Here in 1 John 1, verse number 7 was one of the theme verses of the East African Revival, and it contains a key phrase that they use often in talking about the East African Revival. The Bible says, But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. I want to talk to you about that verse and just point out a couple of lessons I've learned about revival. But can we ask God to help us as we take these last few minutes together? Our Heavenly Father. I do pray that you would help me to speak that which is necessary to be said. I pray that you would help these dear listeners to be attentive to the truths from your word and may we understand what is true revival and would we be willing to seek after it, that we might be changed and that others would be affected with the gospel because of the revival that we experience. I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. As we look at this verse, the first two words are conditional words that indicate something about the passage. The first word is the word, but. And if we go back to verse number six, we see what the but is referring to. It says, if we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. Well, the whole theme, the theme of revival, the theme of this passage is the middle, the section here in verse number 7, walk in the light. That was the theme that the East Africans used in trying to describe the revival. And they would walk up to one another and just ask the question, are you walking in the light today? In other words, have you met with God and so you are walking with Him. But John tells us that if we say that we have fellowship with Him, but we're not walking in the light, we're walking in darkness, we're walking in disobedience, we lie. We do not the truth. So that but is important because there's a lot of Christians that they say they're doing something. They try and put on that air of religiosity, that air of spirituality. But in reality, if we could look into the heart, we'd find that they're walking in darkness. Well, the next conditional word is the word if. And that word is really important because I think it's telling us that walking in the light is the expectation that God has for the Christian. But it's not automatic. Something has to happen. A choice has to be made if we are going to walk in the light. And so that's what the East African revival is all about. That's what we're trying to teach in our Bible college among our churches in Kenya is how to walk in the light. Now, I learned a really important lesson about walking in the light by being in Kenya. Can you tell you, Kenya has had a profound effect on me. I've learned a lot. But we go and visit the churches. Most of the time when we visit a church in Kenya, my car is the only car in the parking lot. Everybody else walks to church. What's the verse say? Walk in the light. You see, walk is a common daily activity, except for us Americans who drive everywhere. But what I learned in Kenya, if you're going to walk with somebody, and that's really what it means to walk in the light. It says walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another. We're gonna walk in fellowship. that walking in fellowship in revival is first, we're gonna walk in fellowship with Jesus. But what does it take to walk with Jesus? And here, this is, it's gonna be profound. Now, you're probably gonna say, Pastor Halstead, you're just stupid. We know that, but just humor me for a moment, okay? If you're gonna walk with someone, something has to happen first. You have to have a meeting place. You can't say to someone, let's walk together. You walk from your house, I'll walk from my house, and we'll meet at a point, and we'll walk together. Well, until you get to that meeting point, you're not walking together. You're walking separately. So in order to walk together, in order to walk in the light, we must meet with Jesus first. And let me just tell you a couple of things I'm learning about our personal devotions. First of all, for many years, and I've been a pastor, I've been a missionary, and I confess this, for many years, I thought that the purpose of my personal devotions was to do this specific religious duty, this religious exercise for God, so I could check it off my list and say, I did something for God today. But that's not what it's about. The purpose of our devotional habit, of reading our Bible in prayer, it's the meeting point. where we meet up with Jesus for the purpose of starting to walk with Him the rest of the day. Glory! Isn't that exciting? Doesn't that make sense? That's why we emphasize daily personal devotion so much. Because we want people to understand when we read our Bibles That is us allowing God to speak to us. By the way, just think about this for a moment. God doesn't need us, but God is high above the heavens just waiting for each one of us to come to Him and fellowship with Him. Every day, He's there waiting for you. wondering, are you going to meet with me today? Are you going to come and talk with me? Are you going to let me talk with you? Are you going to share the burdens of your day? Are you going to share the joys of your day? Are you going to ask me for help with the trials you're facing? And he's there anticipating, eagerly waiting our fellowship with him. And he had so many Christians We don't even take notice that God is waiting for us. We can go a whole week without spending time with Jesus. And when we do that, we're walking in darkness. So God wants to meet with us so that we can begin to walk with Him throughout our day. Now, this verse has something really exciting to say. I've already mentioned it already because the verse says, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. In other words, when we have revival because we've met with God, we've come to the cross, we've confessed our sins, we're right with God, we are accepted into beloved with Jesus. Our devotional time, our fellowship with God, is not intended to be personal only. Now, when I go out evangelizing, I often, as I ask someone, are you born again? Are you a Christian? Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior? Often, people will respond, well, that's a personal matter. I don't feel comfortable talking about that with a stranger. I will confess to you, for many years I felt that way too. My personal, my life with Jesus, my devotional habit, that was just personal between me and God alone. But here's a lesson I found. The reason I felt that way was because my personal devotional life was not consistent. I could read my Bible. I could ask God for things in prayer, but it wasn't meaningful. It wasn't true fellowship. I was going through the motions, but it really wasn't bearing fruit. And I didn't want to talk to people about it. I didn't want people to get that close to me to find out I was a fake. I was that saying I was walking in the light, but walking in darkness. But our devotional life, is something that is meant to be shared. We should have fellowship one with another. That is how revival spreads. There was a Scottish preacher in the early 19th century, Robert Murray McShane. He's known for having developed uh... one-year bible reading schedule that is still being used today in many places it is interesting he developed that for his local church congregation he introduced it to them the end of december in the year eighteen thirty one And he had a number of things to say about it as he introduced it and asked his people, his congregation, let's read the Bible together as a church. But he never got to see it through because he died two months later. but in his promotion to his church to encourage them to read the Bible and really to follow the schedule together, to be reading the same passages of the Scripture as other people in the church. He simply told them, he said, you know, if we do this, we have something productive to talk about. We can talk about what God has spoken to us about in our devotions. Wouldn't that be glorious? By the way, What do we talk about here at this church on a particular Sunday? What's the primary football team here? Is it the Eagles? I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking that way, should I? Not from the pulpit. Is that what it is? It's definitely not Commanders, right? It's not the Giants, is it? Is it the Eagles? OK. Is that really productive? They did great last year. Yeah. But wouldn't it be more productive? to talk about God met with me. God gave me a personal message in my devotions this morning. Let me share it with you. And the other person, because they read those same verses, you know, God spoke to me in that. I didn't get what you got. Here's what I got from, and we just start sharing back and forth our personal Bible reading. Can I tell you, that is growing revival. We're trying to teach that in our Bible college and actually I started this a number of years ago when my children came back to America to go to school. We started a text group and every morning my wife and I will post our devotions on there, our verse and devotional thought that we get so we can share it with our family, with our children and they're not as as consistent as we are, but they're sharing theirs with us, they're reading ours. And it's actually, though we are basically 8,000 miles away from our children, we have a better relationship with our children now than we did when they were in our homes. And it's not because of the distance. It's actually because we're trying to walk in the light with Jesus. So our devotions are important as that meeting place, but it's meant to be shared so that we can walk in fellowship together. The verse concludes with an unusual statement about fellowship. As it says, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. That seems a bit odd until we stop to realize, well, the purpose of the verse is to teach us that we should be walking in the light and that our walking in the light is walking in fellowship with other believers. And we need to stop and realize, what is the greatest hindrance to this revival, to this walking in the light, to this having true Christian fellowship with other believers? And the answer is, my personal sin. Your personal sin. So John tells us, We should be walking in the light. We should have fellowship one with another. And if we're not doing it, here's the remedy. the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses from all sin. And as Joe Church, that British missionary in East Africa 95 years ago said, revival is that daily coming back to the cross and confession of sin. And what follows is what we call revival. My challenge to you this evening, are you walking in the light? If not, there's a remedy. There's some sin that is hindering it. Wouldn't it be great if a great revival of simply sharing our fellowship with God with one another broke out in First State Baptist Church? I pray that it will happen. Can we pray together?