Prevenient Grace (old version)

Prevenient Grace

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

“Why here, Lord? You know this isn’t where I want to be. Of all the churches you could have sent me to, you choose to send me to an elderly, powerless, passionless, religious church that is stuck living in the glory days of what they used to be. Father, You know I came out of a powerless and religious church. You know that my desire is to be with people that have a hunger for You and Your Word. To be with people completely sold out for Jesus. And yet you send me here? Why, Lord? Anywhere but here.

“Curtis,” Holy Spirit spoke to me very clearly. “This isn’t about you. It’s about David and how much I love him.”

My name is Curtis Ward and this talk is Prevenient Grace.

Prevenient Grace is the grace that goes before us. There’s only one grace, although we will examine many aspects of that grace over these 3 days. All of God’s grace is prevenient grace as well. It goes before us and is there waiting for us when we need it.

Revelation 13:8 says that Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. So before we were ever created, God knew how badly we would mess up and fall from His glory and grace. Yet He created us anyway. Why? Because He knew His love was so great for us that He was willing to pay the ultimate price before we even took one breath.

The cross wasn’t a backup plan that found God surprised at our sins and failures that sent Him back to the drawing board. The cross was the only plan. God created us knowing the cost would be beyond imagining. His grace went before you. While He was forming your body inside of your mother’s womb, He saw His son, Jesus taking every failure you would ever make upon Himself and being sacrificed for you on the cross.

God’s grace goes before us. His grace meets us when we wake up in the morning. His grace rushes out the door with us on our way to work. His grace opens the door for us in every situation we face. It carries us when we are hurting so deeply we cannot take another breath or step. No matter what you are facing right now or what awaits you in the days to come…His grace is already there.

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

He didn’t say clean yourself up and then I’ll send Jesus. He didn’t say I will help those who help themselves. He said, even in the midst of their miry pit of sin I will show them how much I love them by sending my son Jesus. He will do what they cannot do. He will pay the debt they cannot pay. He will take the punishment that they deserve. Jesus is prevenient grace.

Prevenient grace not only goes before us, but it chases after us. It pursues us and woos us. I met my bride at college and man did I fall for her. I wanted to get her attention. Sometimes we as men will do crazy things to get the attention of a woman. I know I did. One time, before we were married, but after we had been dating awhile, Heather invited me to go spend the weekend with her parents in Tipton, Oklahoma. I had already met her parents and been to visit them, but this particular weekend I had to work and couldn’t make the trip. She left on Friday and after she left I found out that I did not have to work after all. So I hatched a grand plan. I decided to drive up to Tipton and surprise her! What I failed to take into consideration was my car was rather undependable and on my way to woo the attention of this woman that I was completely enthralled with, I found myself stranded on the side of the road 10 miles outside of Paducah, Texas.

I began the long walk into town when a sweet elderly woman pulled her car up next to me and nervously said, “I don’t ever do this, but you just look innocent and look like you need some help.” I was and am very appreciative of for that prevenient grace! This all happened in the days before cell phones, by the way. The woman drove me to Allsups and I spent the entire rest of the day trying to get a hold of Heather and her parents on a pay phone. Time after time there was no answer. When I wasn’t calling I was sitting outside of Allsups with a dog I named Dan who kept me company. Another form of prevenient grace. What I didn’t know was that Heather and her parents had gone out of town and didn’t get back until evening. I finally got a hold of them and they came to pick me up and it all worked out. All of that happened however, because I was trying to impress the most amazing woman I have ever known.

Now wooing Heather and chasing her affections was not always easy or reciprocated. One weekend after visiting her parents in Tipton, we began the 4 hour trip back to Lubbock. 10 minutes into that trip, she broke up with me! That was one awkward trip! We were apart for several months and she had made it very clear she wanted nothing to do with me (although she will tell you now she was just scared about being a preacher’s wife). Then one day after work I went home and I had 17 messages on my answering machine! All of them were from her. It was amazing to have our relationship be restored and to know that my love was returned.

God is the same way. He is doing everything to get our attention. He paints sunrises and sunsets. He puts people in our path to tell us about His love and grace. He helps us in ways we are oblivious to. The ultimate display of His love was indeed the cross where Jesus gave His life for us. Why does He do all of this? Because He wants those messages on His answering machine! He wants a relationship with each of us and He has and is going to great lengths for us to see that!

Heather and I will celebrate 28 years of marriage in December. She is one of the biggest examples of prevenient grace in my life. God knew the helper I would need. He knew the forgiveness I would need. He gave me someone that I could see His love in every day.

For most of my life I thought I knew God. I grew up in church and was there every time the doors were opened. What I found out, however was that I was like Job who said in Job 42:5 “I had heard about You, but now my eyes have seen You.” I had an intellectual understanding of God, but no real relationship. I ran from the calling on my life. I spent two years doing what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a novelist so instead of following the leading of Holy Spirit into ministry I wrote a novel. For two years I wrote and Heather edited and proofread it. I had almost 70,000 words written and was nearing the completion of my first book. One morning I was particularly inspired to write and I sat down at the computer. I loaded up my novel only to find a blank page. I wasn’t worried though because I had a backup disk with everything saved. I loaded that up…nothing. Two years of my life was summed up by a blank computer screen. I knew I had been like Jonah running from God. This was my big fish moment. That day I surrendered to God and said if you want me in ministry you are going to have to make it happen. Two weeks later while on yet another trip to Tipton, the minister at our church resigned and we returned home surprised at the news and even more surprised that I had been asked to fill in. I ministered there for 3 years.

