That He would want to use us is simply mindblowing!
There is 3 challenges that have faced the church down through the ages.
- Persecution. Both of christians and also christians persecuting non believers. Both are sore on the church, but the later, History has told us is very sore on the churches real growth! Remember belief cannot be forced!
- False teaching. The main false teachings down through history has been. Jesus never became fully man. Jesus is less than God. That you can work for your salvation. We need to be sure that Jesus is both God and man and is our only hope for salvation. believing anything get’s us into more than trouble!
- Disunity. This came when the church started to assign bishops then argued which bishop was the most important, so the bishop of Rome ‘won’ and eventually became the pope. And you know where all that has brought the church, divided to say the least.
If anything but the Word of God becomes a more important decision maker in the church, Disunity will happen and probably rightly happen. The church must be open to reforming from the word of God, not from anywhere else.
Well that’s what I took from the talk, it wasn’t a talk with much given practical application. But I will add one. ‘Praise is rising, eyes are turning to You, hope is stirring hearts are yearning for You!’ The church and people are longing for God to come close to them, and God is working, He is at work and ‘Christ will have the prize for which He died, an inheritance of nations.‘ What a hope, to know where things are going to end up, brings a great sense of peace!
Standing on Grace
andy lamberton 