05/16/2022
The Holy Spirit: Heart Breaker - Heart Healer
Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
What was it that pricked their hearts? It was Peter's sermon no doubt. Listen to the indictment: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. Acts 2:22-23
I submit to you that it was more than Peter's words that pricked those hearts that day.
John 16:8 “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” The Holy Spirit was at work. NLT “when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin!”
Wesley called it prevenient grace. A simple definition of prevenient grace is “God at work before we know it”
The moment we “Come into the world” God begins to give us glimpses of “His marvelous light”
John 2:9 That was the true Light, which lights every man who comes into the world.
1 Peter 2:9 That ye should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
It was the Holy Spirit and his prevenient grace tugging at the heart of the prodigal as his knees sunk deep into the mire of the pig pen and his heart sunk deeper despair. Holy Spirit was at work when “He came to himself.”
Luke 15:14-19
Who put the idea in his heart? “I will arise and go to my father” It was the work of the Holy Spirit... It was the Holy Spirit who sowed the seed of hope in his heart.
Hope that his father would forgive him,
Hope that his father would welcome him home
Hope that his father would still love him after all he had done
Hope that the relationship he had abandoned could some how be restored
Hope that he could be reconciled to his father
This perhaps provides a clue as to what Paul meant when he said, “Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”
Imagine that there was never night. Imagine there had never been night. Imagine that there had always and only been daylight. Would we know the stars? Would we have an inkling that they were there? It seems counter-intuitive that we can see further at night than we can in the daylight but that's exactly the facts... millions of light years further away!
It is against the backdrop of the blackness of our own sinfulness that we can best see the brightness of God's mercy.
Luke 7:36-50
The sinful woman clearly saw her sin and against the blackness of her sin she saw His mercy. Where sin abounds grace did much more abound! The proud Pharisee, blinded by his own self righteousness could not see either. The result was that she loved Christ much while the Pharisee loved little.
What was it, or rather who was it that opened the woman's eyes? It was the Holy Spirit!
“When he comes he will reprove the world of sin.” The darker he paints the scene the more clearly we see our sin. The more clearly we see our sin the more amazing his grace appears. The more amazing his grace appears the more cause we have to love and adore him!
