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Location:
6425 Jefferson Rd. For
directions, click here.
Jerry
Varnado,
pastor April
21, 2002 O
LORD, you have searched
me and you know
me.
You
know when I sit and when
I rise.... Before a word
is on my tongue you know
it completely, O
LORD.... For
you created my inmost
being; you knit me
together in my mother's
womb.... All
the days ordained for me
were written in your
book before one of them
came to
be. Thus
far we've talked about opening
our lives to God's love. First,
we looked at how God
loved us before we ever loved
Him.
Last week, we saw that God
desires that we become
conduits through which His love
can flow to
others. 4-Trusting
Grace
and
Grace
Alone Just
what is grace? David Delgatty
presented some wonderful messages
to us last October on this. If
you were here, this is just a
refresher for you, but it's very
important. The
Greek word we translate "grace"
is charis, which is a noun
meaning "favor" or "pleasure." A
verb form is chairo,
meaning "to be full of cheer;
calmly happy; well off." And
another related verb is
charizomai, which means
"to grant as a favor." These
words are used in the New
Testament to explain to us what
God has done for us in Jesus
Christ. The
bottom line is that God is full
of cheer, calmly happy, and well
off -- and He wants us to be the
same way. To accomplish that in
our lives, He graciously grants
to us as a favor, without charge,
His grace. God
wants to show us how to have joy
-- how to have life to its
fullest measure -- even in the
midst of difficulties and
hardships. But we have to respond
with open hearts. Let
me talk a little bit about what
the Bible means when it uses the
word "heart." As people who grew
up in Western culture, we think
of the heart as the seat of human
emotions. We make
decisions in our minds, but we
feel with the
heart. But
in Semitic thought, which is
reflected in the Bible, the heart
is considered the seat of human
will. The heart is where
decisions were made, not the
head. Some
of that concept has leaked over
to us. For example, what do we
mean when we say, "His heart just
isn't in it"? That means that the
person is doing something out of
obligation or coercion. He
doesn't really want to do it --
it's not his will to do
it. The
first step to opening our hearts
to God's grace is to understand
"prevenient" grace. That's a word
we don't use very much, but
"prevenient" means "coming before
or proceeding." Prevenient
grace is usually defined as "that
grace that we experience from the
time we being formed womb until
the time we become followers of
Christ." Even though we don't
have a conscious memory of it, we
experienced God's grace from the
moment we were conceived. Before
we drew our first breath God knew
us and had a plan for lives
already in mind. Before
we become Christians, prevenient
grace works continually in our
lives wooing us, urging us,
calling us into a relationship
with God.
And
even after we become believers,
prevenient grace is working to
call and woo us into God's plan
and purpose for our lives, to
prepare us for the work that God
has for us to do in the kingdom
of God, and to prepare the work
itself. When
missionaries go into a region
where the gospel has never been
preached, they don't "take God"
with them. God is already there
waiting for them. When
you feel compelled to share your
faith with another person, you're
not "taking God" to them. God is
already there. He has been
preparing that person to receive
your witness -- this is what's
known as a "divine appointment."
Everywhere we go God is already
there and is already at work. He
wants us to join Him. All
of this means that it is God who
takes the initiative in the
advancement of His
Kingdom. Remember
Abram? Did he go out looking for
God? No. God showed up and called
him, and said, "I'm going to make
you a great nation." What
about Moses? Did Moses say when
he was out tending sheep, "I'm
feeling bad about leaving my
people back in Egypt and I'm
going to go back there and set
them free"? Is that the way it
was? No. God spoke to Him from
the burning bush and said,
"Moses, I'm going to send you to
Egypt to tell Pharaoh to let my
people go." God took the
initiative. Think
about the Apostle Paul. He was
Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of
the church, and God knocked him
from his horse and commissioned
him to proclaim the
gospel. Look
with me a few verses that offer
additional evidence of God taking
the initiative. Isaiah
65:1: John
3:16: Indeed,
Jesus Christ is the supreme
example of God taking the
initiative. Here was the world,
lost and floundering, and God
undertook to do something about
it, by sending His own
Son. Now,
why is it important for us to
know that God takes the
initiative? God
is working in the world and wants
us to join Him. That's one of the
truths Henry
Blackaby
talks about in Experiencing
God. We're not waiting for
God; God is waiting for us to
recognize where He is working so
that we might join Him, to
participate with Him in what He's
doing. It's
important to know that God takes
the initiative because God
desires to lead us, he wants to
guide us into the fullness of
life that He desires for us to
have. He wants to give us
direction. He wants to speak to
us. If
we're not aware of His
initiative, we won't be looking
for Him and listening for Him. We
won't be straining our ears to
hear Him speak. If we are not
expecting His guidance, we won't
recognize it. If we're not
looking for His prevenient grace,
it will just pass us
by. Remember,
we're talking about opening our
hearts to God's grace. What is
the heart? The seat of the will.
Being on the lookout for the
activity of God is how we say to
the Lord by our actions, "Not my
will but thine be done." It is
how we let God know that, 1), we
believe He is active in the world
around us, and, 2), we want to
join Him in what He's
doing. When
my wife, Beverly, worked at Belk
it was part of her job to outfit
Miss Georgia with clothes donated
by the store. Now, on a normal
day at Belk, no one spent any
time or energy looking for Miss
Georgia. They didn't expect her
to be there. But when the word
got out about the day she was
going to come, you can bet every
eye was straining to catch a
glimpse of her. They were alert,
watching for her
appearance. If
we are not aware that God
constantly takes the initiative,
we won't be looking or listening.
If we aren't aware of His
initiative, we won't hear him; we
won't see him working -- and we
will miss the plans God has made
for us. I
stand before you guilty -- more
so than anybody in here -- on
this very point. I can't tell you
the number of times I've had to
regret a situation because I had
one of those divine appointments
and I missed it. We
must be aware. If we don't stay
alert and watch for God, we're
going to miss His grace. We're
going to miss opportunities to
bear fruit in the Kingdom. And
we're going to miss some of the
richest blessings of the abundant
life He has made provision for in
Jesus Christ.
Gateway
Church gathers
for worship
Sundays
at 10:30 a.m.
(Hwy. 129) in Athens,
Georgia.
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of the
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A
GATEWAY SERMON
God
takes the initiative
(Third
in the series, Opening Ourselves to
God)
Gateway
Church,
Athens GA
But in addition to opening our
lives to God's
love, we need to open our
hearts to His
grace. And that's what I'm
going to talk about today and for
the next two Sundays.
In
this
series
'Prevenient'
grace
Biblical
examples of God's
initiative"I
revealed myself to those who
did not ask for me; I was
found by those who did not
seek me."
John
15:16:
"You
did not choose me, but I chose
You and appointed you to go
and bear fruit -- fruit that
will last."
For
God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have
eternal life.
Looking
for God's activity
Seeing
God -- or missing
Him
An
audio tape of this sermon is
available
free of charge (U.S. requests
only).
Request
a tape by calling
or writing the Gateway Church
office.
Please specify tape number
020421a: God Takes the
Initiative.
©
2002 Gerald R.
Varnado