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Psalm chapter 85. And that is the message tonight.
Preparing for renewal. And I wanna begin by reading
a prayer for revival. This is a prayer that I think
fits our church. It's a prayer that fits our nation.
And it's a prayer that fits our conference coming up next week. And this psalm, chapter 85, it
was probably written after the Jews had come back from their
70 years of captivity in Babylon. And I would encourage you to
go over to the book of Ezra and read Ezra, chapter 6. 7, 8, and
9. Those are very appropriate passages.
When we think about revival, when we think about renewal,
that's what these people had just come from. And when you
read Ezra, specifically chapter 6, and you read some of the prophets
like Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi, you'll learn that life
was very difficult for the Jewish people in the land, and they
didn't always obey the ways of the Lord. Sometimes they, what
we call, backslide. They had fallen back. They had
fallen into sin, and so they needed a fresh start. They needed
revival. They needed renewal in their
lives. The Scottish preacher George H. Morrison, he said,
the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings. And he's right. We've always
got to make room for a new beginning. And this psalm, these verses
that we'll see and then the other verses we look at tonight, it'll
give us some instructions for renewal. I think that we need
to prepare for the meeting next week. Some people think that
you wait until that meeting begins and that that's when you begin
trying to get things right in your life, but it's always best
if you prepare ahead of time for a meeting like that, and
instead of waiting until then, be prepared ahead of time for
the Lord to do something in your heart before we get to it. Look
at verse number four, the psalmist cries out in verse number four
of Psalm chapter 85, Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause
thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt thou be angry with us forever?
Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? And then
here's the famous revival verse. Wilt thou not revive us again
that thy people may rejoice in thee? Show us thy mercy, O Lord,
and grant us thy salvation. Now I want you to notice that
this prayer, it's not really a prayer to change the world
first. This was a prayer to change God's
people first. Praying for revival, preparing
for renewal, having a meeting like we're going to have next
week. It's not just about asking for an event, but we're seeking
the God of our salvation to renew us, to revive us, to refresh
us. And so that's what we want to
set our hearts on tonight, preparing for revival by preparing ourselves. preparing ourselves. The word
revive, it means to live again, to be renewed. And so we talk about having a
renewed conference, revival, those go hand in hand. What the
people of God here needed in Psalm chapter 85, they needed
that new beginning, they needed that fresh start, they needed
the work of Christ at work in their lives. And that's the same
thing that we need within us. The people of God, they had read,
you go to the book of Ezekiel, you remember reading about the
dry bones that lived once again? They had no doubt read or heard
Ezekiel's message about those dry bones. And so the people
of God, they're longing for that wind of God to blow by and to
revive them again. And that's what we need in our
homes. That's what we need in our lives. And this is not something
that we can manufacture ourselves. We cannot manufacture revival
tonight or next week. We can't work something up. That's
not what this is about. It only comes from the Holy Spirit
of God. So let's pray and then we'll jump into a few simple
thoughts tonight. Lord, we ask that you would give
your blessing to the reading of your word this evening. Lord,
I pray that you would just move into our hearts, Lord, help us
to take the... Subject of revival and renewal
in our lives, seriously, Lord, help us to have a desire for
that. Lord, stir those flames, let
the wind of heaven come by our way. Lord, allow that to fan
those revival flames, send that wind, send that oxygen that we
need, that we would fall in love with you again, that we would
be reignited, that we would be passionate about you again, Lord.
We need you in our homes, in our lives, in our church, in
our communities. So Lord, we pray that you would help us as
we prepare for renewal. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We'll have four nights of preaching. Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday
night, Wednesday night. We'll have four nights of preaching
with JD Weedo. There'll be special music. There'll
be opportunities together as we seek God. But as we just said,
this is not something we can manufacture. Revival is not automatic. just because we put this on the
calendar. Just because we have this conference every other year.
It's not a guarantee. I've told our teams before, it's
interesting that two people can come to the exact same service,
sit and hear the same songs that are sung, hear the same preaching
side by side, and walk out the door and have two totally different
experiences where one person thinks, man, that was the greatest
service I've ever been a part of. That was amazing to see what
God did. And the other person that was
right beside them can walk out the door and think, man, that
was the most boring hour and a half I've ever spent in my
life. What's the difference? Our heart? How we've prepared? I always try to encourage the
teenagers when we talk to them, hey, when you come to church, come
prepared. There's some things that we need
to do before we walk through the door. I've encouraged friends
with this thought before as well, that you prepare yourself before
you come to the service. If you will read Ezra 6 through
9 this week, it will walk you through how the people of God
prepared. And there were some things that
they did before God began to work. There were some steps that
they took to make that possible. So next week, you can come to
church Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night.
