God Is Building His Church
“But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.”
-1 Corinthians 12:18
This past Sunday we welcomed 11 new members into Sovereign Grace Church. We’re committed to them. They’re committed to us. We do this so that we all can experience the benefits of being joined to a local church. Head here to learn more about our practice of church membership.
We’re grateful to God that He continues to strengthen and grow our church.
We wish we could’ve heard from all of them, but we only had time for one testimony. Christian Davis shared the following impactful words during our service:
Hello church,
My name is Christian Davis. Some of you may have heard that my name is Matt, but if you met me after the year 2016, it's Christian. You know who you are. I'm a video editor who currently lives in Tustin and my first encounter with Sovereign Grace was actually against my will.
If you haven't guessed by my dashing good looks, Pastor Mike is my dad... though the beard thing hasn't really worked out for me so far.
My dad was called by God to move down here from the greater Los Angeles area to plant the very congregation that we are all sitting among right now. I grew up here. So, that begs the question, "why am I giving a new member speech in front of you all today?"
The only legitimate answer to that is my own sin.
Not because following the traditions of a good, church-going American constitutes a good communion with Christ, but because my life, since the moment I moved here from Los Angeles, was fueled by anger. I was frustrated at, what I perceived as, my father's hauty pursuit of pastoral ministry was more important to those around me than the cost that came to me as a result of it... the loss of friends, familiarity, security, and, most of all, the loss of home.
And from this rage came a string of poor choices. I let my bitterness consume me. I hurt a lot of people along the way. Some of them are still here... many of them are not. Rather than seeking out Christ, I blamed you, the church, pegging it as the source of my suffering. And I left. I had no intention of ever coming back.
But God is bigger than me. No matter how far I tried to get away from here, the influence of Christ, working through his people, continued to touch my life. I don't mean to play favorites, but there was one person in particular that was instrumental in God's plan. One of the young women of this church, someone who carried the scars of suffering herself, invited me into her life and was patient with me. Through her I became friends with many of you, again and for the first time, and God steered my heart away from death and brought me back here, back to life. And just as our journey on this earth shall end in a marriage, my journey on becoming a member also ended with a marriage. That instrumental young woman, as of April of this year, is my beautiful, wonderful wife, Kara. What a reflection of Christ you are.
Church: the reason I never wanted to join you was because I was convinced that you destroyed my home. The reason I am here now, the reason I am standing up, is to declare that Jesus Christ is my home, and you are all my brothers and sisters in him.
I encourage every one of you here: Never stop reaching out. Never stop being kind. And never ever stop declaring the gospel.
All glory be to our God.