Seeds of Revival

Mark 9:14–29 (NIV)

When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them.

As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

“What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.

A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech.

Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”

“You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.

Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered.

“It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

“ ‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.”

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.

After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

Mark 9:29 (KJV 1900)

And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

Introduction

Where are all of my church kids at? Where are all my folks who grew up sleeping under the pews?

If that’s not you, don’t feel left out because I haven’t got to my punchline yet.

Are there any church things that you genuinely believed as a child that you had to unlearn as an adult?

Let’s be honest… our Sunday School teachers did their best… but maybe they got something’s a little wrong. Or a lot wrong.

For me, growing up, my church had me terrified of going to the movies.

You see I grew up in a Pentecostal Holiness Church that set a lot of well intentioned boundaries.

I said well intentioned, and I mean it.

But there were times when things just didn’t make sense.

So for me, we were taught that going to the movies was bad.

Now the principle is going to the WRONG movie is bad. Absolutely. There are movies that no Jesus follower should watch. Ever.

But we weren’t talking about that.

We were talking about good movies. Movies that were good enough to watch at home, but don’t you dare watch them in a theatre because the theatre is bad!

You see what I’m talking out?

I’ll never forget when that movie The Passion of Christ came out. Oh, let me tell about some churches...

Some churches in our fellowship were vehemently against the movies that even a Christian movie was off limits!

So there were Pastors who instead went and bought a black market/ bootleg version of the movie, set up a projector in the fellowship hall of their church, and watched The Passion of the Christ together as church.

In their effort to “not sin” they broke the law...

Transition

That’s what I mean by having to unlearn some things about your faith as you get older… and that’s something we’re going to do with Revival as well.

Revival

Revival is not a complicated topic, and yet it is so often misunderstood. Growing up Revival was an event.

We would have 3 or more consecutive evenings of church services with invited speakers, worship leaders, and an emphasis on the move of the Holy Spirit.

Revival was thought to be a season of growth, miraculous healings, or mass salvations.

Revival was fire in the church, and emotions running high.

And while all of the above can be descriptors of what happens when Revival comes, they are not in and of themselves Revival.

Revival is to make alive again.

Alive again.

Alive again.

I think some of what we called Revival before was just great programming.

And the reason we don’t see revival in the church today is becuase we are unwilling to admit when something is dead.

Oh be careful now… you can’t say you want a Revival with first admitting that something is dead.

If it’s still alive, call it a Renewal, but don’t call it a Revival.

Something has to die in order for it to be Revived.

And I think God wants to bring Revival but we have to be willing to be honest enough and admit when something is dead...

Can I make it more personal?

Our marriages are on life support, but on Sundays we put on our best face and pretend that everything is OK.

We have severed relationships with our kids but we never tell anyone the pain we are carrying.

We were abused as a child and we have buried the pain but it manifests itself with our trust issues and our insecurity.

We want the resurrection that comes with Revival, but we don’t want to admit that there has been death that precedes Revival.

So the first step of a personal Revival is to acknowledge that there are some things that are no longer alive in us.

Perhaps we weren’t aware of it, or perhaps we haven’t identified what is no longer alive, but if you will begin by turning to God in prayer, you will begin to see the things that need to come to life again.

The Text

Here in our text we encounter the story of a father who knows that his son is not alive.

His son is possessed by an evil spirit and this child of his is no longer the child he held in his arms as an infant.

This child of his is no longer the child he taught to throw a ball.

This child of his is not the child that he taught to walk.

Could you imagine the despair the father endured as he looked at this shell of a boy who is not alive. This child of his is possessed and no longer in control of his faculties and this father is desperate for answers.

He is running out of options, but his love won’t let him quit on his son.

He brings his son the disciples of Jesus begging for a miracle. Begging that the disciples bring his son back to him.

Jesus is not there, and with him is Peter, James and John.

Jesus has gone to a mountain to pray and be with His father.

When Jesus returns from the mountain there is a scene that awaits him.

People are arguing with each other and people are blaming each other for their inability to help this boy. The other nine disciples have done everything they can and now the Pharisees are taking shots at them. The crowd is beginning to wonder if these group of men who claim to have been with Jesus were nothing more than frauds.

But when Jesus arrives the crowds are silenced and everyones attention is now turned to this Rabbi with miraculous power to heal and deliver.

Jesus engages with the father and it is in this exchange that Jesus uses the opportunity to teach those who are there, and those who would read this story from their Bible thousands of years later, about the power of prayer and fasting.

Jesus said, “this kind can only come out by prayer and fasting.”

Prayer and fasting are the seeds of Revival.

The Seed of Prayer

What does the Bible teach us about prayer?

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

The writer of Chronicles is hearing from the Lord and giving us the essence of prayer.

There’s a few descriptors of prayer that we need to pull on here so that we understand the anatomy of prayer and what makes it a seed.

Prayer is an act of humility.

The writer notes that humility precedes prayer. In a culture of self made men and women, prayer resists the spirit of this age that shouts, “I don’t need help from anyone or anything.”

We are living in the time of hustles and side hustles. We are seeing man’s rejection of God masked as work ethic and being on our grind.

While there is no excuse for someone not to work hard, there is a greater danger in men and women carrying on with their lives as if they don’t need to pray.

We have become so full of ourselves and our success that we believe we have obtained what we have obtained without God.

We have become so full of ourselves that we believe that God didn’t help us, so He can’t take it away from us.

We are increasingly behaving as if God is an accessory to our #goals.

