Prevenient Grace
Jeremiah 1:4-5
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
“I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve,”
[--Robert Frost, “The Death of the Hired Man,”
lines 118-121]
This conversation between husband Warren and wife Mary in Robert Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man” has haunted me since I first read it as a junior at Marion High School. It reminds me of something else I don’t deserve—a personal relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Good Morning. My name is David Reynolds, and this talk is entitled “Prevenient Grace!” My calling today is to share the Good News that God loves us and offers us a personal relationship with Him.
As a Christian my top priority is that relationship in my life. The greatest news is the fact that this priority does not originate with me, but in the heart of God Himself. Grace is “God’s unhesitating, unmerited love and favor towards humankind, which He reveals to us in the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.” I deserve God’s wrath and judgment, but He offers me His love and mercy.
There is only one grace—God’s grace, His love; but he has chosen to progressively reveal that grace to us at different stages in our lives. When I my wife Liz, our pastor shared these words: “Such a sacred relationship as this is assumed for a life-time and must, therefore, be entered upon reverently, discreetly, and in the fear of God.” Our relationship for over thirty years can be divided into three stages: 1.) Our courtship; 2.) Our wedding; and 3.) the maturing of our marriage into a lifetime relationship. God’s grace is also revealed to us through a courtship, a wedding, and the maturing of the marriage into a lifetime relationship. Today I come to share with you the message of God’s courtship with us.
God offers us a personal relationship with Him. God’s plan for humanity since creation has been that each of us enjoys personal fellowship and companionship with Him. Before they sinned, Adam and Eve enjoyed intimate fellowship with God. They knew the joy of “walking in the Garden with Him in the cool of the day” [--Genesis 2:8}. Six generations later another man knew the joy of such an intimate relationship with God and went to heaven without experiencing death: “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took Him away” [--Genesis 5:24].
God loves us and desires that each of us know the joy of such an intimate, personal relationship with Him. St. Augustine reminds us this was the very reason we were created. He gives his Testimony:
“Thou hast made us for Thyself,
And our hearts are restless ‘till they find their rest in Thee.”
[--Confessions, I, i.]
Throughout history God has been seeking to restore this lost relationship with humankind. We find Him continually reaching out to us offering us a covenant relationship similar to a marriage. A covenant is God’s promise to us in which He says, “I will!” God entered into covenant relationships with: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. In Jeremiah 31:31-34 he promises Israel a New Covenant:
“‘This is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel
After that time,’ declares the Lord.
‘I will put My Law in their minds
And write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
And they will be My people.’”
This will be a personal relationship between God and His people, one in which their sins will be forgiven, a relationship from the heart.
Jesus identified His death as the beginning of this New Covenant in Matthew 26:26-29:
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread,
gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples,
saying, ‘Take and eat; this is My body.’ Then He took
the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying,
‘Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the
covenant, which is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of
this fruit of the vine from now on until that day
when I drink it anew with you in My Father’s
Kingdom.”
This relationship God offers us is one of grace and love, and everlasting and
A seeking love. God says again in Jeremiah 31:3,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
Religions are people seeking a relationship with God; Christianity is God seeking a relationship with us. God began by seeking Adam in the Garden when He called out, “Adam, where are you?” Ezekiel 34:11, 16 witnesses more about God’s seeking love:
“For this is what the sovereign Lord says;
‘I Myself will search for My sheep
and look after them. . . .
I will search for the lost
And bring back the strays. . . .
I will shepherd the flock with justice.’”
It is God, not us, Who takes the first step in restoring our broken relationship, and He pursues us throughout our lives. Isaiah 49:1 says He calls us even before we are born, and the Psalmist declares in Psalm 23:6 that His grace follows us through all the days of our lives.
Grace is God’s unhesitating, unmerited love and favor for sinful humankind. He offers us His grace in the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.
We do not deserve and can not earn God’s grace; we receive it as a free gift. Paul says in Romans 3:24 that we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
God’s grace is “all sufficient grace for even me.” Jesus promises us in II Corinthians 12:0, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Prevenient Grace is “The grace which comes before or ahead of” our conversion. It comes from two Latin words which mean: 1.) “To come” and 2.) “Before” or “ahead of.” Prevenient Grace is “the work of the Holy Sprit in each of us from the moment of our conception to the time of our personal conversion.” It is the Holy Spirit’s courtship with us. He “woes us; He prevents us from moving so far toward disobedience, that when we finally understand the claims of the Gospel upon our lives, we have the freedom to say “yes” to Jesus Christ.
