O Lord It’s Hard to be Humble
2 Chronicles 7:14-7:14
We are picking up with last Sunday’s topic and talking about revival this morning.
As we said last week, Revival does not come by design. God can not be manipulated to send revival.
A revival is not about saving souls or converting people to be Christians.
A revival is to bring a comatose Christians and the church back to life.
It is like the electric shock applied to a stopped heart to get it going again.
Revival is not the church deciding to do something.
It is God deciding to do something to or with his church.
Also from last week, revival will not come unless it is desired. It is an invasion from heaven at the request of the saints on earth.
God longs to send revival to his church. He is waiting for his church to seek it and He tells us how in II Chronicles 7:14.
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
This verse is very clear on exactly what God is looking for before he grants revival. God says, "If…then." If you will humble yourself, seek my face, turn from your wicked ways, I will hear, I will forgive, I will heal. IF My people…Then I will hear … that is a conditional statement clearly identifying 3 steps on our part.
The real question is do we know what those three things mean. The very first thing that God says He is looking for, the first thing He must see before He sends revival is Humility. There are a couple things I have learned about humility.
HUMILITY is an intentional project most of the time
Do you remember the Mac Davis song?
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble
When you’re perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
Cause I get better lookin’ each day
To know me is to love me
I must be a heck of a man
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble
But I’m doin’ the best that I can!
I see pride as being the opposite of humility. I don’t believe that many of us feel exactly like that song describes. But, we all have a certain amount of pride; our kids, our jobs and our homes and unless we go to extremes this kind of pride will not affect the kind of humility that God is waiting for.
The humility that God seeks is that kind that recognizes the gifts that God has already given all of us.
Humility understands that grace and mercy are a part of the gift.
Humility keeps us from being puffed up with our own success.
God chooses to fill empty vessels to do his work. Vessels that have been prepared for Holy use, which means empting ourselves on self supporting pride. (I did it and If I weren’t here this place would fall apart.)
Unrealistic pride is way too common. We tend to be full of ourselves and only have a very little of God and the Spirit. We tend to want to be in control and want to be right. We live the Burger King Life wanting it our way. We rarely even consider what God Might want. We think everything we have we earned….
If we fall into just a few of those ideas we have a level of pride that will block or at least interfere with our relationship with God.
It is not too hard to “act humble” when someone says that you are doing a good
job, or that you raised your children well.
The difficult humility is when we remove “I “from the vocabulary. I think, I want , I need, I did, it is just human nature to form an opinion from the inside out.
While it is hard to be really humble, God is looking for a person and a people that are humble enough that he or she puts their own will aside.
He is looking for a person or people that have made themselves small enough that the world will notice that impossible things are happening. People that God can us as a tool. People that He can direct and control for his work.
However, all too often the hammers and screwdrivers think they built the house. They think, “Go away God, I can handle it now.”
Pride can get us into trouble. I guess a better word would be arrogance, conceded-ness, superior attitude.
For revival to be sent we are the ones that have a responsibility to humble ourselves and review our attitude and actions for improper pride and arrogance.
Humility starts with confession. Humility heads toward the level that God requires when we are truly convicted that we are sinners. When we recognize that for God there is no comparison between our sins and those people down the road.
I am not talking about the Baptist or Presbyterians.
I mean the really bad sinners, maybe non-Christians or Moslems or thief’s and prostitutes, or raciest, or drunks.
We are all sinners from the perspective of God and as long as we believe that we are above anyone or better than anyone or closer to God than anyone else on this planet, we have a problem with pride.
Jesus uses a parable to illustrate the pride of a religious person in Luke18. The Pharisee prays “At least I am not like that tax collector over there….” Pride is a false sense of personal accomplishment that destroys our humility.
--- A visiting evangelist felt pretty good about the message he had just preached on the first night of a revival. The people seemed very gracious and appreciative of the sermon they had just heard.
• But then one lady abruptly stated, "Too long!" as she filed past the minister.
• She then cycled back through the line and shouted, "Too loud!"
The two negative comments unnerved him a bit, but he tried to maintain his composure.
• When she came through a third time her comment was no more flattering. She declared, "And it was also boring!"
At this point the one of the church leaders intervened and assured the evangelist that this woman’s remarks should not be taken seriously. He whispered,
"Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s a little senile and doesn’t really know what she’s saying.
