Church of the Nazarene – East Rock
What We Believe
What we believe: Prevenient Grace
Over the next few weeks as a church we are going to explore what we believe, a few of the key doctrines and concepts of scripture, that shape our life individually as well as our life together as the Church.
Together we want to get a clearer picture of the nature of our faith as the Church of the Nazarene, not just to gain knowledge, but to value the freedom and joy found in living out the way of Jesus of Nazareth.
I welcome you to our new teaching series “What we believe”
Genesis 3:1-3
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
Just before this encounter, God had said they could eat from any tree in the garden, all the trees in the garden except one.
God had warned Adam that if they ate from this one prohibited tree, they would die.
Genesis 3:4-7
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
When they disobeyed God, the truth is, they did die, just like God said. but it was not in the sense they expected. What died was their spiritual life, their connection with God, their sensitivity to Him.
They became the original walking dead, and today we continue to live out that death. Dead to the things of God, insensitive to the things of the spirit, unable to resuscitate ourselves, unable to bring life back to our soul.
As we look at What We Believe, we will see that God has made the first move.
The beautiful truth of what we believe is that God has already made a way for us to have life, to know him, and he is calling you to life today.We believe in God’s prevenient Grace.
Prevenient grace takes on so many forms, coming through so many different avenues, but it all has one single purpose: To call you to Christ. To awaken you, to make it possible for you to go from death to life in Jesus.
Ephesians 2:1-3
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
The reality of being spiritually dead has with it some of the same implications that being physically dead might.
When we are spiritually dead, our senses are not quickened to the things of the spirit.
We do not discern right from wrong as we should
We are not responding as we should to the things of God, or to the world.
We were both deaf and dead to God, focused often on ourselves.
And we are essentially doomed
In our sin-dead state we are influenced by or own desires and spurred on by the ruler of the kingdom of the air, and that’s the swindler from the Garden- satan himself.
Paul doesn’t mince words, he says in our dead state of sin, we are deserving of God’s anger and judgment. It’s a clear fact of God’s Holiness, that sin will be judged.
And that’s where we all start, living in death.
It would be a tragic and hopeless story if this were the end- it would be tragic if it were not for Prevenient Grace.
Ephesians 2:4-5
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
The point of prevenient grace is to make us alive with Christ, to be awaked from our spiritual death to new life in Christ through repentance and faith in him.- Our senses are quickened to things of the spirit.- Our discernment of right and wrong is quickened- We have a sense of a need to change- to do different. Perhaps even an awareness of our need for Christ.
We believe that God extends this grace to everyone! He enables all who will to choose him.
You know, there’s another important thing about this Grace- We believe you must respond to it.The Article of Faith for Prevenient Grace says it this way:
We also believe that the human race’s creation in Godlikeness included the ability to choose between right and wrong, and that thus human beings were made morally responsible.
The Lord doesn’t want anyone to live spiritually dead. He is pouring out his prevenient grace on everyone, desiring that nobody miss out on life with him.But we have to choose.
God has made the first move thousands of times, will you respond this time?