The Churches Journey Towards Revival

Illustration: A few years back the Lord called my wife and I to Pastor a small community church that had two active deacons; one of which I became very close to during our 2 ½ year tenure. We had noticed the Sunday School record books held a sad truth, the church had been on a gradual decline for several years.

Then Bro. Lester called me to the side one Sunday afternoon and said, “preacher, we didn’t get this way over night.”

Biblical truth: The mighty Solomon temple doesn’t exist any longer; the truth is it didn’t come down overnight but over duration of time. The people of God had forgotten whom they were, their purpose and calling, over time sin crept into the house, causing judgment. The New Testament sheds light on the meaning of the passage, when Jesus came into the temple and run the people out and turned over the money changers tables and said, “My house shall be an house of prayer but you have turned it into a den of thieves.

The churches journey from being red hot and fervent for the Lord to a cold complacent and rather lethargic group meeting together for the purpose of paying tithes, sharing past experiences and evening fellowship didn’t take place over night either. It started with a laxity in prayer, a loss of focus on the major importance of the church, and then just plain laziness.

Now if we, the local church are to experience true revival there are something’s we must do, first on the individual level and then on the congregational level.

1. Remembrance

2. Repentance

3. Renewal

These are the three areas that attention must be given and where our focus will be this morning.

I. Remembrance

Note: The term “remember” is not written in the text but rather expressed through Jehovah’s voice. Therefore, what are we to remember?

1. The manifested glory of God

There is nothing like the day that Christ called you unto himself, cleansed your soul and introduced to you this new and living way; this is the manifesting of Christ’s love upon the heart of the believer.

Bro. Philip Doddridge stated it this way in the old hymn O Happy Day

O happy day that fixed my choice on thee, my savior and my God! Well may this glowing heart rejoice, and tell its raptures all abroad.

Happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away!! He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day; Happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away.”

The Old Testament sacrifice produced a feeling in the hearts of the people much like salvation does for the New Testament convert, glee and an overwhelming happiness that bubbled over.

What we need in the local church this morning is to take a moment and go back in our minds to the day that Jesus washed our sins away and remember the joy and gladness that we felt, and then, yes, then remember how we just couldn’t wait to tell the good news; that Jesus saves, Jesus saves.

2. The devotion once given to God

In the life of most Christians, and for that matter most congregations; there was a time when more attention and devotion was given to the Lord than there is today. We need to remember the former days when we prayed with fervency for that God would make himself known among his people, we prayed for the lost and followed up with personal one on one evangelism. Church, do you remember when your parents and grand parents wanted to see a mighty move of God and when they came together on the lord’s day, much attention was to prayer? What happened church? Has God changed, has the purpose of the church changed?

No, the immutable God will never change; therefore the purpose of the church must never change.

A. Exalt the Lord in adoration

B. Exalt the Lord in prayer

C. Exalt the Lord in song

D. Exalt the Lord in devotion

Many Christians have made a pilgrimage from a “Mary” that set at the feet of Jesus and adored him to a “Martha” who is full of activity, complaining, and spiritual deadness.

We must look back and remember the days when we had a hunger in our hearts for the teachings of Christ, and then REPENT!!!!

4. The founding principles of the local church

Every church congregation has an origin, that place of beginning when someone or a group of people felt the overwhelming need to start a local church. That church plant was started on the principle of worship, evangelism and mission and if not its motives were impure from the beginning.

A. Remember the fire of our parents and grandparents

B. Remember the service of our forefathers