The Evidence of Revival

Acts 2:41-47

Revival! The Evidence of Revival

Message 4 of 4

(Read Scripture)

Several weeks ago, I shared with my family about being asked to do revival services for this church.

And when I told them the news, my youngest son asked me, what is revival? How do you truly answer that question? How do you explain to any one what revival is?

How would we even know if revival was taking place? Well, to answer that question, we must really go to the source.

Now in the book of Acts, we find the early church, a congregation of people that just loved the Lord and wanted to worship him.

They weren’t caught up in all the politics that have made their way into the Lord’s house, they weren’t focused on all the traditions that we have come to know, they were just happy to give God glory for what he had been doing in their lives.

I mean when you read this passage you find the picture of what the church is to look like. Now this is what we are asking the Lord to do for us right now. To bring revival, and friends if we want revival we need to see the evidence of revival.

Now this passage gives us the objective, it illustrates to us what really matters. And if we would just take the blinders off of our eyes, minds, and hearts, friends we would see the evidence of revival here as well.

So, what does the Lord want this church to look like, what is the evidence of Revival? Well friends I would like for you to see in these people the evidence of Revival.

They were Receptive (vs 41)

· What do we find in this verse? They gladly received his word.

· Just before these verses, we find that Peter is preaching to the people about the need to accept the Lord as their savior. He preached a Holy Ghost filled message and how did the people respond to it?

· They were receptive. They were glad to hear it.

· Folks a church that is going to be revived and thrive has to be a church that is going to be receptive to the Word of God.

· Many of our homes at the front door, probably have a welcome mat.

· In like fashion, our hearts should be putting out the welcome mat for the Word of God, that we are welcoming what the Lord has to say to us.

· With each book, chapter, and verse we find the bread of God given to us and to our soul to nourish us.

· Well friends, we can’t turn our noses up at the Word of God, we have got to be receptive to it.

· Jesus said that man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. – Matthew 4:4

· Now the Word of God has been written to give us doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

· Are we receptive to what the Word of God says?

They were Resolute (vs 42)

· Now they were receptive, but friends they were also resolute.

· Look at what verse 42 says, they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship.

· Now when the scripture says that they were steadfast, they had their minds focused. And there were two things they were resolute on.

· They were resolute on doctrine.

· A little boy didn’t understand what the word doctrine meant. Somebody asked him, “What is doctrine?” He said, “That’s what folks need when they’re sick.” I say amen. We need a lot of it.

· Friend doctrine is what we believe when it comes to the word of God.

· You ask some people what they believe and we may be surprised where they may take us.

· Friends we must have our minds made up in what we believe. Now there are a lot of doctrines out there in the world, but there is only one truth.

· Ephesians 4:14 “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”

· Now friend they were resolute on fellowship.

· Friends a sign of a healthy church, is the fellowship that church has.

· Now what is fellowship? Well for us we think it is just eating together. I mean we see that these in the early church broke bread together.

· Fellowship is more than that. Fellowship is being in-tuned with one another.

· You know the piano is a beautiful instrument, when a piano is in tune it can make wonderful music.

· Do you know it is virtually impossible to tune a piano from another piano. But if you get a tuning fork, and tune that piano with it, and tune another piano with that fork, do you know what happens, they harmonize with one another, they fellowship.

· When you’re in tune with Jesus, and I’m in tune with Jesus, then, friend, you’re going to be in tuned with me, and I am going to be in tune with you.

· When we come together, and we harmonize with one another, we will fellowship!

They were Respectful (vs 43)

· The third thing that we find is that they were respectful to the Lord.

· God was doing a mighty work in this church, and they saw this, and they had a fear and respect for the Lord.

· Now I believe we ought to have a reverence and respect, an “awe” for who our Lord is.

· So, how do we reverence the Lord, we tell the children don’t run, sit there quiet, were a suit, sing a certain way, we put all these rules that we think are the way we are suppose to revere the Lord.

· You know what I think Jesus does in regards to this? I think he just shakes his head, back and forth and says they still haven’t gotten it yet.

· Jesus wants us to respect his authority, but friends that doesn’t mean that we have to stiff around him.

· Being ridged is not reverence.

· Now these people saw the mighty hand of God move though the apostles, I mean miracles were taking place.

· And friends, we can see these miracles still take place. Let someone who has struggled with drugs, find a true encounter with Christ and they walk away from drugs that’s a miracle.

· I stand amazed in the presence Of Jesus the Nazarene And wonder how He could love me A sinner condemned, unclean

O How marvelous, O how wonderful And my song will ever be O How marvelous, O how wonderful Is my Saviour's love for me

They were Resembling (vs 44)

· Now here is how we know if the church has been revived, they were together and had all thing common.

· Friend, we are not to be looking how we are different, but how we are in common.

· You ever heard someone say we have nothing in common. What are they really saying?

· They are saying that our relationship is not going to work because we are too different.

· What should a church member look like? Do we think they should be white? Do we think they should live in a certain area? Do we think they should have a certain income?

· Listen, when it comes to family of God, there is only one thing that matters, and that we all have it in common, and that is Jesus.

· Jesus is our common denominator.

They were Reliant (vs 45)

· The next piece of evidence of a church that is revived is where the people are reliant on one another.

· Look at what we see in verse 45 – the people were selling their possession and goods to help others.

· Listen a church that is going to be godly and grow, needs to be a church where we are concerned for one another.

· Do you have compassion for your fellow brother or sister? When we see them in need are we ready and willing to help.

· You know, at a funeral, when tragedy strikes, people will often say, if you need anything just let me know.

· How pious of us to say, don’t wait for them to have to ask you for help, just help them.

· Listen, if we are God’s people, we have got to know that we have each other, no matter what.

They were Reconciled (vs 46)

· Now here in verse 46 we find the evidence of a church revived by the evidence that they were reconciled one to another.

· When are we the church? On Sundays and Wednesdays? No, we are the church everyday.

· You ever been to Walmart, the grocery store, or anywhere outside of church and see someone we go to church with?

· What do you do? Oh goodness, there is Sister JoJo. Oh I hope she didn’t see me. I don’t want to talk with her.

· Listen the church is the church 24-7, look around at these people, don’t you want to be with them all the time? LOL

· Well, listen, the church needs to encourage one another daily, that we are welcomed on one another’s home, and that we are glad to see each other and that we have the same heart.

They were Rejoiceful (vs 47)

· Now here is the last piece of evidence of a revival. And its in the last verse, the people were rejoiceful.

· Do you get excited when God is moving? Do you know as the church we should be going out there and showing this love to others.

· When people see the joy of the Lord on us, they see something different.

· Listen here was a church that the people in the community saw, they saw them praising God, looking after one another, and having genuine love.

· Do you know the devil sure has isolated us from this kind of worship. We stay exactly the way we are, and we just expect something to happen.

· How can it, if we refuse to be who God called us to be.

· Now let me ask you, do you want your church to grow? We say yes? How much do you want to see the church grow?

· Well how about every pew filled. That’s good, but there are still more people out there.

· Well, I don’t want it to grow to much. I want to keep it like family.

· Well if the Lord is our focus, it shouldn’t matter how many come, our love for the Lord is shown to them regardless.

· It is estimated by some that the church here in six months time had grown from 12 all the way to 250,000 members.

· When is the church big enough? When every one of the billions of people on this earth know Jesus Christ.