Please turn to page 52 in your Worship Book and join me in the Prayer to the Holy Spirit.
Good morning, my name is Benny Anthony, and I took Gulf Coast Emmaus Walk #67, where I sat at the table of Peter. I worship and serve at NFMUMC. The title of this talk is Prevenient Grace.
If you have your Bibles turn with me to Psalm 139 and let’s read verses 13-15.
I. First of all: What is Prevenient Grace? Prevenient Grace is a gift from God that comes before and prepares the way for greater gifts. The “pre” in “pre-venient” means before. The pre-lude comes before the service. A pre-fix comes before a word. The second part of this word is “–vien.” It comes from a Latin root that means “to come.” “Vini, Vidi, Vici”-“I came, I saw, I conquered.” A word closely related to “Prevenient” is the word “intervene.” That means to come in the midst of. To intervene in a situation you come while it is going on. Suicide intervention means to come while a person is about to kill themselves to stop it. To previen means to come before it happens; to intervene before hand. One form of this word is “prevent” which means to come before to keep something from happening. You get a vaccination before you are sick to prevent it from happening. But God’s grace comes before not to keep something from happening, but to cause it to happen.
Let me explain. Did you know that when you decided to give your life to Christ you didn’t do it alone? You made the decision, but something happened before that to pave the way for that decision. God was already at work in your life getting you ready for that day. Maybe it was something that happened in your life or the words of a friend or the prayers of relatives, but God was at work softening your heart, wooing you and loving so that your heart would be ready when the time was right. A great example of this wooing is found in Revelation 22:17 where it says: “”The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ Everyone who hears this must also say, ‘Come!’ Come whoever is thirsty; accept the water of life as a gift, whoever wants it.”
I remember being wooed by God when He called me into full time ministry. I was sitting in church and our pastor Max Willocks preached a sermon on Missions. Following the sermon Brother Max gave the invitation. I recall this tugging and pulling at my heart. I felt this presence leading and guiding me to the altar—urging me to give my life to Him in full time service. I was a Christian but I certainly had NO plans to become a minister. I knew in my heart that God certainly couldn’t use me…but God had other plans for me.
It was God’s Spirit that convinced me that I needed Him, and that He could use me and make me into what He wanted me to be. On my own I would have never recognize that need.
Our wills and perceptions have been so distorted by sin. Without help we are unaware of our lostness. It’s God’s Holy Spirit that shows us our need. We would be unable to choose to do something as good and noble as deciding to follow Jesus on our own. The capacity to even do that is a gift from God.
II. The biblical message is clear: Human beings are created in God’s likeness for a relationship with the divine.
In the beginning God created the world, the cosmos, and all things in it—“and God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:1-25).
God created mankind, male and female, in His own image and likeness—and declared that they were good (Genesis 1:26-31; 2:4-22). The divine-human relationship was deep and meaningful.
Like Adam and Eve each and every one of us is a unique and beloved child of God. Because God is love (1 John 4:16), each of us has the capacity to love and be loved.
Because God is Spirit (John 4:24) and we are created in the image and likeness of God, each of us is a spiritual being—you could say that we are “wired for God” from the very beginning. Just like the psalmist said in Psalm 139 that we read earlier.
Because we are created in the image and likeness of God, the deepest and most essential part of us longs for a relationship with God. As Augustine said in his Confessions, “Our hearts will not find rest until they find rest in Thee [God].”
The bad news of human sin is preceded by the good news of our origin in God.
Adam and Eve made wrong choices that cost them their place in the Garden and brought disorder to all creation (Gen. 3; 6:1-11), yet God provided for them.
Each of us has made wrong choices, whether we will admit it or not, those separate us from God and diminish our spiritual lives, yet God provides for us.
God’s love and grace are greater than all our wrong choices. One of my favorite hymns is found in the United Methodist Hymnal. It was written by Julia H. Johnston and is entitled, “Grace Greater than Our Sin.” The chorus says: “Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within; grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.”