You can hear the songs. You can sing the songs. You can listen
to testimonies. You can hear the preaching. J.D. Weedle always cries when he preaches. You can see the tears, but you
can be unchanged by all of that. Or you can be prepared. You can walk into the door, sit
in the services, and next week can be, if I can use this phrase,
a turning point in your life. I hear a lot of talk about turning
points right now. It can be a spiritual turning
point for you. Psalm 85, verse number 6, that's a prayer. Will
thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? Now, revival, we've already said
we can't manufacture that. Revival is God's work. That's
his job. But it's our responsibility to
be prepared. It's our responsibility to be prepared for it. And so
right now across the country, people are talking about revival.
They're talking, is there revival taking place in our country?
Many have asked for years, would we ever see a national revival?
I don't know. Before we leave tonight, Brother
Paul has an article I want to give you this evening that Evangelist
Scott Polly wrote a couple of days ago on revival and just
some thoughts on what's taking place in our country. And I think
it will be helpful to us going into our Renew conference next
week. But people are talking about
revival. It's at least on their mind. Is there a spiritual awakening?
It's possible that there is. It's possible. We know that last
week the gospel was proclaimed by multiple people, very high
level people, plainly. The word of God was given, the
gospel went out to millions and maybe upwards of billions of
people at this point have heard it. Was everybody that spoke
100% sincere? I don't know their hearts, but
I know what the Apostle Paul said. Scott Pauly addresses it,
that whether or not everything that we see is genuine, we'll
leave that up to God. It will work itself out if it's
genuine or if it's not, that remains to be seen. But we know
that the gospel went forth last week. Revival seeds, spiritual
awakening, people seem to have an interest more in spiritual
things right now than maybe they've had in a while. And so as a church,
we have an opportunity to get in on maybe what God is doing. Sometimes we think about revival
and maybe we want to put it in our own little box, but maybe
revival is going to take place differently than the way we think
that it might happen. We need to be ready though, if
that's what's taking place, we need to be people, we need to
be a church that is prepared for that spiritual awakening. Our church has to be in a state
of revival for that to take place. We sing that song sometimes at
the invitation, do not pass me by. If this is a moment, we're
in our country, there's an opportunity for spiritual things to be taking
place. We don't want to miss out on
what's going on because our hearts are apathetic, because our hearts
are cold, because our hearts are calloused. Revival is not
just for us to feel good. It's for us to be renewed so
that we can make heaven more crowded. That's been a phrase
I've heard used quite a bit in the last week. We want to make heaven
more crowded. I like that idea. Let's fill up heaven. And that's
why this week matters. I shared that quote this morning
from Vance Havner. Revival is God's people falling
in love with Jesus all over again. That's what we want next week.
We want to fall in love with Jesus again. But we ought not
to wait until next week to start. We ought to be preparing ourselves
now, ready for that to take place. Not just an event. We don't want
to just be stirred. Sometimes we hear that song that's been
sung in our church. Stirred, but not changed. We're not just
wanting God to stir us. There's a lot of people in the
last week that have been stirred emotionally and maybe spiritually.
Will they change? There's a lot of Christians,
they're talking about, man, we've got to get off the sideline,
we've got to do something, we've got to get more engaged. And
I hope that they do, but it's more than just a political thing. It's more than just talking about
being spiritual. It's about walking through the
doors of the church, being with our brothers and sisters in Christ,
getting into the Word of God, than going out and actually telling
somebody about it. We can't just post on social media about this
spiritual awakening, about this revival that may be taking place.
