Are you ready for some Revival? 6/4/2005
Psalm 138
All of us came remember on Monday nights, Hank Williams coming out and singing are you ready for some football. It is a joyful song for many football fans around. Finally something good to watch on Monday nights.
And Friday night at the wedding rehearsal Don Kinder, who is preaching at our revival, and his wife Kelly, who was singing in the wedding, were there. And Chris came up to Don and asked him this question, “Are you ready for the revival?” It was Don’s answer that God used to inspire my sermon. Don’s reply was this, “It is not a matter if I am ready; the question is are you ready for it?
I though how true was that statement. Evangelist are different than pastors. Pastors usually plan and prepare different sermons for each service, or at least that is what I do. Evangelist often will preach the same sermons over and over because they stand behind different pulpits.
So sometimes they will preach a sermon at one place and not receive any response. But then they can take that same sermon and preach it somewhere else and many respond to the alter call.
What is the difference? The difference in not in the deliveror, you have the same person with the same sermon. But rather the difference is with the receiver. Some are ready to receive Gods words while others are not. Like the old saying goes. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
I want us to be revived; I want hearts and lives to be changed. Some think that a pastor has a revival so that he can have some time off, but the truth of the matter a revival is more work, not less. I am doing it for you and for me. I need to be feed too.
So tonight I wanted to look at this question of, “Are you ready for revival"? And look at what we need to be doing to be ready for it.
What is Revival?
In order to be ready for revival, we must first know what revival really is. When I think of revivals, it brings to my mind those lead by Jonathan Edwards in the 1700’s. Charles Finley in the 1800’s; and one of the most recent ones in the Brownsville revival in Pensacola, Florida.
But even in this church there is a history of great revivals. Back in the 90’s I remember when we had a group of teenagers, where two accepted Christ and many joined them and they huddled in a circle and cried and prayed and worshiped God. I think about the first revival that Don Kinder did here in 2002 where people were saved, people were baptized and many lives were changed for the Lord. It was a great healing in this church.
So what exactly is a revival?
Webster defines it as a meeting whose purpose is religious reawakening. It is a word that you will not find anywhere in the Bible. The closest word to it would be revive. The Greek words for revive means to flourish anew or to live again.
When you think about it in that sense, it makes me think of the word revive in a medical term. You hear about people who had stopped breathing and had to be revived. You even hear about people who were clinically dead and were revived back to life.
So let us look at this word revival in a medical sense for our spiritual sickness.
First of all let’s talk about those who have stopped breathing. That is one necessity to life. You have to breath. You can hold your breath for a while, some for several minutes, but eventually without air you will die.
So when I think about reviving someone spiritually, I think about that person who has been saved; they have received Jesus Christ as there own personal Savior, but they have lost that fellowship with Him. Backsliding is the Baptist term for it.
You see after you receive Christ your relationship should be one that matures. If you are not as close to the Lord as you use to be or you should be then you need revived.
James 2:17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
We are not to be dead in Christ; but alive in the newness of the new life He has given us.
So revival is a time for us to who are saved to get things right with God and be brought back to life again so that we can do His will.
The second part is for those who are dead and have to be bought back to life.
1 Corinthians 15:21-22, For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
When we are born into this world we are alive. But the sin that we inherited from Adam causes us to be dead. Not only do we receive the physical death but also the Spiritual death by separation from God.
One someone is born and then come to the age of accountability, that is they understand right from wrong and they reject Jesus Christ, they are dead. In other words they might be alive in their flesh but they are dead in the trespasses of their sins.
So a revival is meant as a means to lead people to accept Christ.
Prepare for Revival
So now that we know what revival is, how can we prepare for it? What should we be doing to be ready to receive it? One of the most popular verses for this is found in…
2 Chronicles 7:14, if My people, who are called by My name, shall 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.
Notice it says, “My people”. Christians are the ones who need to prepare for revival. Now God will use the Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts and minds of the lost, but He often uses Christians for that purpose.
Then it says, “Shall humble themselves”. This Hebrew word means to humble oneself before God in repentance. We are to give God the rule and the reign in our lives. We are to have the attitude of here I am God. You are the Greatest. I submit to your will, and like the song says, “Have thine own way Lord”. That is when God can use us.
Pray. It tells us to pray. We have had this revival on our Prayer list for months. We have asked you pray for the speaker, the different music groups, and for everything involved with the Revival. You see not only this, but every thing we do needs to be bathed in prayer. Pray for results. Pray for opportunities to invite people to come. Pray for the lost. Pray for those who have drifted away from God.
Then it says to, Seek His face”. Have you ever tried to have a conversation where you are talking to someone and they are looking at everything around them but not looking at you? It is hard to do. That is what God is asking us to do here. Seek His face. Give me all your attention.
How do we do that? It comes from priorities. Whenever we put Him first in our lives we are seeking His face. Now if we want to see God do great things in this revival we need to get our priorities in place. We have been planning this revival for months. So there should not be any excuses as far as attendance. You might get home and be tired from a hard days work and think well I went last night or I’ll stay home tonight and go tomorrow. I guaranty you that is the devil trying to knock you out of a blessing.
Tell the coach that your son or daughter will have to miss practice for those nights so that you can attend the revival. You never know what affect it could have on the coach to see where your priorities are. That may be the thing that can lead them to the Lord if they are lost.
Another point to is also when there is a crowd it draws others there to see what is going on. If you don’t believe me go to a mall and stand there and start pointing and look up. Soon there will be a bunch of people doing the same. So we should give God priority everyday, but let’s make a special effort to give God priority during the revival.
“Turn from there wicked ways” This means in order for God to bring revival to this church we need to do some cleaning up. Sin causes separation between God and us. In order for us to be used by God we need to confess any sins we have in our lives. Much like it is for the Lord’s Supper we need to examine ourselves.
Notice it says turn from your wicked ways. The problem so many of us have is that we sin and we asked God to forgive us then we go right back the next day doing the same thing. The turn that is referred to here is a 180-degree turn. We not only confess it but we turn away from it.
That is how we become “Revived” again. That is how we become the living body of Christ they He intends for us to be.
Other ways we can be ready for Revival
Invite others. You know why most people come to church? It is because someone invited them. An invitation can mean a lot to someone, so we simply need to invite others to come.
Fast. Now this is something that is personal and is to be done in private. It is not something to be done as a form of weight loss.
The Bible tells us not to be hypocrites and go around letting other people know how spiritual that you are but to rather do as it says in…
Matthew 6:18, so that you do not appearing to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
The last thing that I think we need to be ready for revival is anticipation. We need to expect God to do great thing. A lot of times nothing never happens because no one ever expects it to. Because if we do our part, the He will do His.
