A Lifestyle of Revival

Acts 2:38–41 (NIV)

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”

Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

Introduction

Being a father has given me several moments where I explain to my children who I used to be. I get to go into details about my upbringing and I can’t help but smile thinking about all the different fads that became my lifestyle.

For example, my son is about to start baseball and so he is peppering me with questions about when I used to play baseball.

“Dad, what position did you play?”

“Dad, were you ever the pitcher?”

“Dad, were you any good?”

And of course, like every good father, I exaggerate just how good I was.

“Son, I was an All Star!”

That’s what we do as Dad’s don’t we? Just a little...

My boys after spending time watching the Mighty Ducks have really taken to street hockey. So naturally come the questions, “Dad, did you used to play hockey? Dad, were you any good? Dad, did Tio Jake and Tio Jordan play?”

And all these moments and questions make me reflect on who I was.

Earlier this week a friend of mine shared a post on Social Media about music in the 90’s and I was transported back to the days of Lauren Hill, the Fugees, Montel Jordan, and Bone Thugs and Harmony. It was too good to pass up so I had to share it as well.

My friend said, “It’s Bone Thugs in Harmony for me!”

I was like, me too! I still play First of the Month on the First of the Month!

Come on, where are my 90’s kids at? You remember that song…

But all of this nostalgia helps me to see how fads, music, clothes, and culture affected my life style.

Transition

And one of the things that the Bible gives to us is a seat to see what happens with the 12 Disciples that Jesus called. We get to see who they were before Jesus, who they were with Jesus, and who they were after Jesus. And today, as we talk about a Lifestyle of Revival, I want us to look at the life of Peter. He is going to be our example as we see descriptors in his life that we can apply to our life.

A Lifestyle of Revival

When I look at the life of Peter, knowing how his life ends and how it began, I can say with certainty that Peter lived a Lifestyle of Revival. He didn’t live a perfect life. No, only one person has ever lived a perfect life and it wasn’t Peter.

Let’s just reflect on Peter’s highlight reel for one second...

If there is one word that describes Peter during his time with Jesus it is inconsistent.

I know… probably not the nicest descriptor of Peter, but it’s so true! Peter was inconsistent! He was up and he was down. He has highs and he had lows.

One minute Peter would walk on water with Jesus, and the next minute Jesus is rebuking him and telling him, “Get behind me, Satan.”

One minute Jesus is telling Peter, “Satan has desired to sift you! But I have prayer that your faith wouldn’t fail you.” And in the next major scene of the Bible Peter grabs a sword and cuts the ear off of one of the men who came to arrest Jesus while he was praying in the garden.

Peter was up and down!

[TRANSITION]

But in spite of all of that, Peter would go on to live a Lifestyle of Revival.

And here are the moments that we can learn from and apply to our lives.

Set Back become Set Ups

Here is the first marker of a Lifestyle of Revival.

Our biggest set backs become our greatest set ups.

Luke 22:54-62 record a scene that shows us one of Peter’s lowest moments. For the sake of time I will not read the passage, but I will summarize it.

Jesus told Peter that he would deny him three times before morning came and the rooster crowed. Peter, of course, denied that this would happen and vowed his allegiance to Jesus until the end!

But just as Jesus predicted, Peter found himself at a bonfire in Jerusalem. He was spotted by a servant girl. She had to be no more than 12-13 years of age. She said to him, “You’re one of Jesus’ followers!”

What should have been an opportunity for Peter to proudly agree, became his greatest moment of shame as he said, “No, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

This little girl pressed him two more times.

Each time he denied him and in the process he shrunk to the lowest version of himself.

You know how people say, “I want to be the best version of me?”

Well, here at this bonfire Peter shrunk to the lowest version of himself.

When he was aware of how far he had fallen in this moment the Bible records that he went to hide and cry all alone.

Think about this for one second. He’s not just a follower of Jesus, but he is a fisherman who was a captain to other fishermen. This was not the type of guy to get rattled by a teenage girl, and yet here he was alone and crying because when the moment came to stand up for Jesus, he couldn’t do it.

But a Lifestyle of Revival doesn’t allow us to stay down.

When we fast forward to the Book of Acts, the same author Luke records this same Peter who would preach the very first sermon in the church. Jesus has now ascended into heaven. Jesus’ followers are starting to hide due to persecution, and without the protection of Jesus.

