Revival Begins with me Sunday night Version

Revival Begins with Me!

Scripture: Jonah 1-3

Good evening!

Glad you are here with us tonight.

Before I get started let us humbly go to the Lord in Prayer.

Tonight, God laid in on my heart to bring you this message: Revival begins with me.

This thing that is happening named the Asbury Revival, other college campuses in the U.S and in Uganda and the Philippines which people are calling a rival is interesting.

I find it interesting because what see is that the world and the church now defines revival as a time of revitalizing the spiritual life of its members and but also to gain new followers.

However, the Bible teaches us that revival is something a little different. I like what Pastor Tony said this morning as we were talking about – he said it is on out pouring of the spirit. Well lets see what the Word of God says about this subject.

If you have your Bibles and I hope you do, If you do, open it with me to the Old Testament book of Jonah, Jonah chapter 1, Jonah is in the last quarter of the Old Testament. You can find Jonah by working backwards from Matthew 8 books.

I believe that these days is the most crucial time to be seeking God the most for revival for ourselves.

The truth about us, if we want to see transformation outside these walls, then there has to be transformation inside these walls first. If you want to see revitalization come to this church it begins right here with you.

That is why our title tonight is: Revival Begins with me.

Well, if you are there in Jonah, begin reading with me from chapter 1 verse 1.

This is the Word of God and It begins like this:

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai (AM IT TIE), saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 4 But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.

5 Then the mariners were afraid; and every man cried out to his god, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep. 6 So the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God; perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish.”

7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Please tell us! For whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”

9 So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. 11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous.

12 And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.”

13 Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. 14 Therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, “We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows.

17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me. “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice. 3 For You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. 4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God. 7 “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple.

8 “Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy. 9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.”

10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Chapter 3 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. 4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?

10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it”.

I don’t know about you but I am fascinated by this story of Jonah, not because of the fish, but rather how Jonah reacted to God’s command and how God brought revival to Jonah, then to the city of Nineveh.

Notice with me; Jonah had to be revived so that Nineveh could also be revived.

Which brings us to the truth to go:

TRUE REVIVAL COMES WHEN WE CHANGE OUR FOCUS FROM US TO GOD.

This is an important story about revival. But before we get to what Jonah’s story teaches us I think its necessary to talk first about the misnomers of revival and what Biblical revival is.

Let me say this the word revival is what I call a “suggestive word” in the Christian community. It has its base definition, but most times people have their own interpretation of what a revival is, where the revival should be and what it should do. Many want to suggest their interpretation of a revival.

Let me say that revival is not- A big white tent, a special evangelist who come for a specific time and or a specific theme. It doesn’t come only during the spring or the fall. Yet these are all things that we believe attribute to a Revival. These are things that describe in our minds what a revival is all about and are often planned for.

But, true revival is a biblical truth which is given by God and is sought out by God’s people. For example:

Isaiah 57:15 “For the High and Exulted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy says this: I live in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the oppressed.”

The writer of Psalm 85:6-7 asked God: “Will you not revive us again so that Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your faithful love, Lord and give us Your salvation”.

So, we find that revival is something that is given by God, and it is sought out by God’s people.

Now, the word revival originates from the Hebrew language. Its definition means to bring back to life, to restore to consciousness or to restore to a current condition. When used in the Biblical context revival means restoration, rejuvenation, or renewal of interest after spiritual neglect. It comes as a restoration to the spiritual life of a person or group of people.

We see this through Jonah’s eyes, He was restored and in turn the people of Nineveh were restored as well.

Now to understand it more we must understand to be revived, you must have had something to begin with.

Do you follow me? For example, if you die, the paramedics try to revive you back to the condition of life. Understand this, those without Christ will not and cannot be spiritually revived because they don’t have the life and the Light of Christ to begin with.

However Salvation can come during a revival, but in the biblical context revival comes to those who already know God.