So revival is not a meeting. A revival is a movement of the
Holy Spirit as he moves through the lives of his people. And
so there's no substitute for the move of God. There's no substitute
for the move of God. And the flesh can never produce
a spiritual awakening. G. Campbell Morgan, old evangelist,
he once wrote, we cannot organize revival, but we can set our sails
to catch the wind from heaven when God chooses to blow upon
his people once again. That's what we want to do next
week. We want to have our sails set so that way if there is a
spiritual awakening taking place in our country, if there is an
opportunity for revival, that we've got our sails set so that
as that wind from heaven blows, that it catches us and it moves
us right along with it. Now the hardest part about revival
isn't God sending it. God can send revival, can't he? That's not the hard part. He's
more than able. The spirit that took the early
church, that breathed on the early church, that caused the
early church to turn the world upside down for Christ, that
same Holy Spirit that shook those people can breathe fresh life
into our lives and into our church and into our community and into
our nation anytime that he chooses to. The real challenge is our
hearts. Are we prepared? Are we ready?
And so the biggest work is the work of preparation. The biggest
work is the work of preparation. That's what we want to give ourselves
to this week is being prepared for next week. If we'll give
ourselves to that, we'll see God move. So how do we prepare
our hearts for renewal? I'm going to give you four simple
things. There could be more that's added to this. This is just four
that came to my mind. First, we prepare by seeking
God in repentance. We've got to have clean hands.
We've got to have a pure heart. Flip over. You're in the book
of Psalms. Flip over Psalm chapter 24. and look at verse number
three, verse number four with me, because as we said, revival
doesn't start out there with the world, okay? Revival doesn't
start out there. That's not what we're trying
to do next week. We gotta start in here with the
church. Verse number three of Psalm 24,
who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand
in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart. As we talk about revival, renewal,
It means to live again. So it means that it has to be
something that already had life to begin with, right? That's
why maybe what we see taking place in our country might be
better defined as a spiritual awakening. Maybe God's people
are getting revived, but there's definitely a spiritual awakening
going on to those who are lost. But revival directly deals with
God's people. Next week is about God's people.
renewal, revival. And so it's to restore what was
alive. And so before we can help the
lost, we've got to get revived in here first. We got to be stirred
up in here. Scott Polly, he said in the article
that I'm giving you this evening, He says when revival comes there
will be a great gospel advance because a revived church is a
witnessing church. So it's not that we don't care
about the lost, but more than it just being an evangelistic
meeting next week, it's about us getting revived and that in
turn causes us to be a witness. We go out because of that. And
so when believers get right, Scott Pauly says, when believers
get right with God, when believers get right with one another, you
can always rest assured more people will be saved because
of that. And so we start with repentance. Now, the wickedness,
it's easy to look at the news, it's easy to get on social media,
and we can see the wickedness in our culture really easy, can't
we? It's easy to point out all the deception, all of the sin,
all of that stuff that's going on out there. But you know the
most difficult wickedness to see? It's not what's taking place
out there, it's the stuff that's in my own life. I'm kind of blind
to it. I can point out Al's faults,
I can point out Al's sins, but I don't want to point out mine. We've got to see our sin as God
sees it. And when we allow that to just
kind of subtly creep its way into our lives and into our home,
it's a roadblock to revival. It's a roadblock to renewal.
And so we have to start by seeking God in repentance. What is repentance? Some people think that when we're
confessing our sin, if we confess our sin, He's faithful and just
to forgive us. So if we're seeking God in repentance, that means
that we've just got to be down on our knees and we're begging
God to forgive us, right? No. What it means to confess
our sin, it literally means that we say about our sin what God
says about it, that we agree with Him about it. Yeah, I see
my sin the same way that God sees it. I agree with what He
thinks about my sin. And then I'm going to confess
it, repent, I forsake it, I turn from it. It's a lot easier to
confess somebody else's sin standing a hundred yards away though.
But next week if we want revival, if we want renewal in our lives,
in our church, we've got to start by making sure that we get our
sin confessed, that we repent of our sin. our pride, our lust,
our arrogance, our stubbornness, our rebellion. What's the song? We played it in the car this
week. Harrison likes to listen to music. So we had that little
kids song that was playing last week. It says, it's not my brother,
it's not my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the
need of prayer. That's what we're talking about
is confessing my sin. I don't need to confess somebody
else's. I need to confess mine. I need to get mine right. It's
like trying to plant a seed in a field full of rocks and weeds.
