Revive Us - Part 1
Revive Us Again
Psalm 85:6-7
The greatest need of the Church today is not more members, more money, or more buildings. It is not more programs or busier calendars. It is not even more missions or evangelism. The greatest need in the Church of Jesus Christ today are genuine heartfelt repentance and Holy Ghost revival. What is revival? Revival is not the harvesting of the lost, although that normally happens during seasons of revival in staggering numbers. Nor is revival tent meetings with a visiting speakers and saw dust aisles.
The dictionary defines ‘revive’ as to "bring back to life or consciousness" or "become or make operational, valid or effective again." It defines ‘revival’ as "a restoration to vigor or health" and as "special services or efforts made to awaken or increase religious faith."
Henry Blackaby defines revival as "a return to spiritual health after a period of spiritual decline into sin and broken fellowship with God."
Duncan Campbell says that Revival is when a people become saturated with God.
I like Vance Havner’s offering - revival it is "a work of God’s Spirit among His own people . . . what we call revival is simply New Testament Christianity, the saints getting back to normal."
If revival is meant to be the ‘normal’ condition of the Christian, which I believe it is, it is essential that we look ourselves squarely in the eyes and ask ourselves a rather critical question - do we need revival? Have we let things slide? Do we need to get back to what Havner calls normal Christianity?
Isn’t it true that most churches no longer impact on their communities the way God intended them to? Isn’t it true that many churches have forsaken their first love and turned from the Lord and His Word? Isn’t it true that self-indulgence has become a way of life for too many of us believers? Some of us treat personal interest, pleasure, business, material possessions, and even our families, as idols to be worshiped. We have tended to become self-sufficient and independent of God. Look around and see how far we have fallen. I would suggest to you, precious believer, that anybody who has a keen eye for the glaring and blatantly obvious cannot but come to the profound conclusion, "Yes - we need revival - and we need it desperately, and we need it completely, and we need it imminently."
The problem is that our decline into this desperate need for revival has been insidious. We have drifted slowly and unknowingly to the place that we are no longer even aware that our spiritual power and influence have for the most part been depleted.
Stop and think about it. In America alcohol, drugs and pornography are destroying the minds of our youth. This country’s illicit drug industry is estimated at more than 75 billion dollars a year. The suicide rate among 15-24 year olds has risen more than 300% in the last 20 years. In "Christian America" we now have the highest divorce rate in the history of civilization. Child abuse is epidemic.
We have rejected the sanctity of human life. We are murdering more than 800 000 innocent, unborn babies each year. In one state alone last year, there were more babies killed by legal abortions than all of the servicemen who lost their lives in the Viet Nam, Korean, Mexican, 1812, and Revolutionary Wars combined. Each week we kill more than 5 times the number of innocent lives that were taken in the terrorist attacks in 9/11.
This disturbs me. While 83% of American adults contend that they are concerned about the moral condition of the nation and 84% of all adults consider themselves to be Christian, 61% condone gambling, 60% condone cohabitation and 59% condone sexual fantasies. 45% of our Christian nation feels that having an abortion is OK and 42% condone having a sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse.
When a nation becomes as morally depraved, as spiritually blinded, and as steeped in humanism, hedonism, materialism, as we have is, there is only one power in the universe that can meet and overcome such evil, and that is the power of the living God. What we need is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a visitation of the manifest presence of God. And that, my friends, is revival.
It is not the sin of America that is jeopardizing the future of America - it is the sin of the Church. It is not because of the corruption in the halls of Congress or the reprobation in New Orleans, San Francisco or Hollywood. It is because of those of us who call ourselves Christians that America is being judged. Any Christian who dares be honest with themselves must recognize that much of the church has become compromising, halfhearted and backslidden. We call black white, dark light and wrong right. We condone what God condemns, adore what God abhors and expect what God rejects.
While there are always good and godly exceptions to this, many of us in the Church, I suggest to you this morning, are in dire and desperate need of revival.
I read a fascinating quote this week by Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate (a giant computer company) that was recently featured in the magazine "Red Herring." He said, "Let’s face it, we’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more (trash) and watch more porn."
I wonder how many of us in the Church have the courage to be as honest as that. Our job IS to change the world. Our job IS to turn the world upside down. Are we even making a dent? Or are we spinning our wheels trying to evangelize the saved and grow our churches by catering to the converted?
So, here’s a question for us as we start 2007: What are we doing to change the world (or at least our corner of it)?
The theme God has given us for 2007 is "Revive Us" We believe with all our hearts that what we need in all of our lives is revival.