But on the Day of Pentecost, when the church was born, all the streets of Jerusalem are taken back by what is happening with Jesus’ followers as they gather to pray. So much of a commotion happened that now thousands of people are gathered where the church is and in that moment the church needed a preacher.

In that moment the church needed a leader.

In that moment someone from the 11 disciples would have to step up and do what they saw Jesus do for the last 3.5 years.

That person was Peter.

Yes, the same Peter that was crying at the hands of a teenage girl was now the person who would stand up and begin preaching to the crowd.

And just so you don’t start to believe that Peter preaching was a glamorous, Tik Tok reel, of a moment, they had just crucified and killed Jesus for his teachings.

Peter knew that if he stood up and began preaching his life was in danger. He could die just as quickly as Jesus.

But a Lifestyle of Revival begins when we acknowledge that my greatest set backs are just set ups for my greatest victories.

Yes, there will be hard times in life.

Yes, things will not go as planned.

Yes, I will have disappointment.

But God has done too much for me to remain silent.

God has done too much for me to stay down.

God has done too much for me to not seize this kind of God moment.

I will use every set back to become a set up for my greatest moments.

Revival Demands my Patience

The second marker of revival is this - Revival Demands my Patience.

Pastor Josh, those two words Revival and Patience don’t seem to go together.

And that is exactly the problem with the American, Gen X/ Millenial/ Gen Y believer. We don’t know how to wait on anyone, and that includes God.

Let me take you back to the text so that I can show you...

Acts 1:4 (NIV)

On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

When Jesus is speaking to his followers and gives them this command, there are 500 people who are present to hear this command.

And what follows is 500 people leave from where they were, and make their way to an Upper Room in Jerusalem. There they begin to pray and wait for the gift the Father promised them.

Then one day turns into two. Two turns into three.

Eventually, it’s the 9th day and nothing has happened.

The crowd has grown tired of waiting for something they don’t even know they are waiting for.

By the end of the 9th day the crowd of 500 is now down to 120.

But on the 10th day, we read the following.

Acts 2:1–2 (NIV)

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Peter was in that group.

Peter, having learned from earlier lessons with Jesus, knew that he could not get ahead of God. If Peter was going to see a revival in Jerusalem, he needed to stay and wait on the promise of the father.

And a Lifestyle of Revival demands the same of us.

So many of us cannot wait on God. We are always getting ahead of God, we don’t even pray and ask for his perfect timing, we just move accordingly to our own FLESHLY desires!

Church, this is why we fast! We fast to tell our flesh you are not in charge. It is a spiritual discipline that teaches us the principle of waiting on God.

There is a word for this that some of you need to deposit deep down inside of your spirits, and that is to ABIDE.

A lifestyle of revival is one where we get comfortable abiding in the presence of God.

In 1906 there was a revival that hit Los Angeles called the Azusa Street Revival. The descriptor of this revival was the church would come together and pray and wait until God moved the leader to begin services.

They would come together, and pray, and wait.

Why? Because revival demands that we wait on God. It demands our patience. Trusting God’s timing over our timing. Trusting that God has not forgotten about us and that we don’t need to get ahead of God.

My Availability is my Opportunity

My Availability is my Opportunity

In Acts 3 we have another story about Peter, who is our descriptor of a Lifestyle of Revival.

There’s one verse that I want to pick on, and then I will summarize the story.

Acts 3:1 (NIV)

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon.

The way that this is worded lets us know that both Peter and John had gotten into the habit of going to the temple to pray. On one occasion they encountered a man who was lame. He was carried to the temple to ask for money. On this day, this man met Peter and John. Peter seized this moment.

Let me teach on why this is so important.

There’s a saying that I believe in and it goes like this, “Luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparedness”

People say, “oh that person got lucky!”

But I believe that opportunities present themselves to us daily, and if we are prepared for the opportunity we are able to make the most of that moment. Some call it luck, but most of the time it’s more about preparedness than luck.

And I believe that likewise, God will send us opportunities.

If we do an anatomy of this opportunity it begins with prayer. Why?

Prayer positions us to hear from God.

And I’m not just talking about praying over your food or sick family member. I am talking about a lifestyle of prayer makes us sensitive to God’s voice and the Holy Spirit so that when He prompts us to do something, we are not confused by His voice.