But when we return to prayer, we are coming before God and acknowledging that all that we have, and all that we have become, is because of God’s goodness in our lives. When we return to prayer we are telling Him that the mountains that we face are too great for us, but they are not too great for God.

We read this in our Bible reading this week.

Who is reading their Bible with us?

We read this verse…

Luke 14:11 (NIV)

For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Prayer teaches us to Seek His Face

Seek His Face.

What does it mean to seek his face? Let define it by contrasting it.

Often times prayer has been diluted to what we need for God to do for us. We engage with God in prayer to get something from God. It is a transactional meeting where we come to God and give him our worship in the form in prayer so that we can solely request something from God. When we do this, we are “seeking his hands.”

I want to tell you that I am not belittling this, as long as this isn’t the only thing you do in prayer.

God wants to hear from you and answer your prayers. God wants to hear you bring your needs to Him. None of that offends Him.

However, there is another way to pray, and that is called “seeking His face.”

This is prayer, not because we need something from Him, we just need Him.

I’m not asking for a raise, I’m not asking for healing, I’m not asking for a new job, and I’m not asking for a new car.

I am here at His feet because I want Him.

He is my desire.

He is my request.

He is my hunger.

God, I know that there is a lot that you can do for me, but I just want you!

Prayer that brings about a Revival is not a prayer for things, but prayer for His presence.

Lighthouse, the Revival that awaits us is on the other side of our desire for His presence.

We aren’t asking for things, we aren’t asking for stuff, we aren’t asking for favor, we are asking Him to consume our gatherings.

We are asking Him to fill our services.

We are asking Him to fill our homes.

We are asking Him to fill our relationships.

Prayer Brings us to a Lifestyle of Repentance

A lifestyle of repentance...

Many people treat repentance as a one-time event when we receive Christ.

Other times it is something we come back to when we fall short.

But a lifestyle of repentance is something different.

When we have made a decision to walk away from sin, by living a repentant lifestyle we do not run back to the lifestyle that we used to live. We are not just sorry for what we did before Christ, but we no longer engage in those things, we aren’t tempted by those things, and we have over come those things.

We are all made of flesh and we will always be tempted by our flesh. That is our human desire to do things that make us feel good.

When we are in prayer, we are resisting the urge to give in to our flesh. We will not be controlled by our flesh. We are strengthened in prayer to not give in to what our bodies crave and desire

And this is a great segue to the seed of fasting, which is also how we live a repented lifestyle.

The Seed of Fasting

Fasting is not eating food for a spiritual purpose.

It is not fasting if it is not for a spiritual purpose. That’s a diet. What Jesus is telling His disciples here in Mark is that they needed to, like Jesus, spend time fasting.

Pastor Jon Tyson says of fasting,

“Fasting is designed to shift our focus from our bodies to our spirits and from our flesh to our father.”

We are in a world that has associated every moment of pleasure with the presence of food. This is why so many times people will capture their moments by also capturing what they have eaten. It is not in and of itself a bad thing, but fasting from foods is how we resist the urge to completely give in to every craving of our bodies.

Think about this for a second…

Is it OK to do what our bodies wants to do, whatever it wants to do it?

You might think of a few things that are harmless, such as - “I want to eat this almond croissant, therefore I will because I am craving it.”

But if we constantly do whatever our bodies crave we go down to harder questions.

It feels good to watch this show even though it directly conflicts with my values as a follower of Jesus. Why shouldn’t I watch this?

It feels good to flirt with this person, even though they are not my spouse. Why can’t I give in if we aren’t acting on it?

If feels good to watch this show that objectifies women. Why can’t I give in to this pleasure of my eyes and how it makes me feel?

So fasting is bringing about this resistance to giving in to our flesh and bringing it into subjection of God’s word.

Paul talked about bringing his body into discipline in Corinthians 9:27 when he wrote:

1 Corinthians 9:27 (LEB)

But I discipline my body and subjugate it, lest somehow after preaching to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Paul understood that fasting would discipline his body and not allow his fleshly hunger to control him.

In the Bible there are instances where people’s desire for food cost them everything.

We see Adam and Eve in the garden giving in to the fruit that was on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Esau gave up his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup.

Israel fantasied about going back to Egypt because of the food even though they were slaves in Egypt.

And so we turn to fasting… we do this to reorient our longings away from the flesh and back toward God.

Conclusion

When Jesus was done talking to the father about his son, Jesus commanded the bad spirit to come out of the boy. The scriptures record that the boy convulsed and threw himself to the ground once again. Those that were there thought that this boy was dead. But Jesus knew better. Jesus knew that a revival was coming. And in order for revival to come something had to die.

That boy lay there motionless until Jesus touched him at his hand and lifted that boy to his feet.

His disciples asked, “Why couldn’t we do this?” And Jesus simply replies, “You need to fast and pray.”

Jesus wasn’t speaking from strictly a scholarly perspective about prayer and fasting.

You see Jesus at the age of 30 was baptized by his cousin John.

But before Jesus would do any miracles, before he would turn water to wine, before he would call Lazarus out of the grave, before he would heal Peter’s mother in law, and before he would deliver this father’s boy, he would go to the wilderness where he would to two things - fast and pray.

If Jesus, the son of God, would enter into a season of prayer and fasting how much more should we, Lighthouse?

If Jesus felt it necessary to periodically pull away to be alone with his father in prayer on a mountain top, how much more should we, Lighthouse?

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