Repentance that leads to Revival

What is repentance?

Real penitence ;

From Brokenness to Blessing: The Path of True Repentance

Summary: This sermon focuses on the essential role of repentance in the believer's life and its power to bring about spiritual revival, highlighting how genuine repentance is not just about turning away from sin but also turning towards God with a humble heart.

Application: By understanding and embracing true repentance, Christians can experience a personal revival that fosters deeper intimacy with God, restoration in their spiritual lives, and a renewed commitment to live according to His will, impacting their communities positively.

Teaching: This sermon teaches that repentance is a vital aspect of the Christian faith that involves both recognizing and turning away from sin and returning to God, which can lead to profound spiritual renewal and revival both personally and corporately.

How this passage could point to Christ: The theme of repentance points to Christ as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, whose death and resurrection provide the opportunity for a genuine relationship with God, emphasizing that through Christ, we are empowered to repent and revived by His grace.

Big Idea: True repentance is the catalyst for spiritual revival, transforming hearts and communities through the grace of Jesus Christ.

Recommended Study: Consider using your Logos library to examine historical revivals and their theological underpinnings, focusing on texts that discuss repentance in the New Testament, particularly the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Explore commentaries that address the socio-cultural implications of repentance during biblical times, as well as modern interpretations and applications that may resonate with your audience.

1. Humble Hearts, Heavenly Help

2 Chronicles 7:14

Perhaps, consider how genuine repentance as described in this passage involves a humbling of oneself, seeking God's face, and turning from wicked ways. This process not only restores our relationship with God but also has the power to heal families, churches, and communities. You could focus on how this call for repentance leads to divine blessing and spiritual revival, highlighting the importance of humility and prayer. Emphasize that it's through Christ's work that we are given both the grace and the power to turn back to God fully.

2. Refreshing Repentance, Renewed Revival

Acts 3:19-20

Maybe, explore how Peter's call to repentance in this passage emphasizes that times of refreshing come from the Lord to those who choose to turn away from their sins. You could focus on how repentance leads to personal and communal revival, providing a fresh encounter with the presence of God. This passage highlights the promise of refreshment and renewal through Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice enables us to repent and be restored. Consider addressing how repentance opens doors to experiencing God's grace anew in our lives and communities.

3. Wholehearted Return, Wholehearted Revival

Joel 2:12-13

You could highlight the urgency and wholeheartedness of the repentance that God calls for through the prophet Joel, emphasizing that true repentance is marked by a sincere return to God with all our hearts. Perhaps focus on the promise of divine mercy and revival that follows such repentance, demonstrating how God is gracious and compassionate. Point out that this points to the transformative power of the Gospel, where Jesus' sacrifice assures us of His unending grace as we turn back to Him, leading to revival in our lives.

4. Prodigal's Path to Peace

Luke 15:17-24

Consider delving into the story of the prodigal son, using it to show the redemptive power of true repentance and the joy of returning to the Father. This can illustrate how repentance brings us from spiritual ruin to restoration. It provides a vivid picture of God's readiness to forgive and celebrate our return due to Christ’s completed work on the cross. You might focus on how this narrative provides hope for individual renewal through genuine repentance, reinforcing the theme that turning to God transforms lives profoundly.

sorrow or deep contrition for sin, as an offense and dishonor to God,a violation of his holy law, and the basest ingratitude towards a Being of infinite benevolence. This is called evangelical repentance, and is accompanied and followed by amendment of life.

> Peter was repentant when Jesus first called him. LUKE 5:8-10

But to go even farther back than that we see isaiah 6:1-7, we Isaiah seeing the Lord sitting upon a throne and Isaiah seeing his sin in the light of who God is, then eagerly confessing his shortcomings

>John the Baptist came preaching a message of repentance that would lead to salvation, and Jesus shortly afterward preached the same message and fulfilled it.

Repentance should be a state of brokenness before a holy God, who can and is willing to forgive, repentance should be life altering in the life of the believer.

Repentance is the ultimate breeding ground for revival in the life of the church, it is the only way we can come before God in unadulterated humility and meekness.