Fast forward to the church I began with in this talk. God sent me to an elderly dying church in Sweetwater and I had a bad attitude about it. I dreaded church on Sundays. Yes, I was the pastor. I allowed the enemy and my discontent to distract me from the main reason that God had positioned me there.

When David was 5 years old he and his brother watched their father murder their mother. Such a horrific tragedy led to a life that was equally as tragic. Boys Homes, alcohol, drugs, mental institutions, and much more followed. David was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and genuinely believed that the entire world was conspiring against him. During one of his stays at an institution he blinded himself.

I met David at the church I told you about. The one God sent me to, but I didn’t want to be at. David was taking over 30 pills a day and was a walking zombie. He would come to church in his house shoes and not even realize it.

Because I was so focused on myself and what I wanted, I almost missed what God wanted. God’s prevenient grace was at work in this situation and once I got over myself and got out of my pity party, I allowed Holy Spirit to use me in David’s life. At first it was just David listening to my sermons and occasionally asking a question. Then Holy Spirit told me to take him out to lunch every week and disciple him. Discipleship often looks like lunch at Whataburger, by the way. 😉 Little by little the walls began to come down and God’s love began to shine through. I can’t even begin to describe the transformation God did in his life. He went from that walking zombie taking 30 pills a day to being passionate for Jesus and experiencing the power of Holy Spirit in such a way that he was only taking 2 pills. David became part of our church family and it was amazing to be a part of.

God’s idea of success looks different than our idea of success. I saw myself preaching to a dying, elderly church of about 15 people and it felt like a failure. The world would think a successful pastor would be preaching to hundreds if not thousands, but God loves the David’s of the world enough to be willing to send a preacher who doesn’t even want to be there to him because He sees the big picture.

David has endured more emotional pain than most. It’s been a hard road. He thought God was trying to punish him at first. Pain affects us in so many ways and often it keeps us from stepping into a relationship with God or from the true intimacy that we need in that relationship. Maybe today you are like my friend David. We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all tried to run from it and have done many things to keep us from having to face it. I want you to know that God wants to heal you of your pain and He sent Jesus according to Luke 4:18, to bind up the brokenhearted. He wants you to be healed of your pain and to find comfort in Jesus in order for you to help others find the same.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says that God comforts us in our difficulties in order that we might comfort others who are having the same struggles with the same comfort we ourselves have received.

Part of God’s prevenient grace is the fact that God wants to give purpose to your pain. Joseph was a man who had a great deal of pain in his life. He was rejected by his brothers and sold into slavery. He was falsely accused and thrown into prison. While he was in prison he was forgotten. You would think that Joseph would have been bitter, resentful and full of self-pity. Yet years later when face to face with he brothers who betrayed him we see something amazing in Genesis 50:20. Joseph offered forgiveness. He said, “You meant this for harm and evil, but God meant this for good so that many people could be saved.

Because of the direction of Joseph’s life he had been promoted by God to the second highest position in Egypt and was able to save not just his family from the famine, but the entire nation of Egypt. God gave his pain purpose, but he could not have used the old prideful Joseph in the way that was needed. He needed a humble man who walked in the fear of the Lord and forgiveness.

God wants to use your pain as well. We have a very real enemy who brings a lot of pain into our lives. John 10:10 says that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. However Jesus continues to say that He (Jesus) comes to give abundant life. Today are you walking in the destruction of the enemy or the abundance of the King?

God knows your pain. He knows your struggle. He sees your loneliness and He is aware of every single one of your failures. He knows what others have done to you and how they have disappointed you. He was with you when they walked away and left you alone. He sees the pain deep inside of you that you won’t even admit is there. Even with all of that hurt…His grace has gone before you.

Romans 8:28 “and we know that ALL things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

I wish I could end the story of David in the place I just told you about. David is in his 40s and was living in a nursing home. He hated that. Even though it gave him structure and provided safety, he saw it as a prison. Against the counsel of wise friends he made a choice to leave the nursing home and move to Abilene. He was convinced it was God leading him at the time, but his friends knew it was not. After his move David’s life began to spiral out of control. I won’t go into all the details, but suffice it to say that David has been worse than when I met him all those years ago.

I wrestled with telling David’s story today because of where he is currently, but there were two reasons I decided to go ahead with this. The first reason is that it doesn’t change anything. God’s love for David is still one of the main reasons He sent me to David’s church. He sent me there knowing the decisions that David would make down the road.

The second reason is a warning that while God’s grace is waiting for us and chasing after us, we can get ahead of it and resist it.

I don’t know where you are today or what led up to this moment in your life. What I do know is that God is trying so hard for you to see Him and His love for you. You may have resisted up until now. You may be angry at God for what the enemy has done in your life. All I know is that if you don’t have a relationship with Jesus or if you’ve wandered away His promise as the Good Shepherd is to leave the 99 and chase after you.

You may feel alone like Paul did in 2 Timothy 4. He had been forsaken, rejected, physically hurt, he was cold and alone.

2 Timothy 4:16 says, “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them.”

At first glance he was alone and in a mess, but then comes verse 17 “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached full through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!”

Just when we are the end of our rope we find that God is standing next to us. His grace has gone before us. His grace will deliver you out of the mouth of the lion today and His prevenient grace will run ahead of you and will be waiting to deliver you out of everything the enemy throws your way. You will be delivered so that just like Paul you will step into the ministry and calling God has on your life. You have purpose in your pain.

God hasn’t given up on my friend David. He’s still chasing after him even as I’m speaking to you. He hasn’t given up on you either. Let Him catch you.

Decolores