Therefore, Prevenient Grace may be called “Preventing” Grace. The Holy Spirit “prevents” us from becoming so vile, so reprobate, and so hard hearted that it becomes impossible for us to repent and turn to Christ. The Holy Spirit always makes the first move towards our conversion. As God sought Adam in the Garden, Jesus in Luke 19:10 came seeking for us: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.
God created humanity in His own image, therefore, the relationship which He offers us distinguishes us from the animal world. Being created in His image means we share a similar nature with God. He has given us an intellect, a will, and an authority similar to His own. We are the only creature able to have a personal relationship and fellowship with our Creator. We are the only one He has given the privilege to pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your Name [--Matthew 6:9]. In all of Creation we are the only species capable of calling God Father and of having a parent-child relation with Him.
How do we experience God’s Prevenient Grace? Jeremiah shares His calling with us in Jeremiah 1:4-5, “The Word of the Lord came to me saying,
‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’” We see from Jeremiah’s testimony that God’s Prevenient Grace does begin wooing us from the moment of our conception.
I can personally relate well to Jeremiah’s testimony. My Mom was 41 and my Dad 43 when I was born. They had lost their only other child, my brother, at birth 15 years and two days before I was born. Like Jeremiah I can see the hand of God’s Prevenient Grace at work in my life before I was even born.
I enjoyed serving the former Southern Illinois Annual Conference and the new Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference as the Chairperson of the Conference Sessions Committee for seven years. It is the ministry of the Sessions Committee to assist our Bishop in planning Annual Conference each year. Prevenient Grace began to work in my life when I first attended Annual Conference in September of 1947. My Mom was the Lay Member from Marion Aldersgate Church, however, I was not born until February of 1948. My Mom always told me that every time she would take me to the doctor he would ask, “When are you going to make that boy a preacher?” My material grandfather, who died before I was two, said to my parents the first time he saw me, “Raise him right!” Mom always said I was able to pray “The Lord’s Prayer” by age two.
I remember one special Sunday Morning Worship Service at Marion Aldersgate when I was about five. The opening hymn was “Holy, Holy, Holy.” The singing and organ accompaniment thrilled me through and through. I knew that some day I wanted to play the organ in Church which sometimes I still do. I spent my seventh birthday in bed with the “old fashioned, red measles.” I can still see our pastor The Rev. Ross Smith and his wife Emma visiting our home and praying with me by my bedside.
I was blessed with committed, Sunday School and Bible School teachers from the start. By age nine I knew I was a sinner and needed Jesus as my Saviour if ever I wanted to go to heaven. My best friend, who was from Marion First Baptist Church, told our third grade class one day that he had just become a Christian at their recent Revival. I wanted to do the same but was timid, scared, and shy. We were having a revival at the time. One night I “snuck up to the altar” with my Dad, who went to pray with a friend he supervised at work. I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins, come into my heart, and be my Saviour! In retrospect I can see the Holy Spirit’s Prevenient Grace at work in my life, gently leading me towards salvation from the womb until age nine. All the time He was using people and circumstances to woe me to receiving Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour and Lord.
That’s my testimony of God’s Prevenient Grace. You have one too. Examine your own life to the point of your conversion. In retrospect, can you too, see His Prevenient Grace wooing and pursuing you through Creation, relationships, and events that happened?
God’s Prevenient Grace is poured out on us by parents, relatives, friends, and even through events. The Holy Spirit seeks to guide us to Christ through His Body of Believers, The Church. He uses the Church to share His love in many ways not the least of which is through the faithful preaching of His Word and the administration of the Holy Sacraments. God’s love pursues us through the loving acts of others. The Holy Spirit is indeed “The Hound of Heaven” we see in Francis Thompson’s poem by that title. This Victorian, Catholic poet paints an exquisite picture of Prevenient Grace. Heaven’s Hound continues to pursue us until we say our personal “yes” to Jesus Christ. This is Prevenient Grace. As we are obedient to Him and open to His grace, God wants to use us as instruments of Prevenient Grace in the lives of others. Prevenient Grace is the work of the Holy Spirit, not forcing us, but courting us so that we might repent of our sins and receive God’s free gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ. From our conception to our conversion the Spirit of God stirs our hearts and nudges us closer to the time when we can sincerely enter into a Father-child relationship with God by accepting Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord.
On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was heard in the sound “as of a rushing, mighty wind” [--Acts 2:2]. The Hebrew and Greek words for Spirit also mean wind; this is no accident. Meteorologists tell us that wind blows from high pressure to low pressure—the point of least resistance. The Holy Spirit, grace, moves from high pressure to low pressure—the point of least resistance. May our hearts be that point of least resistance. His grace will
Always flow to our point of need if we do not resist.
