Communion Conversion

Last week near the end of our worship service an amazing thing happened.
I had invited a new acquaintance to come to church the week before when Brother Jeff was concluding his series on the Ten Commandment. The entire series that he preached in the weeks prior was very good and convicting for all of us and I knew that the last commandment on covetousness would be even more so because of the sinful nature that we all seem to have with regard to selfishness and the want for more.

Well, you know what happened, he became ill on the Sunday on which I had invited him and unexpectedly showed up the following week. This was not the week that I was hoping that he would be there because I was preaching on “high doctrine,” the Holiness of God, the Otherness, the complete Separateness and Perfect Purity of God.

I felt that this sermon was for those in the church who, for the previous twelve weeks had heard wonderful sermons on the Holy Laws of God. I felt that a concluding sermon on the Holiness and complete Otherness of our Sovereign God would be a proper wrap up for the series, but not for a visiting unbeliever. Not to mention the fact that our sermons are usually about an hour long and this was no time for someone to be there who was not use to sitting and listening to doctrine.

All the while I was preaching this sermon on the beauty of God’s holiness, I was thinking that this has to be very boring for our guest, this must sound like foolishness to him, he will never come back here. We have no entertainment to hold his interest. There was not one thing mentioned in the sermon about man being a sinner or what man had to do to “get right” with God. I just knew that our guest was not understanding one thing that I was talking about. I learned a little while later ho much I underestimated our Sovereign God?

We do not have alter calls in our church services or apply man made techniques to manufacture guilt in people so when I concluded the sermon I simply gave God’s command for all sinners to repent and believe the gospel. Then I prayed and we sang a hymn in response to the sermon.

We serve the Lord’s Table every Lord’s Day near the end of our worship service, so when the sermon was finished and our hymn following the sermon was concluded we offer the supper.

The Lord’s Table is a closed table reserved for believers only, and although we had been restricting the table to believers only, we had not made the admonishment strong enough and we found that those whom we had reason to doubt were true Christians were coming to the table and partaking along with the church.

As the leadership of the church we had talked about this problem in our meetings and had come to the conclusion that we must make the admonishment even more clear.

On this day Brother Jeff was leading the Lord ’s Table. He made a very clear admonishment to everyone in the building that this table was not to be taken by anyone who had not repented of their sins and had made a good and credible confession that Jesus Christ was Lord of their life. In addition to that one of the requirements was to have been baptized and were living a life worthy of Him.

It was very well done and a strong enough admonishment to make even a believer uneasy if his life had gone astray and was not living for the glory of God,

After the admonishment and a time of reflection, the church came forward and received the elements as we do each week, and then circled around the sanctuary to form a circle. Then while in the circle we all take the supper together and than have a circle of prayer.

We have had people on a few occasions who could not take the supper leave the church service at this point because they found themselves prevented from joining the circle and felt uneasy.

On this day, the visitor, who for all of his life considered himself to be a Christian, found himself excluded from the church, on the outside of the circle. Everyone except him, took the Communion. We did not realize it at the moment but God was secretly doing a mighty work of regeneration in the heart of this man while he was on the outside of the circle.

When the church had finished the Supper he was invited him to join our prayer circle. We proceeded to pray for many things, especially the goodness of our Sovereign God, and we also prayed for him as we all held hands.

It was at that point the conviction of his guilt swept over him and he slumped down in the pew crying and repenting of his sin. He was in a stupor, stunned at what had just happened to him. In the aftermath he said that he felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders and that he felt as though he was at peace. This man had been gloriously converted to Christ.

That very afternoon the church reassembled at Lake Bonham and this “new creature” in Christ was baptized.

It has only been a week since his conversion and we can see the fruit of righteousness beginning to bud in his life.

It just confirmed to my soul once again that we do not have to be preaching at people or preaching a man centered gospel telling people that they need to be making a decision to follow God. God is the one who is in the business of saving souls. Salvation is Mine says the Lord. All we have to do is faithfully proclaim His Word.

We remain committed at Grace Community Bible Church to preach “Christ centered” doctrine to the glory of God.

We will leave the rest to Him.

Pastor Dale