Are you a Revolutionary?
Are you transforming your entire life to emulate that of Jesus Christ’s?
Are you transforming your entire perspective to emulate that of Jesus Christ’s?
Your spiritual practices?
Your attitude?
Your character?
Your faith?
Your relationships?
Your behavior?
God wants to do a sudden, radical, and complete change in each of us. He wants us to be like Christ.
Is that possible? Without God nothing is possible, but with God all things are possible.
In this series we have been looking at the different definitions of Revolution.
The movement of a body in an orbit or circle.
The overthrow of a government or social system, with another taking its place.
A complete or radical change of any kind.
Revolutionaries have been with us throughout history.
Noah built an ark and put animals on it.
Abraham pulled up his roots and followed God.
Joseph said no to sexual temptation.
Moses led the people out of slavery.
Isaiah preached naked in Isaiah 20:1-6.
John the Baptist preached of repentance and ate locust and honey.
Jesus was the transforming agent sent to the earth by God.
The Disciples of Christ turned the world upside down and inside out after Jesus ascended to heaven.
The Apostle Paul ruffled the feathers of the Pharisees because he was completely and radically changed by a personal encounter with Christ.
History records the great Revolutionaries of the church, people like George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Martin Luther.
Then you have the Revolutionaries of the 1900’s. People like Charles Parham and William Seymore who were instrumental in the Pentecostal movement in the early 1900’s.
Kathryn Kuhlman, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson were the Revolutionaries in the 1930’s through the 1980’s.
And then you have the modern day Revolutionaries. People like John Arnott, Steve Hill, Tommy Barnett, John Maxwell, and George Barna.
And we cannot forget the Revolutionaries in our own church movement, President Jeff Farmer, Superintendent Ken Groen. Pastors like Brett Black who is opening churches for Gen X and Gen Y.
Others are Joel & Linda Budd in Tulsa Oklahoma, Jim Brewer in the Des Moines area, Les Funderburg in Rock Falls, Illinois who has a professional go-cart track on the church grounds, Michael Craft who changed the name of his church to Desperation Church.
Ted Gillum who has opened a coffee shop outreach center.
I identified Pastor Groen as a Revolutionary the other day as we were talking on the phone and he was so excited to be identified as such. Pastor Groen has identified all of these other people in our own church movement as agents of change.
And then Pastor Ken identified me as a Revolutionary stating I was someone who is teaching on change and opening up new ideas to a congregation that is hungry for the things of God. A person who is growing his hair out to prove the fact that transformation is important and needed. He reminded me that I will do whatever it takes to get the Good News to the people.
All of these are people who persist in thinking outside the box and have endured the scoffs and abuse of the spiritual faction within the church.
As a matter of historical record, whenever the church of Christ has begun to experience significant growth and radical transformation it has been accompanied with the persecution of God’s people. The Revolutionaries of God have been slandered, ridiculed, abused and even murdered.
Revolutionaries often meet with resistance, sometimes even to the point of violence.
Today millions of Christians are desiring to live their lives in such a way that they are centered on knowing, loving, and serving God and they are even willing to step away from the institution of the church because the church is failing to bring them closer to God or they are seeking out churches like ours that will bring them new life in Christ and they are being criticized about it.
Even those pastors that I named a few moments ago are criticized by people because they are seeking innovative ways of reaching the lost and bring all closer to God.
Revolutionaries are passionate about getting closer to God and they are passionate about bringing others closer to God.
Today as we conclude I want to look at the seven passions of a Revolutionary as they are outlined in the book of Acts.
PRAY
Father we ask for Your anointing on us today. Place Your anointing on me as Your messenger today. Make each of us revolutionist.
Open our eyes so that we may see Your Word. Open our ears so that we may hear Your Word. Open our minds so that we may understand Your Word. Open our hearts so that we may receive Your Word today.
AMEN
The seven passions of a Revolutionary are defined for us in the book of Acts. These Scriptures are important to us because they describe the very nature of the life of the early church as it began to form immediately after Jesus returned to heaven.
It is a description of the kind of Church God intended for the church to be.
Acts 2:42-47
Acts 4:24, 31-35
Acts 5:17-18, 27-29, 40-42
This is an awesome description of what the church is supposed to look like. It was compelling. It was life changing. It was relevant to life.
It was not just a place. It wasn’t a building. It was like-minded people coming together to do what ever it took to get closer to God and to help others do the same. It was people obliterating the obstacles that kept them from God. It was being an outstanding example of the Christian faith.
Barna identifies 7 core passions in these Scriptures that I want to share with you and look at in greater detail.
Seven Passions of Revolutionaries:
The first passion is Intimate Worship.
I love what Jesus told the Pharisees in Luke 19:40, as He was making His entry into Jerusalem before His crucifixion. The people were worshipping Jesus as He entered and the Pharisees did not like it. Jesus told the Pharisees that if the people keep quiet the stones will cry out.