Until that ground is broken up, nothing grows. A good seed, you
can scatter the good seed all over ground like that. The showers
of blessings can come and they can fall. But if we've got rocks
and weeds and thorns and thistles and junk, it doesn't do much
good to throw the seed out there. What does the book of Hosea tell
us? Hosea chapter 10 verse number
12, sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your
fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come
and rain righteousness upon you. As we talk about seeking God
in repentance for the conference next week, we're talking about
breaking up that fallow ground in our lives so that way when
the preaching comes, when we hear four nights of preaching,
it'll fall into good soil. John Hyde. He became such a man
of prayer that history knows him as Praying Hyde. Back in 1904, he posed five questions
to a group of prayer partners and I put these five questions
on the back sheet that Paul's going to hand out here in a little
bit. I would encourage you to read through these to think about
them. They're kind of sobering. We got to answer these questions
for ourselves. I'm going to read them to you first though. He asked his prayer
partners They agreed that they would pray until a spiritual
awakening came. He asked them this question,
are you praying for quickening in your own life, your fellow
workers, your church? Are you longing for greater power
of the Holy Spirit? And are you convinced that you
cannot go on without this power? You know, I think a lot of times
we feel like we can do pretty fine in our own strength and
our own power. reminds me back to the book of
Exodus when God told Moses, hey, you can go on but I'm not going
with you. You remember what Moses said? Moses told God, we're not
going forward without you. It would be kind of pointless
to move forward if God's not with us to go on. So are you
longing for a greater power of the Holy Spirit? Are you convinced
that you can't go on without this power? Or, oh, I can get
through life fine on my own. He asked them, will you pray
that you will not be ashamed of Jesus? Do you believe that prayer is
the great means for securing this spiritual awakening? And will you set apart a half
hour each day to pray for this awakening. You do imagine if
as believers in this church, if we took those five questions
and we were serious about that for the next seven days as we
get ready for our revival next week, if we were to take 30 minutes
a day and to pray and to ask God for these things, might we
be prepared to experience renewal next week? This week ask God
to search your heart We're talking about seeking God in repentance
to be prepared. Let's get those things out of
our lives, maybe some things that we tolerate, maybe some
bitterness that we have, grudges that we've held on to, habits
that we excuse. Before we ask God to send revival,
we've got to clear the ground. We've got to break things up. You're still in the book of Psalm,
flip over to chapter 139. We can pray with David. I think sometimes it's good to
just pray through Scripture. Jesus prayed Scripture. David
said in verse number 23, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. That's a bit of a scary prayer
to pray, isn't it? God, start bringing out those
things. Take your spotlight and shine
it into the corners of my life and show me the things that need
to get out. It's a little scary to pray that,
but if we want to experience renewal next week, we've got
to prepare by seeking God with repentance. Charles Tindley,
he was a Methodist preacher, Brother Paul. back in the late
1800s, early 1900s. He was born a slave, his parents
were slaves. He taught himself how to read
and he became a very powerful preacher and hymn writer and
one of his most well-known hymns is a great revival hymn. The
story goes that after facing hardships and temptations in
ministry, Charles Tindley prayed that there would be nothing,
that there would be no trial, no test, no temptation, no sin,
no ambition that would ever come between him and Christ. And out
of that prayer, he began to write down these words, and sometimes
we sing it. We may sing it next week in this
revival meeting that we have. Nothing between my soul and the
Savior not of this world's delusive dream. I have renounced all sinful
pleasure. Jesus is mine. There's nothing
between, nothing between my soul and the savior so that his blessed
face may be seen. Nothing preventing the least
of his favor. Keep the way clear. Let nothing
between. We need to have repentance. We
don't want anything between us and Jesus next week. If we're
gonna have renewal next week, if we're gonna be ready to catch
a wind of heaven, of revival that's blowing through, there
can be nothing between. How else do we prepare? Number
two, saturate yourself in the word. Saturate yourself in the
word. We need to have a listening ear. Flip over to Psalm chapter 119.
This is the longest chapter in the Bible, it's the middle chapter
of the Bible, and it's an entire chapter dedicated to the Bible.
