Grace Bible Church of Hollister

  • Distinctives

Latest Sermon :
- Posted on 15 Nov 2023, Pastor: Michael Burchfield

“Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
1 Peter 2:11-12

  • Salvation

    Grace Bible Church holds to the importance of the doctrine of salvation. It holds, with conviction, the five solas that marked the recovery of the gospel in the Reformation. In particular, it teaches the doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, based on His imputed righteousness alone. It teaches that justification is a complete and final judicial declaration made by God at the point of saving faith. It is the doctrine that determines the nature of sanctification, the motive of acceptable Christian service, as well as the nature and manner of true worship. Therefore, with those throughout church history, we consider “justification by faith alone” to be the foundation article by which the church stands or falls.

  • The Scriptures

    Another vital article of faith is the sufficiency of Scripture (sola scriptura). The Lord Jesus Christ, through the all-sufficient Scripture working through the Spirit, is able to save and sanctify His people entirely, without any supplementation from man’s wisdom. This great truth of Scripture’s complete sufficiency safeguards the sufficiency and supremacy of Christ as the all-sufficient deliverer and soul-healer of His people. It is at this point that man-made doctrines that diminish Christ and His glory have entered in and ravaged the church.

  • Christ-Centeredness

    Christ-centeredness is the driving pursuit and passion of Grace Bible Church to see the Lord Jesus Christ glorious and sovereign in and over every area of the church. For not only is Jesus Christ the central figure of the scriptures (Luke 24:25-27), the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is God's revealed redemptive plan for His creation, and that plan is in and through and for His Son, Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:16).

    Christ-centeredness is a pattern of Christian life whereby we shrink from all religious expression and practice that is comfortable on it's own, apart from Christ. No moral piety, no spiritual discipline, no self-denial, no act of service that does not find its root in the great mercy of God demonstrated through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, can be embraced by the believer fully satisfied in the love of Jesus. The result is a heart focused on the glory, praise and proclamation of the gospel of Christ. Whereas efforts apart from Christ and His Spirit, put us in jeopardy of the error of the church of Ephesus, that though we might "toil and persevere", we would hear the voice of Christ say, "I have this against you, that you have left your first love." (Revelation 2:1-4)

    The Christ-centered life is a life of joy because it is centered on the joy-giver, it is a life reflecting the holiness of God because it is focused on The Holy One, and it is a life of contentment because it is content with the all sufficient work of Christ.

  • The Holy Spirit and His Gifts

    Grace Bible Church teaches the necessity of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in preaching and the ministry of the Word. It rejects any doctrine of subsequence or second blessing theology. However, it teaches that the Spirit’s power and presence must be sought and consciously depended upon, not only for daily living, but also in ministry and preaching. Moreover, we teach the necessity of the Spirit’s presence in praise and worship. This presence is never apart from the written Word, but is in and beyond it in its effects. It also teaches that the Spirit’s ministry focuses entirely in all its aspects on glorifying Christ through the written Word of God and the testimony of the lives of God’s people.

    Grace Bible Church teaches a cessation position regarding the miraculous sign gifts. However, for a lack of a better term, it is an Edwardian cessationist position. That is, it teaches the reality of the supernatural presence and power of the Spirit evident in the manifest presence of God through the Word of God, as taught by Edwards, Spurgeon, and others. In other words, the supernatural power and presence of the Spirit of God was not confined to the miraculous gifts associated with the temporary, unique ministry of the apostles. Moreover, we believe that prayer for healing, in keeping with James 5:13-16, should be pursued. However, it is not to be the focus of a church meeting, but done in homes by elders. Occasional miracles and healings still occur, but with a different function and design than the apostolic sign gifts.

  • Complementary Roles of Men and Women

    Grace Bible Church holds to the historic evangelical position of the roles of men and women in the church and the home. We hold that men and women are equals both spiritually and intellectually, but bring Christ glory in the unique roles God has outlined in His Word. Thus, we believe God has ordained leadership of the man as a picture of Christ and the women a picture of His church. We believe that to teach otherwise is to be unduly influenced by the culture and worse, in the end, to adversely affect the church and the home.

  • Creation in Six Literal 24-Hour Days

    Grace Bible Church believes the biblical account of the creation of the physical universe, angels, and man in Genesis 1; that this account is neither allegory nor myth, but a literal, historical account of the direct, immediate creative acts of God without any evolutionary process; that man was created by a direct work of God and not from previously existing forms of life; and that all men are descended from the historical Adam and Eve, first parents of the entire human race.

  • Believer’s Baptism and Communion

    Grace Bible Church recognizes the biblical distinction between the gospel and the ordinances. The ordinances are symbols that represent and picture the benefits and blessings of the gospel. They are not the gospel. Therefore, they are not to be given the primacy and centrality that the gospel alone is to receive. Having said that, we teach and hold with conviction that believer’s baptism and believer’s communion alone represents the biblical teaching and adequately pictures the reality of the blessings of the New Covenant.

  • Premillennialism

    We recognize that eschatological details are not the measure of orthodoxy. However, we hold with conviction to the personal, bodily, imminent, premillennial, coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power and great glory. This “Blessed Hope” is to have an ethical effect on God’s people.

  • Worship

    Grace Bible Church believes that worship is to be a God-centered, Christ-glorifying, scripture-rooted, and heart-inflamed expression of praise of the person and presence of God.

    God has not left it to man as to how He is to be worshiped. Acceptable worship is prescribed and regulated by the truth and parameters of Scripture. This, however, does not bear on the particulars of worship style as it does on the content and basic elements of acceptable worship. The concern of genuine worship is the essence, not the form. Worship is to be guided and regulated by the Word of God and expressed by the affections of the heart.