Jesus said “My sheep know my voice.”

When our life is lived in regular communion with the Father, we will be aware of moments that he asks us to speak to that person, or pray for that person.

We can be a listening ear to someone, and suddenly God begins to tell you what to say to that person as a word of encouragement, or even a prophetic word.

Prayer positions us to hear from God, and my availability is in my yes.

Peter and John, when presented with that moment, said yes to God. They said yes to being used by God. They said yes to praying over than man. They said yes to that man’s healing.

A Lifestyle of Revival is being available to God.

God’s Approval over Man’s Approval

We seek God’s Approval over Man’s Approval.

When we get to Acts 5, Peter and the disciples are being pressed for preaching about the resurrection of Jesus. The religious leaders are denying that this world-changing event has happened, and the 500 who witnessed the resurrection of Jesus are growing in momentum.

Peter constantly found himself in trouble, and having been arrested on more than one occasion now, the religious leaders are trying a reasoned approach with him. Peter’s response is clear.

Acts 5:29 (LEB)

But Peter and the apostles answered and said, “It is necessary to obey God rather than men!

A Lifestyle of Revival demands that we always follow God. We must always follow his word.

We are headed into a post-modern culture where we will regularly be taught what goes against scripture.

We will be shown from every angle lifestyles that are contradictory to God’s word.

Behavior that was once against the values of our culture are now being normalized.

Eventually, there will come a time, when your adherence to God’s word will paint you as intolerant, or even a bigot.

Listen to me church… we have not changed, the world has changed.

God’s word is unchanging. It has not moved in thousands of years. And yet, as culture moves and sways, it asks of the Jesus followers to move with it.

But we must stand on our ground. We must stand on God’s word. We must continue in the way of Jesus.

We are living our life to please a person. And if the world around us rejects Jesus, then we must reject the world. We are living in faith and allegiance to King Jesus.

This is what Peter and the disciples did, and this is what we must do as the church today.

This is not a movement but it is a way of life. We live to please Jesus.

A Lifestyle of Revival is a Prophetic Lifestyle

Here is the last marker of a Lifestyle of Revival.

A Lifestyle of Revival is a Prophetic Lifestyle

When we catch up to Peter in the Book of Acts, it is in Chapter 10. In this chapter we have perhaps Peter’s greatest contribution to the church, and this is considering his first sermon

But in Acts 10, Peter is at his friends house, Simon. And when he is at Simon’s house he is praying and the Bible says that he fell into a trance and God began to speak to him. It’s different than just God telling him to do something. God is giving him a prophetic word that would shape the future of the church.

This word was so great, that Peter needed to come back to Jerusalem, share it with the other leaders of the church and come to a resolution of how this word impacted the church.

I’m not talking about the church in Jerusalem, I am talking about the “C” Church that we are a part of and that has existed for 2,000 years after Pentecost.

That’s why it was a prophetic word. It changed the entire trajectory of the church, and subsequently it has changed the world.

And I believe that God continues to call us into the a prophetic lifestyle where we release words that may not change the world, but they change someones world.

Conclusion

I think about my life, and I think about a prophetic word that was spoken over me.

As I’ve said before, I was a musician in the church growing up. I was at a point where after High School, I was taking on more responsibility with my musicianship. I started taking classes in college about sound and audio engineering. I was learning more about production. I was not just playing my instrument, but starting to do what we now call a Music Director in the church. We didn’t have that language at the time, but this is what I was doing.

I remember we had our Youth Camp and I was in charge of making sure the instruments, band, and sound equipment got to camp. I even drove my Mom’s minivan with all of the sound gear and my drums in it.

At this camp, I received a word about my future, and music wasn’t in it.

It completely redirected me. It changed the trajectory of my life.

And as a result, I can say that I am here today, and you are here today, because of that word.

That’s what the prophetic has the potential to do.

God can speak one word over a life and it will radically change everything.

And Lighthouse, God wants to use you to bring these types of prophetic words over people.

How does that happen? We need to live a Lifestyle of Revival.

Revival is not just a sermon series and it’s not just our theme for this year. Revival is not something that we do, but it is something that God does. It’s something that God does in us. And if is something that God does through us.

If you want revival in your life, lets live this lifestyle.