This sermon marks a turning point in our journey together. After spending the first part of the year revisiting our Methodist roots—learning who we have been and who we hope to be—we turn now to the heartbeat of our faith: grace. Grace is the current that runs through all of Wesleyan theology, the free and unearned love of God that reconciles us, transforms us, and empowers us through the Holy Spirit. We are a people shaped by grace, and over the next three weeks we will explore the three ways we experience that grace: prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying.
Today, we begin with prevenient grace—the truth that God loves us before we are ready, before we understand, and before we know how to respond. Prevenient grace proclaims that God does not wait for perfection, certainty, or righteousness. God begins with our doubts, questions, confusion, and unfinished lives and starts the work of love right there. Drawing from Paul’s words about being “completely known” even while knowing only in part, and from Mark’s strikingly human portrait of Jesus, this sermon invites us to trust that love takes time, growth is a process, and slow starts do not discourage God. Prevenient grace reminds us that love always comes first—and that loving God and neighbor is not the finish line of faith, but the way we walk it.