Our text this morning is Psalm 85:6-7 - turn there with me in your Bibles if you will. The nation of Israel is facing the judgement of God that has comes as a direct consequence for their sins. They deserve judgement, but ask for mercy. They are experiencing dryness, but ask for revival.
Psalm 85:6-7 - Read Pray.
I have three simple but profoundly life-giving truths concerning revival that I want to share with you this morning. I want to speak about . . .
Principles of Revival
Preparing for Revival
Pursuing Revival
1. Principles of Revival
Revival is a work of God, and it is a work of God that He longs to do amongst His children. Revival is the loving expression of a loving Father to a willing people.
The lost can be saved, but they cannot be revived. As someone once said, before you can be ‘revived,’ you must be ‘vived.’
Psalm 85:6 says, "Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?" Now I want you to do this - take a pen and circle the word ‘You’ or ‘Your’ - they occur six times. Here is what I want us to see. We cannot make a revival happen. In other words, when revival comes, it comes from God and it comes to God’s people and it comes because God sends it. It is not a work of man, and nor is it a result of methodology. Revival is, and always has been, a unique work of God. Specifically revival is a work of the Holy Spirit.
2. Preparing for Revival
Although revival is a unique and a sovereign work of God, there is much that we can do to prepare ourselves and position ourselves for revival. You may be at sea in a yacht with ideal sailing conditions, but you have to set your sails if you want to catch the winds. So what do we need to do to ‘set our sails’ to catch the Spirit’s blowing in the winds of revival? Good question!
a. Get Thirsty
There is no doubt that one of the main reasons we see very little revival activity in our churches today is because we are not thirsty for revival. And the reason we are not thirsty for revival is that we are too easily satisfied with lessor things, inferior things, less costly things.
In Zechariah 1:3 (NIV), God says, "Return to Me . . . and I will return to you."
"Rend your heart and not your garments." Joel 2:13
If we want revival, we had better learn to become dissatisfied with where we are, and get thirsty. When our need of God is so great that it becomes a daily burden, God will start finding a people discovering they are thirsty for revival.
b. Get Obedient
You see my friend, we do not need a new series of sermons on revival, we need a new level of serious about obedience - obedience to the truth that God has already shown us through His Word.
If we want to set your sails to catch this Holy Spirit’s winds of revival, we need to abandon our insane commitment to mediocrity and sell ourselves out to Jesus. We need to make a significant commitment to obedience that is a matter of principle.
Now listen to this if you will - revival has less to do with what God does for us and more to do with what God does to us and with us.
Are you ready to surrender your life to God? I believe that one of the keys to revival is not more effort but less resistance.
c. Get Praying
When can a revival be expected? Revival may be expected God’s people lay hold of a spirit of prayer for a revival. That is, when they pray as if their hearts were really set upon it.
Greg Laurie says it well when he reminds us, "You don’t organize a revival, you agonize for it in prayer."
Have you ever agonized in prayer for revival? If not, I would suggest that we do not really believe we need it or really want it.
English preacher Sidlow Baxter, when he was 85 years of age said, "I have pastored only three churches in my more than 60 years of ministry. We had revival in every one. And not one of them came as a result of my preaching. They came as a result of the membership entering into a covenant to pray until revival came. And it did come, every time."
d. Get Busy
Recruit yourself for OUTREACH and for INREACH.
Outreach is when we reach out by faith and touch the unsaved world with the supernatural power and Love of Christ.
Inreach is when we reach out in faith and touch the Body of Christ with the supernatural power and love of God. If you want to prepare and position yourself for revival - get busy - get busy with outreach and get busy with inreach.
The great missionary to Africa, who took the message of the Gospel to Malawi, David Livingston, prayed three things every day. He prayed:
"Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me."
"Lay any burden on me, only sustain me."
"Sever any tie, but the tie that binds me to Thyself."
Do you want to prepare for revival? Get Thirsty! Get Obedient! Get Praying! Get Busy! God says "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you." Jer. 29:13-14
3. Pursuing Revival
I want to wrap up by talking briefly about what we can do to practically to pursue revival.
I believe the two most critical things we can do as we prepare for revival, as we position ourselves for revival are to pray and to be involved in effective outreach.
To that end we have established two task forces at His People Community church that will work closely with the leadership to facilitate our growth and development as we position ourselves for revival.
Prayer Task Force
Prayer Matters
Weekly Prayer Tools
Weekly Prayer Meetings
Evangelism Task Force
Go Fish
Gospel Seeds
Kindness Evangelism
Needs Evangelism
Dr. Andrew Murray remarked that "A Revived Church is the only hope for a dying world."
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