Jonah was a prophet of God. God spoke directly to Jonah. Yet as we look into Jonah’s story, we find that the prophet Jonah only cared about his own self, his own feelings, He only cared about the outcome that he wanted for the people of Nineveh. Now Nineveh was known for its cruelty, they were enemies to Israel and Jonah didn’t like them very much. But God gave His prophet a command, a job, a mission to do, but because of what Jonah felt for the people of Nineveh, he decided to do what he wanted. His focus wasn’t on God. His focus was on himself. And isn’t that what we do sometimes? We care more about what we want than what God wants. If I do this, then I won’t be able to do that.

If I do what God wants me to do, then I won’t be able to have my life. Just be aware that if you have professed Christ in your life, then its not your life, you belong to God.

But listen, you won’t ever change your focus from you to God, Revival won’t come until the pain of change outweighs the pain you are in.

Jonah is locked away in fish prison, His pain of where he was outweighed his own personal agenda and feelings.

So how can we unlock personal spiritual revival? Well, Jonah’s story teaches us a three-step process to unlock this revival not just in ourselves, but also the church:

Step one to spiritual revival is- Get real with yourself:

You know where you are spiritually. You can try to pass it off as other things if you like, but you know whether if you are following God. You just have to get real with yourself.

Chapter one is all about playing hide and seek- Jonah is running from God, trying to go somewhere where God wasn’t and hiding from Him while he was getting there.

Notice that look at verse 3 Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, from the Lord’s presence.

The Storm arose and where was Jonah found? Verse 5 in the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen asleep.

Folks let me say that you cannot hide from God- God is omnipresent – meaning that God is present everywhere at the same time. You see, Jonah thought that he was slick, instead of doing what God told him he went the other way to get away from God.

And Jonah caught the first thing going the other way. Tarshish was 2500 miles by sea in the complete other direction. When the storm came the captain found him and said get up and call out to your God. Meanwhile the sailors cast lot and it fell on Jonah.

Here is the thing, when you are not right spiritually with God, when you are running from God, you might think it is a secret, that you are the only one who knows it. You cannot hide from God, and you cannot hide from people. The truth, the people closest to you know that you are running. More people know it than you know. And listen you are not only hurting yourself, but you are hurting others around you as well.

Those sailors were terrified for their lives, they threw the cargo off the ship, they thought they would die, they even tried to still save Jonah by trying to row the ship to land unsuccessfully.

Jonah had to get real with himself- verse 12 He said 12 And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.”

God used the storm in Jonah’s life to make him get real with himself. What storm are going through in your life, how is God getting your attention?

Here is the thing you don’t have to get real with God because God already knows that its real. You need to be real with yourself and to turn yourself around to Him? Your focus needs to change from you to Him.

Revival can come, but first you have to get real with yourself.

The second step to spiritual revival is- once you get real with yourself, step two get right with God.

You have to get real with yourself, to know where you are so that you can get right with God.

At the end of chapter one Jonah is swallowed by God’s fish, the whole second chapter is about Jonah getting right with God.

Jonah finds himself in the belly of a fish and was there for considerable time, the Bible says that he was there three days and three nights. He had a lot of time to think. A lot to think about things like; what got him in the situation? Or maybe he was asking himself; how am I still alive? Maybe he was walking back and forth kicking the skeletons of fish or whatever else the big fish ate. We don’t know, but one thing we do know and the thing that Jonah knew was that God made the storm because of his disobedience and that’s how he ended up where he was and the only thing that he could do was to cry out to God.

The Bible says in Psalm 34:6 “the poor man cried and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles”

How desperate was Jonah? He was eaten by a fish waiting to be digested.

Look in verse 2 he says “I called out to the Lord because of my affliction and He answered me. Out from the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice”

Verse 4 “Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.”

Verse 7 “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple.”

Verse 9 “But I will sacrifice to You with a voice of thanksgiving, I will pay what I have vowed.”

Verse 10 “So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out onto dry land.”

Jonah was as good as dead and God restored and revived him. Jonah acknowledged his wrongdoing, disobedience and sought for forgiveness from God. God gave Jonah a second chance to make things right.