The people of the first church were expected to worship God every day.
They worshipped God during their own private times and they worshipped God when they were with other believers.
There are a number of reasons why we worship God. The main reason is because He is God! He is the creator of all things. He is the one who cleanses our sins. He is the one who gives eternal life. He is the one who heals. He is the one who provided.
When we worship God we are acknowledging His love, and authority and control and power.
When we worship Him we are declaring our dedication and allegiance to Him.
The Word of God teaches us that as God’s children we were created to praise and worship Him. In Isaiah 43:21 it says, “This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise.”
The writer of Hebrews encourages us to “offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.” Hebrews 13:15
Revolutionaries are going to be people who are not afraid to lift up the name of God when they are by themselves or when they are with a crowd. They are people who are going to worship God.
The second passion is Faith-Based Conversations.
What are faith-based conversations? A faith-based conversation is any conversation that talks about the things of God and the things God is doing in our lives and in our world. It is a conversation about something that excites us.
People love to talk about things that excite them. It could be their favorite sports team or their favorite hobby or the love of their life.
Nothing should excite the children of God more than the fact that God loves us so much He sent His one and only Son to the earth to die for our sins and for our salvation and for our healing and for our provision. And the reason He did this is so we could have an intimate relationship with Him.
When you are talking to friends, co-workers, fellow students, family or whom ever you need to be sharing with others the things God has done and is doing for you.
What an impact this could be in our communities, families, work places, and schools if the people of God were directing their conversations as faith-based.
The third passion is Intentional Spiritual Growth.
The church was devoted to the teaching of the apostles. They wanted to learn more about God. They wanted to learn more about Christ. They wanted to learn more about this Christian faith so that they could follow God with all of their hearts, souls, minds, and strengths.
The fourth passion is Servanthood.
Nothing shows true transformation that servanthood. President Farmer once told me that the highest call in all the universal domain of God is to serve in lowliness, humility, and meekness. Not to be served, but to serve. Not to be ministered unto, but to minister. To give, to sacrifice to serve.
As we serve we are able to understand what true greatness is. Luke 14:11 says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Nothing shows love more than a person serving another person. A person sacrificing for another. A person meeting the needs of another before they meet their own needs.
Jesus is our greatest example of servanthood. He gave us two great illustrations of servanthood in the Gospels. He went to the cross for us, which was the greatest example, but before that He washed His disciples feet.
During that act of servanthood Jesus instructed His disciples, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” Luke 13:15
Revolutionaries follow the examples of Christ.
The fifth passion is Resource Investment.
The members of the first church shared everything they had sacrificially with each other. They helped meet each other’s needs.
Whatever was at their disposal they gave for the benefit of the people of God, which is the Church.
They took the things that they had, money, clothes, land, food, time, skills, talents, and whatever else they may possess and they gave it freely, not worrying about how their own bills were going to be paid and how their own needs were going to be met.
All the things that we possess have been given to us by God. To invest our resources in anything else other than the kingdom of God would be foolishness.
Foolishness because when we invest our resources in the kingdom of God the returns are out of this world. God asks us to test Him in the idea of resource investment in Malachi 3:10b “Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it.”
A Revolutionary is a person who gives.
The sixth passion is Spiritual Friendships.
The first church was all about relationship. The disciples were friends of Jesus and they became friends with each other and those friendships spread into the communities.
That is why the leadership of this church not only encourages you to attend our services but we also encourage you to find a Home Fellowship Group and begin to build relationships with people of like faith.
It is just so exciting to see people building relationships with people in the church.
Why? Because those relationships provide the encouragement that people need to walk through life and they also provide an opportunity to sharpen us by providing accountability and integrity.
Revolutionaries find people of like faith so that together they can do more than one.
The seventh passion is Family Faith.
It is not the responsibility of the church or the school or the television to teach the family morals, integrity and the ways of God. That is the responsibility of the parents. That is the way God set up the family. The husband is the spiritual head of the house. The wife is the helpmate that comes along side her husband and together they are to teach and raise their children in the ways of Lord.
The family unit in America is disintegrating because families have turned away from faith in God. They have turned away from Godly values and they have turned away from a Biblically based worldview.
And I believe it is time that we get back to the basics of Christianity and we begin to put God back in the family.
It is these seven passions that make a person a Revolutionary. These are the things that motivate the transformation in the lives of men and women, young and old.
These are the passions that cause us to be people who will do whatever it takes to get closer to God and to help others do the same.
These are the passions that help us obliterate the obstacles that prevent us from honoring God with every breath we take.
These are the passions that allow us to be such an outstanding example of the Christian faith so that no one questions our hearts and lifestyles.
Would you consider today to be this kind of person? Don’t hinder the Revolutionaries, don’t put them down, don’t count them out, don’t make fun of them and slander them.
Become a Revolutionary for God and see the world transformed into the image of Christ.
CLOSE.
