Thursday, April 19, 2012

Ambassadors of Reconciliation Report on SGM Out

So the report we have all been waiting for is out, and available (I've downloaded the file in case it gets "removed" later!);

Here (40 pages worth).

Once again this point stuck out to me;

"We observed that this lack of declaring God’s grace to people is a weakness of people
throughout SGM, including leaders and members. Although the name of the organization is
Sovereign Grace Ministries, and grace and forgiveness are often preached and taught, there
does not seem to be a similar emphasis on the teaching and practice of declaring God’s grace".


The response has been mixed (unsurprisingly). I don't think the AoR team were ever going to make all happy. My hope is that with the changes in SGM - their move to Kentucky and so on, God will work out His purpose and that His kingdom WILL come despite mankind. Even more so I pray that the "Survivors" of SGM will find a measure of peace despite the wrong done them.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

In wonder if the issue is what Mike Reeves identifies in his We are not saved by grace: In this strange new world of the Bible, then, salvation is not so much about each individual being given some thing called grace; it is about being snipped out of one plant, Adam, and grafted into another, Christ. But with that comes the liberation and the joy. Christ bore the death penalty of sin for us: in him, we bore it too. Christ was then raised from the death he did not deserve and was declared righteous: in him we were given new life and declared righteous. Like fruit in a seed, like Levi in Abraham, Christians are hidden in Christ, and all his is theirs.

For all that we speak of grace, and however strongly we speak of it, we will remain prisoners of spiritual insecurity for as long as we imagine that we are independent islands. And rightly so: all spiritual blessings are to be found in Christ alone. Just read Ephesians 1 for an avalanche of verses to prove that. There is no hint of salvation to be found anywhere else. God only ever blesses through Christ. He is the vine of God’s blessing. And the only way to be blessed is to be grafted into him.

Dan Bowen said...

Interesting comment Dave, I think my personal spiritual testimony would agree with that.

And yet ... my heroes of grace, men like Rob Rufus and Terry Virgo just seem to radiate an inner joy and peace that testifies to "the Spirit within us that cries Abba!".

I'm taking advantage of the free DM Lloyd-Jones sermons to tank up on the "sealing of the Spirit" - aah!

Unknown said...

Yet those heroes of grace aren't just people who use the word grace a lot, they're people of Christ, people of the presence of God... I think that makes the difference.