We’re going to be looking at a few different points on how to experience personal revival in ones heart.
We’ve heard a lot about revival and how we wish we could have it, but maybe God’s trying to tell us something – how about we are not ready for it yet.
Why? A few reasons – maybe some of us aren’t ready because our hearts aren’t ready, and maybe some of aren’t ready because we haven’t experienced it within ourselves.
We’re going to look at 4 things a person must do to experience revival within their heart.
Every Christian is at one of these 4 steps. Don’t miss out on what God has for you tonight.
There are some people who will come to church every single week and they will leave the same way that they came in but have themselves convinced that church is for their benefit because it offers them an “alternative lifestyle”
Some people are so calloused that they forget the message the second that the benediction prayer is prayed on the service!
1. Break up
There has got to be a break up of our own hearts. The book of Joel Chapter 2, Verse 13:
“Don’t tear your clothing in your grief; instead, tear your hearts. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He is not easily angered. He is filled with kindness and is eager not to punish you.”
What we have to understand is this: God wants us literally, as in the Hebrew translation of this verse to allow our hearts to be broken, torn, and completely ripped up.
You know as well as I do that something cannot be built up again, and be made better, and more powerful and awesome if it does not first get tore down.
Our hearts must be torn for the sin in our lives, the areas in our lives that we have failed to give to God – we have to allow our hearts to be broken by God.
God will not force brokenness upon us, we have to welcome it.
Too many people expect God to only rip a small piece of their heart, so they can just put it back together themselves.
When God was speaking in this verse He was saying how our hearts need to be completely torn – if they are, there is only one person who can put them back together.
He wants our hearts to be torn to the point where we have nowhere else to turn but Him.
It’s to the point now where we have all or none. We have to rend our hearts.
When Jesus was crucified, the temple veil was torn from top to bottom symbolizing that a “new era” had begun. God the Father had just made Jesus, His son, and His salvation available through His death on the cross.
The veil was torn, and rended, and literally the way of the world was changed when Jesus yelled – IT IS FINISHED. It opened up a whole new realm, and for us, if we rend our hearts, it will do the same.
Some of us are trying to remodel something that needs a total demolition and rebuilding. Take for example the destruction of a stadium. There’s a question that everyone needs to ask themselves when dealing with the rebuilding of a stadium: WHY IS IT BEING DONE?
Regardless, get this: Regardless of how much tradition is in a building, typically (use the Boston Garden for example) something must be completely destroyed and rebuilt so that the full advantages of the facility and technology can be fulfilled.
The problem with “adding” on is that everything else remains. Some people’s hearts need to be completely torn so that Christ can rebuild them.
Just in the same, regardless of our traditions, instead of adding on, some of us need to completely tear our hearts.
2. Build Up
Once our hearts are torn to the point where the only person that can put them back together is Christ, we must allow Him to move forward.
What God has built in the past, He wants to make better. Why?
Look at the story of Hezekiah purifying the temple in II Chronicles 29. Let’s go there in our Bibles and read.
Hezekiah simply made something better. He understood that first, there must be a rendering of hearts, so that the people could understand, so the temple could be “rebuilt” in the sense of standards that were made once to be up-held once again.
We need to make sure in our lives that we are being constantly built up. Let’s take a quick look at Jude 20.
20” But you, dear friends, must continue to build your lives on the foundation of your holy faith. And continue to pray as you are directed by the Holy Spirit.”
The important word here is foundation. We have a foundation and that’s the foundation of the past. While things in the past, good or bad, have happened, God wants to rebuild us. But first, again, we must be tore down, and then fully give God control to let Him rebuild us back up again.
The foundation is the very most important thing. Our foundation is a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – everything else is supplemental.
3. Bathed Up
Next after the rebuilding has taken place, we need to be empowered. Remember that once something is rebuilt, everything NEW must be placed inside of it.
-New Morals
-New Priorities
-New relationships
-New Attitudes
Basically everything is gone, and the past should be looked upon as a reference, not the idol.
Matthew 23:25-26:
"How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy – full of greed and self-indulgence! Blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup, and then the outside will become clean, too.”
Some of us just want our outsides cleaned by this. We want to be taken to the car wash, sprayed down with soap and water, and have our spot-free rinse and be left alone. But these folks are trying to be empowered with new things, without having their hearts rendered first. These are the “remodelers” so to speak. They seek to build on to what is already on there – traditions, and basically what ends up happening is they only seek to have the outside appearance to be clean, and forget the condition of the heart.
We need to be cleaned from the inside out – and it starts with the rendering of the hearts.
You can NOT be bathed with a new attitude, and new priorities unless FIRST you’re not willing to be completely broken and built.
4. Burnt Up
With this point many will think I’m saying completely burnt up and starting over again, but that’s not it.
Let’s take a look at I Peter 1:7
“These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold – and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”
Then move down to I Peter 4:12-19
12 “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. 13 Instead, be very glad – because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterward you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world. 14 Be happy if you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God will come upon you. 15 If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people’s affairs. 16 But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his wonderful name! 17 For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin first among God’s own children. And if even we Christians must be judged, what terrible fate awaits those who have never believed God’s Good News? 18 And "If the righteous are barely saved, what chance will the godless and sinners have?" 19 So if you are suffering according to God’s will, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for he will never fail you.”
God wants our faith to be refined and to be as pure as gold.
You see, when we’re tested, tormented, tried, God is simply refining our faith to make it more pure and genuine and faithful to him.
God wants to purify our hearts and minds. Notice the key word in this verse:
Romans 12:1-2
1” And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.”
Some of us tonight have been broken, built and bathed, but we need to be thrown into the fire and purified some more.
Some of us seems like we go through the same old trials and tribulations day in and day out and think they’re never going to end, but I think that the entire time, God has been trying to show us something. Am I saying God is punishing you? No way. What I am saying is if we’re not obedient to God’s commands, and what He’s trying to show and tell us, He will have to teach us any way that He can. I’d rather be taught while I have the chance
