Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

This morning we are on the cusp of something that I hope and pray is to be a big deal.

I challenged our group at Prayer Meeting this past Wednesday night to join me in praying for revival in our nation.

I am asking specifically for us to pray for a movement of God that is bigger than we can contain and that is the work of the Holy Spirit poured out in abundance on us.

We desperately need revival.

I mentioned that if you look around at every one of our meetings, we have empty seats.

That means there is room in the Father’s House for someone else to experience the grace of God.

I am going to tell you this morning that every week, I come down in this room and walk up and down the aisles begging God for revival.

I know that the Bible says to not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing and that when you pray to go into your closet and pray that your Father who hears in secret might reward you.

I believe that with all my heart.

But Jesus also said that where two or more are praying and agree on something and ask for it in Jesus’ name, we will have what we ask for.

The Bible says that God delights to give His children good gifts.

I can’t think of a better gift than an outpouring of the Holy Spirit!

It’s been far too long since the wildfires of the Holy Spirit burned the underbrush of our lives and got rid of the junk and the garbage!

I want you to join in with me and pray.

I have been praying and fasting for revival for about a week now.

I ask you to set aside some time to do the same with me.

I ask you to hunger for God.

Hunger and thirst for His righteousness.

It can be one meal that you fast and pray through for this.

I can be a whole day.

I ask you to pray with me that the Holy Spirit would move in our church in power and in our community in power!

I want to tell you today that God will answer these prayers if we will pray!

I was walking these aisle praying for this on Wednesday and I asked our crowd at prayer meeting to pray as well.

I had absolutely no idea what was happening while I was praying, but I want to share some encouraging and hopeful news with you today.

How many of you have seen anything about what is going on at Asburry College in Kentucky?

There are reports coming out that revival has broken out on campus.

It started on Wednesday in their chapel service and they have continued to people staying in that chapel since then.

They are worshiping and praising God and people are taking notice.

N!ow, I don’t know what will become of this revival at Asburry, but I pray it is the epicenter and spark of a great awakening that is about to sweep our nation.

It is due time!

God moves in every generation and revivals are a big part of God’s plan to replenish His church and His pulpits.

We desperately need revival.

We need to hunger and thirst after righteousness and wouldn’t you know it that God just so happened to orchestrate that this topic is what we would be covering this Sunday morning!

So this morning, let me read our text to you.

I want you to remain seated and listen as I read it and if God will let your body, I want to ask you to get on your knees as we pray.

Pray

1.

We must have a hunger for God

Jesus tells us that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be satisfied.

What does it mean to hunger and thirst after righteousness?

First, we must understand that hunger and thirst are natural bodily reactions that are God-given to help us satisfy a real need.

My wife and I were watching a movie the other night and one of the characters was using a dating app to find a date.

The guy shows up and he is doing intermittent fasting.

Have you ever heard of that?

It’s become a popular dieting phenomenon, because people restrict their eating to a certain time window and they can still eat whatever they want and lose weight.

What really happens is you are restricting your calories and this leads to weight loss.

Anyways, the guy is explaining to his date that he is intermittent fasting and while he is doing this he is falling asleep because he has no energy!

The body was made to eat food.

Food is a necessity.

Jesus uses hunger and thirst as a way of teaching us that we need God and His righteousness.

We need a relationship with God just as much as we need food.

There are many people that are hungering for this relationship and they may not realize it.

They may be trying to satisfy it with something else, and they keep falling empty.

Think about the woman at the well in John 4.

Jesus asks the woman for a drink and she questions why he would want to have anything to do with her.

He tells her this:

Jesus was not talking about physical water, though that’s what the woman thought he was referring to.

She had to come in the middle of the day to draw water because she was considered unclean and unfaithful.

We later find out that she had five husbands and was now living with a different man.

It’s safe to say that this woman was thirsty for something that her soul was not able to find.

Jesus promised to satisfy that thirst with living water.

Water is precious in the middle east and often people have to dig big pits called cisterns to capture the water that falls on the ground and runs off during the short rainy seasons.

This water will sit there for a long time and it becomes stale.

Imagine taking a glass of water at your house and filling it up with water and coming back to drink it a week later!

Anytime water was found from a spring or well, it was considered to be living water.

Jesus promises this woman living water, but what He is referring to is salvation.

He promises her that He will satisfy her thirst.

We will come back to that part in a minute, but first we need to see that the soul is thirsty!

Jesus referred to thirst again in John 7 at a festival that was celebrated in the Fall of the year called the Feast of Booths.

Jews would make shelters and cover them with palm branches and live in them for a week to commemorate their time in the wilderness.

At the end of the feast it was a tradition to offer a drink offering on the altar.

This offering was known as the libation offering.

The libation offering represented the Jewish end-time belief that living water would flow throughout the land from under the temple in Jerusalem during the Messianic kingdom.

It’s interesting for those people who don’t believe in a physical kingdom of Christ on this earth that the Jews did and still do believe that this is not some spiritual kingdom, but will be a reality.

In Ezekiel 47, we have a description of this river of living water.

Pause to give time to turn in their Bibles.

Did you see that?

Everything this river touches is made alive, even the Dead Sea is going to spring back to life.

Now, let me tell you about the Dead Sea.

It’s eerie!

There is this huge sea in southern Israel and it is the lowest place on earth that is on land.

It is a place where water flows in, but it can’t flow out, so the water just evaporates.

It become incredibly salty so that anybody can float in the water.

It’s a weird phenomenon.

You literally can’t make yourself sink!

But what is also weird is that on this big sea, you see no boats and no recreation activity and no life!

The sea is too salty for boats.

It will eat them up.

I only saw one the whole time we were there.

There are no fisheries, though if you didn’t know it, you would think you were looking at a huge freshwater lake.

The water that flows in is actually fresh water!

I believe that God made this sea on purpose to illustrate this point.

I believe He intentionally gave Ezekiel this vision to show him (and us) that anything we try to pour into our lives to fill it up besides a hunger and thirst for God and for His righteousness is going to just make us stagnant and leave us dead inside.

Now, based on the description that Ezekiel gives, I don’t think this is just a symbolic vision that he sees for the last days.

I do believe that there is going to be a miraculous flow of water that is going to come out of the temple and it really is going to restore the land and flow into the sea and there will really be fisherman on the lake and shore during the reign of Jesus on this earth.

However, I also believe that this is a symbol of what the Holy Spirit does through faith in Christ as well.

Listen to what Jesus said on the last day of the Feast of Booths when the water was poured out on the altar.

Don’t tell me that God did not inspire the Bible!

Don’t tell me that God did not orchestrate everything in this world and in His Word from Genesis to Revelation!

Jesus offers Himself to all who are thirsty.