The entire chapter is about the Word of God. Verse number 25
says, My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken thou me according
to thy word. The psalmist knew that revival
comes when God breathes life into his people through his word. The Word of God. If your Bible
is closed Monday through Saturday, you'll be hard-pressed to get
much out of the preaching on Sunday. If your Bible is closed
Monday through Saturday, and you show up for the revival meeting
next week, it will be a little more difficult for that to get
through to you. But when you're already feeding
on the Word of God throughout the week, when you're meditating
on the Word of God, when it's on your mind and you're reading
verses here or there, you sit down and read a chapter, you
take time and read a book, You spend time in devotion and you
listen to maybe other devotional podcasts and preaching throughout
the week, and the Word of God is what is central in your life,
and it's a habit, not just on Sunday, but seven days a week,
to have the Word of God out, saturating yourself with His
Word, your heart's more tender. When you hear the preaching next
Sunday night and Monday night and Tuesday night and Wednesday
night, your ears will be open and the seed of God's truth can
take root quickly. Ever been outside on a hot summer
day working, Sean? Ever been out in your truck or
something? You get some water. You probably don't just take
a little sip here or there. You're probably ready to kind
of down a bottle of water, aren't you? Last week in Colorado, we
were out. You could call it hiking, but
it really wasn't. It was a very slow pace on a
trail. We went about two miles, but
still, we were about 9,000 feet elevation there. You get a little
bit winded, and then you got a little two-year-old who doesn't
want to carry his own weight around and wanted to ride in
the, what do you call that thing, not the shopping cart, but a
stroller, there we go, technical term. You got to push that stroller
up some of those hills. When you got to the top of it,
I was ready to have a sip of water. And you want to just kind
of turn it up and drink it. That's how we ought to approach
the scriptures. We ought to be thirsty for the truth, ready
to just drink it in. My soul pants after Thee, O God,
like a heart pants after the water brooks, the psalmist says.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, Jesus
said in Matthew chapter 5. Emotionalism, hype, or even large
crowds, those things don't prove that God is at work. We might
have a packed out building one night next week and it might
not be packed, but the size of the crowd and the amount of emotion
that takes place is not going to be the test of whether or
not we experience revival, okay? The test of whether or not we
have revival, what proves that is if we're aligning our lives
with the Word of God, if we're praying according to His will,
if we're following what He wants us to do, then we can have revival
whether the crowd's big, whether the crowd's small, whether there's
a lot of emotion, whether there's snot and tears and everything
being slung or not. One of the most powerful sermons
ever preached, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan
Edwards was not one that you would expect to have been delivered
the way that it was. He stood up and in manuscript
form read word for word from his manuscript the message. There
was no screaming, yelling, climbing on top of the pulpit, swinging
from the chandeliers. But as he read that manuscript,
the power of God fell in the room, and they say that those
that were in the room that were lost were holding on for dear
life, afraid that they would drop into the pits of hell before
they could call on Christ for salvation. So there doesn't have
to be emotionalism, there doesn't have to be a bunch of hype. That's
fine if that takes place, but that's not the telltale sign
of whether or not we have revival next week. True revival produces
holiness. If you come out of next week
and say, man, I'm aligning my life, there's some things that
I'm changing in my life that I have forgotten, I've fallen
in love with Jesus again, and I need to realign my life to
the truth of God's Word, and you start going this direction
instead of that direction, there's a sign that you've had some renewal
in your life. Think about that soil before
planting. It needs water. God's Word is that water. If
the Word of God, if you will saturate yourself, I've encouraged
you to read Ezra 6, 7, 8, and 9 this week. There's some other
revival passages I put on the back of the handout for you tonight. If you'll spend time in God's
Word this week, allowing the water of God's Word to just kind
of soak that ground after we've repented, after we've broken
it up, After we allow the water of God's Word to kind of just
fall on that fallow ground, then next week on Sunday night, Monday
night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, when we hear the preaching
of the Word of God from the evangelist, the seed won't just bounce off,
it'll go deep, it'll begin to bear fruit. Saturate yourself
in God's Word this week. Spend time reading God's Word
this week. or listen to God's Word this
week. Consume God's Word in some form this week. A lot of times
when I'm driving down the road, I'll put my audio Bible on and
listen to it. But get the Word of God into
your life this week. That's why Jesus said in Matthew
13, the Word is the seed. And in these revival meetings
of the preaching, that's the sowing. But the condition of
your heart, whether it's stony, whether it's thorny or good soil,
it's going to be determined before you ever walk through the door
next week. The great Welsh revival of 1904, 1905, tens of thousands
were converted in just a few months. But the fire of that
revival, it didn't start with big meetings. It started in a
very small group of believers that met around God's word, they
got serious about praying together, they confessed, they repented,
and they began praying scripture together. And that small work
lit a fire, and then as a result thousands of people were saved.