You know what I have come to know; we are all like Jonah.

You know something else? We have a God of second chances. We find several times in Scripture the principle of the Lord coming to an individual a second time. Take the case of Abraham. God told him to leave his country and people and go to a land that He would show him. But on his way, he decided to stop at Haran for a considerable time and might have stayed there if God hadn’t spoken to him a second time.

Or what about Peter? Peter had told Jesus that no matter what should happen, he would not desert the Him. Jesus told Peter that before morning he would deny Him three times, and that’s what Peter did. What should be done with Peter?

Should he be disqualified from future service? Peter repented, He got right with Jesus and he was restored when Jesus came to him after the resurrection and said, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17).

I LOVE THAT GOD IS A SECOND CHANCE GOD! I have needed a second, third, fourth chances in a lot in situations, especially following His direction.

What about you? Maybe you are here today thinking that God won’t give you another chance – or – maybe you hoping for another chance. God is willing to give you a second chance right now today, he might be disciplining you in some way or nudging you like He did with Jonah.

But if we are brought to a place of repentance God will give us a second chance. He is willing to revive, to restore us.

This is the greatness example of unmerited grace that God gives us- like Jonah we deserve nothing, but when we get right with God, He restore us and gives us everything, even when we ran from Him.

Psalm 77:1-2 says, “I cried out to God with my voice—To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me.”

God will hear you in your moans and cries, He is waiting to revive you.

FOR TRUE REVIVAL TO COME WE MUST CHANGE OUR FOCUS FROM US TO GOD.

Step one – GET REAL WITH YOURSELF!

Step two- GET RIGHT WITH GOD!

Finally Step three- GET UP AND GO!

When we get real with ourselves- get right with God then we must get up and go.

In other words, get up shake the dust yourself off and keep the mission moving.

At the end of chapter one Jonah is swallowed by the fish. The end of chapter 2 Jonah has now been thrown up by the fish and has come clean with God.

Side note have you ever wondered what Jonah smelled like? Three days and nights in the fish then puked out. Maybe God has is making a point that if you run from Him, you won’t come out smelling like roses!

Three times the words GET UP are used in these three chapters, the words GOT UP, has been used three times as well.

Jonah has been revived and now chapter three is all about the radical obedience of Jonah.

Notice chapter 3:1-3 “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.”

Now notice what happens:

1. Jonah took the command seriously. He Got up and went and proclaimed the message of God. In all fairness the message wasn’t that long in fact it was only 7 words long and only 5 words in the Hebrew “In 40 days Nineveh will be destroyed”

2. The people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest even to the least of them. When the word came to the king, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. What did the people believe? Who did they believe? The Bible tells us that the people believed God. And when they turned from their sin and got with God, God answered.

That is what is needed today. For the Christian communities to experience revival and then to take the message to the world. God is a mission minded God who sends His people to do His work.

In the New Testament we find some interesting parallels with the words Get up and Go- first we find that on several occasions when Jesus healed a person he often said Get up and go – get up and take your mat, we also find that of the last words that Jesus choose to speak to His disciples was to Go.

Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”

We need be a people who when we experience the unmerited grace of God, when we are healed of the sin against God, we get up and go do the work of the Lord.

This is twofold;

1. It means to go out and to tell others of the Gospel. Second it also means to get up off your duff and be the person God is calling you to

2. be, to use the gifts that the Holy Spirit has anointed you with for the betterment of the church. When revival comes, we must get up and go.

The truth is many before us has made revival into a production of worldly things. That it is an experience rather than the true work of God. However, true revival is a spiritual restoration so that you will go and do the very work of God.

Think about this: You know a lightening bug? Well, if God can make that little bugs butt light up, think about what He can do in you.

Folks listen God’s work will never be completed until Jesus returns. But in this time during a great spiritual renewal, you must get up and go.

Remember that TRUE REVIVAL COMES WHEN WE CHANGE OUR FOCUS FROM US TO GOD

Get real, Get right, and Get going.

Invitation.