III. God continues to offer us a relationship. God desires a relationship with us even more than we want a relationship with God. According to Jeremiah 31:3, God says, “I have always you, and so I continue to show you my constant love.” The nature of this relationship is that of covenant love.
A covenant is the strongest form of a relationship identified in the Bible. We find many of them in the Scriptures: the covenant of Noah in Genesis 9:8-17; of Abraham in Genesis 15:18-21; of Moses and the Israelites in Exodus 19:3-6; and of David in 2 Samuel 7:5-16.
The prophets repeatedly called the Hebrew people back to a genuine relationship of love and obedience to God. They proclaimed God’s promise to make a new covenant with the people.
Jesus offers us a new covenant and a new relationship with God. It’s a relationship of love and grace (John 13:34-35; Ephesians 2:4-10. It’s a relationship of divine love (John 1:14; 3:16); one of seeking love (Luke 19:2-10); everlasting love (John 13:34-35); and it’s a gift of love (John 3:16).
God takes the initiative to seek us; it’s not up to us to seek God. God sought man in the Garden asking, “Where are you?” We experience this divine initiative as grace. Prevenient Grace helps us overcome our brokenness and alienation (Luke 15:20-32).
IV. How do we experience God’s Prevenient Grace? Max Lucado in his book No Wonder They Call Him Savior tells this story.
Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent living at home only on a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better way of life in the city.
One morning she ran away, breaking her mother’s heart. Her mother knew what life would be like for her young, attractive daughter, so Maria quickly packed to go find her daughter.
On her way to the bus stop, she went to a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all the money she had on pictures of herself
With her purse full of small black and white photos, she got on the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.
Maria knew Christina had no way of earning any money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes.
She went to all of them. And at each one she left her picture—taped to a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, or fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note.
It wasn’t long before Maria’s money and pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The tired mother cried as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.
A few weeks later, Christina was coming down the stairs in a seedy hotel. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laugher was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare.
A thousand times she had longed to trade all those countless beds for her secure pallet. And yet the little village seemed so far away.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo.
Written on the back was this message: “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”
And Christina went home.
Jesus Christ is the same way…He wants us to come home…It doesn’t matter what we’ve become…We can always go home to Him.
One of my college professors defined “Prevenient Grace” as “grace that goes before.”
In other words…Prevenient Grace is God reaching out to us…even before we know it.
It’s like Maria, reaching out to her daughter…even when her daughter didn’t even realize it. It’s like God reaching out to us…while we are living a life of sin…and we are lost…and yet, Christ is there…reaching…longing…desiring to bring us home.
The Holy Spirit can speak to our minds and hearts through the struggles, frustrations, difficulties, and pain of unemployment, divorce, or the loss of a loved one. The Spirit can also speak to us through music, art, sermons, and beauty.
We also experience God’s Prevenient Grace through the care and sacrifice of others who embody God’s love toward us, for example our parents, spouse, relatives, and friends.
We experience God’s Prevenient Grace through the body of believers, the church. We experience God’s Prevenient Grace through the Holy Spirit awakening our conscience and convincing us that we can never reform our selves or earn a place in God’s family. We experience God’s Prevenient Grace through the Holy Spirit wooing us, calling us, but never forcing us.
And we experience God’s Prevenient Grace through us to others. God can work through our words, attitudes, and actions to help others open their hearts and lives to the Prevenient Grace of God.
The critical question for each of us this weekend is, will we open our hearts to God and accept the relationship God offer us in Jesus Christ?
Think about it. If you were the only one who needed saving, Christ would have still died for you. Centuries before you were born Christ came to suffer so that you could have eternal life. Centuries before you were born Christ came to demonstrate God’s love for you.
That is Prevenient Grace. While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died you us. Before we even existed, God provided for a means of our salvation.
Jesus loves you and so do I. De Colores!
