Sermon Central
-
Are You Positioned For Revival?
Contributed by John Gaston on Mar 1, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: The lame man, like many Christians today, didn't get his miracle in the agitated waters, because he didn't position himself close enough to the revival zone. If you want revival, you must get and stay as close as possible to the Holy Spirit.
ARE YOU POSITIONED FOR REVIVAL?
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. A professor gathered the papers after an exam and found a $100 bill attached to one of them with a note saying: "Dear Professor Smith, here’s a $100 bill which you may keep if you give me 100 points - a dollar per point."
2. When the professor returned the graded tests, the student got his test back with a grade of 36 and with $64 change!
B. TEXT
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed [—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.]* 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” 8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” 11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” John 5:1-11
C. TITLE: The title of this message is “Are You Positioned for Revival?”
I. THE STIRRING PICTURES THE SPIRIT’S MOVING
A. A DIVINE APPOINTMENT
1. The word for “time” (vs. 4), is “kairos,” a special moment of divine favor and intervention. When the angel came down, it was a supernatural moment. We can’t make the winds of the Spirit blow; they happen when God decides.
2. But our mission is to not miss the wind of the Spirit – to set our sails to catch as much of the divine gusts as we can handle. We can’t control when they will blow, so we need to be ready. We don’t know when God will blow; we may have only one shot!
3. I believe that today may be a divine appointment for some of you. Usually an angel would come down to cause the stirring, but in John 5 Jesus Himself passed by. I believe He is passing through here today. Are you ready to receive blessings from Him?
B. MANY TIMES THE WATERS HAVE BEEN STIRRED
1. “At Creation the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” Gen. 1:2. In the Flood of Noah, God loosed the waters from above and below, Gen. 7:7.
2. For Hagar, God made the waters flow in a dry desert, Gen. 21:19. When Moses struck the Rock in the wilderness, it poured out 100 million gallons for 120 days, Exodus 17:6.
3. For Samson, God poured water from a donkey’s jawbone, Judg. 15:19 (see Matthew Henry). With heavenly rain God caused Barak to defeat Sisera, Judg. 5:4.
4. On Mount Carmel God sent the first rain on a repentant nation after 3½ years, 1 Kgs. 18:42-45. Naaman the leper was healed by submerging under the water seven times (2 K.5:12). We need that submerging too!
5. The Israelites walked between walls of water (at the Exodus) and the Lord Jesus walked on top of water. Paul told us to be “Be filled with the Spirit” Eph. 5:18.
6. The Lord Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit." (John 7:37-39)
C. LEARNING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
1. The early Christians learned to COOPERATE with the H.S.
2. David learned to WAIT on Him.
3. Samuel learned to be SENSITIVE to Him.
4. Samson learned to YIELD to Him.
5. Peter & John learned to let Him MOVE through them.
6. Paul learned to EXPECT the miraculous, to ALLOW the supernatural.
7. Are Christians today hungry, waiting, sensitive, yielding and expecting?
D. HUMOR
1. A man had an operation and the doctor accidentally left a sponge inside him.
