Grace That Opens Hearts

Here's the truth. Every single one of us needs to hear this morning. Your obedience your obedience may be part of someone else's miracle. I think we under we we cut ourselves short all the time. We don't think we have the right words. We don't think we understand anything. We're shy. We're an introvert. We make all the excuses, and we fail to see that our obedience might be the key to somebody else's miracle. [00:55:28] (41 seconds)  #ObedienceForMiracles

Provenient grace. The grace that goes before. It creates a readiness in us. It prepares our heart for that moment to say, I believe in Jesus Christ. Lydia Lydia thought she came to the river to pray, but god brought her there to be found. No one moves toward god untouched by grace. You need to hear that again. No one moves towards god untouched by grace. [00:52:58] (39 seconds)  #PrevenientGrace

He seeks you long before you ever seek him. He is constantly calling out to you. Come to me, my child. You are my creation. I did that. If you follow me, I will lead you all the days of your life and I will not abandon you. So, if you're here and you're not sure what you believe this morning, the fact that you're thinking about God at all is evidence that grace has already been reaching for you. [00:53:37] (34 seconds)  #GraceIsReachingYou

And then scripture says something really beautiful. Then the Lord opened her heart to respond. That's provenient grace. It's right there. The Lord opened her heart to respond. You see, Paul brought the message. That's why he was sent to Macedonia. He was supposed to bring this message to this woman, and you're gonna see why in a minute. And what did God do? God opened her heart. [00:51:26] (36 seconds)  #LordOpenedHerHeart

But here's the truth that I will need you to see right out of the gate. Sometimes grace is not seen in open doors. Sometimes grace comes in the form of a door that is shut. I'm gonna be honest, and sometimes that door slams pretty hard. But grace can look different depending on where God needs to take us. [00:43:07] (31 seconds)  #GraceInClosedDoors

So recognizing grace in reverse means looking backward across our lives and finally recognizing what God was doing all along. Sometimes, God is working most powerfully before you know he is working at all, and that is what we call him prevenient grace. Prevenient grace means the grace that goes before, meaning before repentance, before belief, before surrender, even before understanding. [00:38:09] (35 seconds)  #RecognizeGraceInReverse

And it says in verse 40 that Paul and Silas go back to her house before they continue on to the next city, and there there's brothers and sisters. In other words, there's a church. Oh my goodness. You ready? Lydia is the charter member of the church in Philippi. God uses a gentile woman, a businesswoman, of prominence to open the very first church in Europe. [01:01:10] (34 seconds)  #FirstChurchInEurope

Some of you in this room, you have jobs, you have careers, you have routines, you have responsibilities, and you still feel something missing. That emptiness may not be failure, it may be God's grace. So I wanna ask you some tough questions this morning. Actually, I'm gonna ask them, but I want you to ask yourself these questions. What closed door in your life might actually have been grace? [01:07:57] (34 seconds)  #ClosedDoorAsGrace