So this week commit to saturate yourself in the Word of God,
read it slowly, meditate on it, pray over it. Don't just skim
through a chapter and check off a box. You may only read five
verses but you'd be better off to read those five verses and
chew on it, meditate on it, than to just skim through a chapter
and not have any clue what you read. I've given you some suggestions
for some passages to read this week that might help you. When
you come to God's Word, we're there in Psalm 119, look at verse
number 18. This would be a good prayer to
pray before you begin to read God's Word. The psalmist says,
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of
thy law. God, open my eyes, help me to
understand what I'm reading. Allow the Holy Spirit to illuminate
that, Lord. Open my eyes, give me something
today. Number three, how do we prepare?
We prepare by seeking God in prayer. We need to have an open
heart. Second Chronicles chapter 7 verse number 14, you're familiar
with the passage. If my people which are called
by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, then
will I hear from heaven. James chapter 4 verse number
8, draw an eye to God and he will draw an eye to you. So many
times Christians say And we're praying for revival in our church,
we're praying for revival in our country. Interestingly, when
you read through the Word of God, we're never given a command
to pray for revival. We are commanded to seek God
though. When we seek God, when we find Him, when we get Jesus,
we'll have revival. So yes, we need to pray, but
not just for an event. No, we need to be praying that
the presence of God Himself will move in next week. That He'll
fill the room and that when God's presence shows up, that the revival
won't be far behind it. That changes how we pray. Instead
of just praying, Lord, send revival, what if we changed our prayer
to, Lord, give us Yourself. Lord, give us Your presence.
Give us a glimpse of your glory next week, Lord. Draw us near
it, help us to empty us of ourselves so we can be filled with more
of you. If that's our prayer, revival comes. Roy Hession, he saw great movements
of God, wrote a wonderful book on it. He once said, when Jesus
is enough, you'll have your revival. The Hebrides Islands in the late
1940s, believers there began to pray for God to work. Not just some event, but for
God to move. It was a very spiritually dark
place, resistant to the gospel. Missionaries had struggled for
decades with very little fruit there. But on the island of Lewis,
in the Scottish Hebrides, there were two elderly sisters, Peggy
and Christine Smith. One of them was blind, the other
was crippled. They began to faithfully pray for God to work in their
home. They began to pray from Isaiah
chapter 44 verse number 3, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty
and floods upon the dry ground. And with these two sisters, a
work began to take place. People began to humble themselves.
They began confessing their sin. They began seeking God and the
Spirit of God fell with unusual power and a revival started that
lasted for over three years and waves of revival for generations
beyond that. People, they said, people would
be walking along the roads, out in fields, in barns, in homes,
that would just suddenly fall under conviction of their sin
and drop to their knees and begin praying to God, asking for His
forgiveness and for His mercy. There's accounts that are told
of ships that would dock in the harbor where sailors, before
they had ever heard any sermon, that sailors said that as they
just pulled into the port, that they just felt this overwhelming
sense of conviction on them. They fell to their knees and
cried out for mercy from God and they'd get off and they'd
run into somebody there that was a believer and begin to share
the gospel with them. The presence of God was so real
that it was gripping hearts before a preacher ever spoke. In village
meetings, they would get together at the end of the day. They'd
go to each other's homes, cottages, barns. They'd begin to have prayer
meetings and they'd pray till three or four in the morning
together. weeping, crying, singing, because they just were overwhelmed
by the presence of God that was taking place in their community.
They were seeking God. And when God came down, their
entire community was changed. People cried out. See, that's
not something you can schedule. Put that on the calendar. but
it was the presence of God that was filling his people. You know,
that's what we need. It's not gonna be like next week,
like we've ordered an Amazon package and one of those drones
fly over with revival in it and just kind of drop it down on
us. No, revival is when God is real
to his people again. And if we'll seek him in prayer,
we'll have all that we need. Here's the last one. We need
to prepare by serving with expectation. We need to have a willing spirit.