Reconciliation with God cannot and will not happen unless we have are truly penitent towards our sin in confession to God.( God sees the heart)

The whole of psalm 51 is based on repentance and David’s attitude toward his sin. He lamented over his sin. Crying out HAVE MERCY UPON ME OH GOD!!!

See David was asking the Lord to quicken him. 3 things to look at: first wash me, second create in me, and renew a right spirit within me……… David was asking for the Lord to revive him or give him revival.

The western churches of today do not have revival because we are unwilling to seek God, we are utterly defiant when it comes to our pursuit of wanting a relationship with Him. We do not have revival because a majority of us do not have a true repentance, a truly sorrowful and broken heart over our sin. How can we expect God to effectuate our spiritual nature when we are unwilling to contend with our flesh. We too easily give in to our hearts desire, but don't you

know ;the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked, who can know it? Well God, He can know it and as a matter of fact, Does Know it!

YOU! Cannot fake genuine brokenness!

What is Revival???

> Return, recall, or recovery to life from death, or apparent death

>Recall,return or recovery from a state of neglect,oblivion,obscurity,or depression

>Return or recall from a state of languor

>MY FAVORITE {RENEWED AND MORE ACTIVE ATTENTION TO RELIGION;AN AWAKENING OF MEN TO THEIR SPIRITUAL CONCERNS.

In the New Testament we see revival first happen in Acts 2:38-40

Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit said these words

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.”(Be separated).

These were the words spoken of by the Prophet Joel, and  has thus been filled unto today! It goes full circle and starts with repentance. How are we to be quickened if we don't know at the first, we are dead!

I want to give you some perspective on why being renewed, quickened, revived is so important. We are living in perilous times, and have been since Jesus ascended and to be quite honest even before so.We are living in a time of war,confusion,famine(both physical and spiritual). But the time of God's urgency started when His Son died and ascended. The clock started ticking, when his son left this earth and exacted this very book some of you are holding in your hands, His word left for us and to us. His reminder that His word will stand and therefore be here until we are but a vapor. He gave us the way, He showed us the way, He is the way. “ HOW CAN WE NEGLECT SO GREAT A SALVATION”!!!

The Old Testament Prophet Ezekiel was brought by way of the spirit unto a valley of dry bones, to the  bodies of the people of Israel, having Ezekiel prophesy unto the wind. Essentially God was asking Ezekiel to pray for the Spirit to come upon the people of Israel and revive them! Essentially promising to bring them back from exile out of Babylon. Verse 14 of ch. 37 “And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord”

Although this passage was written for and about Israel, it doesn’t mean we can’t apply it to ourselves. When we are restored unto God, he gives us a new Spirit and a new heart, the very same thing that king David prayed for in Psalm 51. We have an even more sure word of prophecy than king David or the prophet Ezekiel had in their lifetime, written down and preserved for us in the words of his servant Peter( 2 Peter 1:19-21 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.)

Key things to remember:

>God wills for us to come to repentance in the hope of revival(being brought from death to life)

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

>God wants to quicken us “21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight”

>Repentance is a gift. Acts 11:18  “When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. “

Why Is Revival Important in the Body of Christ?

>it brings forth edification( a building up, in a moral and religious sense;instruction;improvement and progress of the mind, in knowledge and morals or in faith and holiness.

>Produces the desiring of God and a godly life.

>Makes your light shine forth brighter

> It's contagious! When revival happens in the home, it spills out into the church, the church into the community and the community into the world.

SUPPORTING SCRIPTURES(REPENTANCE)

> 2 Chronicles 7:14

> Ezekiel 14:6

> Ezekiel 18:30.

> Mark 1:4,

> Mark 1:15

> Acts 11:18

> 2 Timothy 2:25

> 2 Peter 3:9

SUPPORTING SCRIPTURE FOR (REVIVAL)

Luke 15:11-32

Psalm 85:6-8

Isaiah 57:15

Psalm 119:25

Luke 15:11-32