She just goes around repeating what she hears other people say."
God will often help us see the places in our lives that keep us from being humble. The places that we would prefer to ignore.
I have spent a lot of our time this morning talking about humility and that is because, if we get better on that part the other areas will fall into place more easily.
The action mentioned in the scripture says that God’s people will pray.
Not the prayer of a Pharisee but the prayer of a person that knows that God is in control, a sinner.
Revival will not come without proper prayer, or perhaps without the proper attempt at prayer. Which will mean an attitude, if less “I” and more Him. Less asking and more listening. Less standing on our own two feet and more kneeling at his.
Prayer is a time when we admit to God that things aren’t right.
Prayer is a time when we talk openly with God that moves us to a point where we will admit that we need God’s help. We ask for change and as a result he revives us beginning in our hearts and works outward.
Next action that God expects is that we seek His face.
I sometimes hope that God was looking the other way when I am making decisions. Like when I see some guy standing at the top of the exit ramp holding the sign that says , “Will work for food.”
The problem is double. The first part is what I think as I see such a person, Yea, right!. Or I don’t think so, Or, they should get a job….The first problem is my spot judgment of a person…and that is not the only example I could list.
The second part , I hope God is not looking as I just drive by.
How often do we really seek the face, the attention of God?
How often are we just hoping that He fails to notice our imperfections mostly because we know if He comes close He will see us for who we really are.
If God’s people want to feel his presence and blessing and love they have to want to be closer to God.
Seeing someone’s face is sometimes really important, you know the cell phone commercial where one person makes a statement and the line goes quiet and they get uncomfortable because they don’t know the other person’s reaction.
When people are face to face we also can tell what the reaction to a comment is right. A smile or a tear or frown quickly give us a quick response.
Seeing the face of God also means knowing the will of God. Knowing where he is looking and smiling or frowning. (those are human characteristics I know) Seeking the face means wanting to be in the presence of God.
In order to experience the most basic revival of God you must have a desire to show up where He, God, is moving.
The last point of our scripture verse calls for His people to turn from their wickedness. He calls for real repentance.
Repentance of the big stuff and perhaps especially the little stuff. Little stuff are the things you got away with. The things that don’t hurt anyone but you. The things only You …and God know about.
In this “if – then” scripture, the three actions actually occur pretty much simultaneously. Otherwise as God’s people, we, will miss the mark.
I often wonder what God does not send revival. When I look at thee short list of actions on our part, our preparation seems so small.
It is pretty easy to say we want revival. But the question is “do we really want revival?”
I am afraid that we answer no. Not just because of the steps required but because of all that might come with it.
Then I consider the bigger picture and I realize that except of small pockets here and there, there seems to be no big movement of God in the United States. No places that we can go to and witness God moving.
So it is not just us that are not experiencing revival.
And I come back to the first point in our scripture today, I wonder, are we or are any Christians humble enough to experience a real revival.
Real revival will start out with horribly uncomfortable situations, Conviction of un-confessed sins. Conviction of relationship problems with friends and family that we must fix. Conviction about our giving to God. Conviction of our failure to act as his hands and feet of Christ to our community.
Conviction is like fingernails on the chalkboard or water dripping in the faucet.
If we seek a revival and God responds there is not a single person here that will be untouched by the need to do something about our lives.
I believe the deep down we know that we really don’t want the brokenness that would start a real revival.
We don’t see past the wall of problems, our sins, our secrets, to know the joy that is just beyond.
-The full release of the Holy Spirit, the giving of gifts.
-The comfort of the completed knowledge and peace of full forgiveness.
-The witnessing of God moving in lives far beyond our own.
Do we want revival? Then we must humble ourselves, pray, seek God and really repent of our sins. We have to want to be changed.
Evangelist Gypsy Smith was once asked how to start a revival.
He answered: “Go home, lock yourself in your room, kneel down in the middle of your floor. Draw a chalk mark all around yourself and ask God to start the revival inside that chalk mark. When He has answered your prayer, the revival will be on.”
Revival must begin with me… it must begin with you!
If you want a personal revival seek Jesus and ask him to renew you love for Him.
If you want revival in our church pray for the Holy Spirit to move all of us.
If you want to see our community to be moved and our world changed, pray that God will send revival regardless of the changes and consequence that will occur when he moves.
You don’t get revival by seeking revival you get revival by seeking God
All Glory be To God!