Flip over to Psalm chapter 100. Verse number two, serve the Lord
with gladness. Come before his presence with
singing. When we walk in through the doors next week, Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, revival won't end at the altar. Revival
doesn't have to end at the back of the auditorium. Revival is going to spill over
into action. A revived church, we said earlier, is a witnessing
church. And when God stirs our hearts, it ought to move our
hands and our feet, and we won't be a passive church. We need
to pray that God will help us to awake out of our apathy, awake
out of our lethargy, and to get back to serving Him. Think about it, when the Spirit
was poured out in Acts chapter 2, The believers didn't just
sit in the upper room celebrating what God had done. No, what did
they do? They moved to the streets, they
began witnessing and boldly proclaiming the gospel, they began serving,
they began sharing because revival always leads to mission. During
that Welsh revival, 1904-1905, we mentioned Thousands were saved, churches
were packed out. But one of the most striking things about the
movement, about that revival that takes place when you read
about it from history, is how it changed daily life. Judges,
they said they had no cases to try anymore because crime plummeted. Those people had gotten right
with God, they'd gotten saved. Guys that were drinking, the
liquor stores shut down and the taverns were dry. They went out
of business because nobody was consuming alcohol. Those who
were accustomed to cursing and their mouth filled with things
like that suddenly had no desire to curse anymore. Their communities, instead, they
were marked by singing. You would hear hymns being sung
up and down the streets. Why? Because there's something
that comes when revival takes place. There's action. And so
if we want to prepare for revival, don't come next week just as
spectators. Don't show up next week like
you're going to a Razorback football game. There's not much to be
excited about if you go to one of those, is there, Al? Man,
ain't got no reason to stand up and cheer, nothing to look
forward to. Most people, if you went to the
game yesterday, most of the crowd got up and left at halftime.
They'd already seen enough. Don't show up next week with
that kind of attitude that I'm gonna come and sit and watch.
No, come serving with expectation. Invite others. Be ready to sing. Be ready to serve. Show up early.
We're going to start at 530 on Sunday night and 630 Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday. Show up early if you can. Be
in here ready for the service to start. Be excited about what
God's going to do. If you see somebody that you
don't know in one of the services, be ready to walk by and give
them a smile and a handshake and encourage them, thank them
for being here. Welcome people with genuine love.
I sing with all your heart when we sing the songs next week.
Revived people. Singing always goes with revival.
You just can't help but get that song out. So as we sing next
week, prepare your heart. Prepare your voice. Warm up on
the way to church. Sing a few songs. Invite those
who are unchurched. If you know somebody who's lost,
invite them to come. Come expecting God to move. You ever show up at church expecting
God to do something? Sometimes God shows up and does
something at church and everyone's like, wow, can you believe that
God did something today? Shouldn't we show up at church?
Shouldn't it be a surprise to us when God doesn't do something
at church rather than the opposite way? We ought to show up at church
expecting, I don't know what God's going to do tonight, but
I know God's going to do something. And I don't know what anybody
else is getting out of it, but I'm expecting that God's going to do something
for me. And if every one of us walk through the doors next week
with that attitude, I can promise you, you'll leave here thinking,
man, I have experienced renewal, I have experienced revival. Scott
Pauley was asked, what does true Holy Spirit revival look like?
He said this, it looks like Jesus. The work of the Spirit is always
to conform us to the image of Christ. And any genuine work
of His will exalt Christ and develop His character in the
lives who are touched by it. You get revived next week, if
you experience renewal next week, it's going to make you look more
like Jesus. That's the result that He wants. He wants us to
be conformed to the image of His dear Son. Flip over to one
last verse, I want you to look at this. Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4. I hope you come
ready next week to give yourself to God. Give yourself to others. Come as a servant next week. And if we come with expectation,
man, I think there can be an electric atmosphere of faith
when we show up that way. Verse number 31 of Acts chapter
4. And when they had prayed, the
place was shaken where they were assembled together And they were
all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the Word of God
with boldness. This is revival in one verse.
This is renewal in one verse. The believers prayed. That's
preparation. That's what we're talking about
tonight. The place was shaken. That's the presence of God that
showed up. And they were filled with the Holy Ghost. That's renewal.
And they spoke the Word of God with boldness. That's the result
because revived people are witnessing people In church, that's what
we're asking God to do here. We want God to shake us. We want
God to fill us. We want God to send us out with
boldness to spread the gospel. Our mission is to make heaven
more crowded, to let other people know about Jesus, to not be ashamed
of him. It can take place, but only when
we're prepared. Let's bow our heads and close
our eyes. Let's take just a few moments here. It would be a shame
to talk about being prepared. It would be a shame if we talked
about
Preparing For Renewal
How do we prepare for something like our upcoming Renew Conference? We'll discover a few biblical principles to guide us.
| Sermon ID | 92825234123977 |
| Duration | 44:32 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Psalm 85:4-7 |
| Language | English |
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