Point of Grace Worship 3.17.24 Sermon Notes – “Open Hearts, Open Heavens” Pastor Mike Coppersmith
Luke 3:4-6
A voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked road shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation.”
OPEN HEARTS, OPEN HEAVENS
Preparing the Way for what God Has in Store by Inviting Him to
Break Open Our Hearts and to Break Open His Heavens
OUR GOD IS A GOD OF OPEN HEAVENS!
Ephesians 1:3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
FOR US TO EXPERIENCE THE FULL BLESSINGS OF OPEN HEAVENS, WE MUST HAVE OPEN HEARTS!
1 Samuel 16:7
The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Matthew 22:37-40
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Romans 10:9
If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Jeremiah 29:12-13
Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.
Ephesians 3:17
…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
Acts 16:13-14
On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home.”
OPEN HEARTS OFTEN COME FROM BROKEN HEARTS!
Psalm 51:16-17
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Joel 2:12-13
“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.”
Key Point
Brokenness may involve grieving, mourning, sorrowing, weeping, lamenting, acknowledging to God that all is not right at the present time, but—when God is a work in Christ—from Broken Hearts come Open Hearts and from Open Hearts We Experience the Full Blessings of Open Heavens!
Isaiah 61:1-3
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. 2 He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come…3 to all who mourn in Israel, He will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair.
SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE
SEEK GOD’S FACE, NOT JUST HIS HAND
Psalm 27:4,7-8
One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple…7 Hear my voice when I call, O Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of You, “Seek His face!” Your face, Lord, will I seek.
SURRENDER IN PRAYERFUL DEPENDENCE UPON HIM