Sermon Tone Analysis

Outline

Introduction:

Remind new people in class who I am

Prayer for God to do something supernatural in our Church

Point of lesson today - I want us, men, ready for whatever God has in store for us

Revival

What is it?

Keller’s Explanation - Revival occurs as a group of people who on the whole, think they already know the gospel discover they do not really or fully know it, and by embracing the gospel, they cross over into living faith.

Keller explains first signs of revival - When nominal Church members begin to realize that they never fully understood the gospel, they experience a new living relationship with Christ, and these early adopters start to stir up other “sleeping” members in the congregation........

Keller explains how non-churched join in - The non-churched in the community around them start to see this genuine life transformation, they can see a beautiful alternative to the world

But as you see, it really starts with the people in the Church, the people sitting in the pews, in the classes right now.

It starts with the people who think they know but don’t really know, the people who may think they are active but are really asleep.

I hear this and I get so excited, I was once asleep, I was one of those people who thought I knew, but I did not really know.

And let me tell you, we have an army of men, just like that, sitting in our pews each week..........just ready to be activated for battle.

I want to talk about what has to happen, what happens to take a man from asleep to active, what conditions are normally present when we see God act in an incredible way.

Background of story of Nehemiah

Give background story of Nehemiah

Assyrian to Babylonian to Persian

Ezra had gone back to rebuild the Temple, some people had been able to go back to Jerusalem from their exile, but in small bands

Nehemiah went back to rebuild the wall

Incredible challenges and incredible productivity to be able to rebuild this wall in such a short amount of time

Once the wall is built

Ezra reads from the book of the law (chapter 8)

The people bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground ()

Teachers explained the law to people and they celebrated

Went into this 22 day festival

They have a seven day feast , there was much rejoicing and joy

Read

Read

Question for groups - If you had to pick two things in this passage that look radically different than what a “passive” Christian walk would look like, what would you pick out?

Pattern we see in preparing to be used by God

We see a couple of things happening in this passage that are absolutely incredible and I want to unpack them a bit, but we see this pattern all through the Bible as God starts drawing his people back to Him.

Reading of the Word

Prayer & Confession

Renew commitment of complete surrender

Reading of the Word - Every day the people were coming, asking for the book of the law to be read.

They had a thirst for it.

And we can tell from the text that they were learning new things.

They hadn’t realized the Feast of Booths should be celebrated.

This was fresh and alive for them.

The word is alive, it is active, it accomplishes its purpose.

Read

10 As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Confession & Prayer - All through the Bible, when we see the Word pierce the souls of men, we see it followed by confession, repentance, and prayer.

Let’s read the first part of Chapter 9 again (verse 1).

Wearing of sackcloth, fasting, dust on their heads was a sign of mourning and grief, evidence of their confession

True confession arises due to a renewed appreciation of who God is and who we are in relation to Him.

These people had been absorbed in the Word, they were understanding their depravity and the sins of their fathers before them.

Wearing of sackcloth, fasting, dust on their heads was a sign of mourning and grief, evidence of their confession

Renewal of your commitment to surrender to God

What follows in this story is the longest recorded prayer in the Bible

Chapter 9 of Nehemiah is a beautiful prayer from the people in Jerusalem to God, expressing their awe in His majesty, recounting the wonders and miracles of his promise and faithfulness, their disobedience, his patience, mercy, their faithlessness and his redemptive grace.

This is a beautiful prayer.

“You” is stated 51 times in reference to God.

Their focus was in the right place.

They were recognizing His glory, His faithfulness, His mercy, and His sovereign plan.

And following this prayer, the people joined together to renew their pledge to follow God.

A people, who had now survived the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians........a people who had been in exile, a people who had no rational reason to even exist, were now banding together, in the promised land given to them by our God, with soft and remorseful hearts, ready to serve God.

God was doing something supernatural here.

He was making a name from Himself.

He was showing His glory in the middle of the largest empire in the history of the world.

He chose to use His people and how did he do it......

It started with hearing the Word of God and having a renewed appreciation for who God is and who we are in relation to Him

It started with hearing the Word of God and having a renewed appreciation for who God is and who we are in relation to Him

The Word pierced their souls and led them to confession and repentance

Which led them to surrender

Important lesson that would be easy to miss

It would be easy to sit back and pin this massive transformation in the people on the incredible leadership of Nehemiah or Ezra

Nehemiah had led the construction of the wall, he has been the cupbearer of the Persian King, he was an incredible leader.

We could spend a month just going through the leadership characteristics of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah had been the one to lead the construction and operations, Ezra had been the one to lead the people in the initial reading of the Word of God.

But here is something beautiful I don’t want you guys to miss.....who led the people in the reading of the word in Chapter 9, who led them in worship and repentance?

Neither Ezra or Nehemiah are mentioned as it says “the people of Israel”.

When before, they had counted on Nehemiah’s leadership and Ezra to read from the Word of God, here they are doing it on their own.

Appears it was two groups of relatively unknown Levites who led the congregation in worship and confession

In this short amount of time, leaders had emerged from the people, it was no longer just the head Pastor or the motivational leader, it was the people themselves stepping up and taking direct part in God’s transformative work.

More recent history

In the 1730’s, recorded history, there were a small group of men who started a men’s bible study.

They started the Bible study in their school, with just a few guys.

The students began to meet with each other a few times a week to pray, fast, study the word together and discuss their spiritual lives

This pattern continued over time and the group began to grow

The group was meeting together, and about 3AM they were in prayer, and they state that the power of God came mightily upon them

Many fell to the ground, overcome by the power of God,

As they recovered, they all looked at each other and broke out in praise saying : “We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be Lord.”

It was this evening that God gave them all deep assurance that he was going to do something beyond all measure and expectation

A week later one of the men who was in this group was ordained - His first messaged was preached in England to a couple hundred people, a week later 5,000 returned to hear him.

This man was named George Whitfield and he ended up preaching more than 18,000 sermons, estimated that he preached the gospel to over 2 million listeners

The original leaders of the group were two men named John and Charles Wesley, brothers.

I’m sure you guys know these names, John started the Methodist movement which laid the foundation for the Methodist Church and the theology that Crossings is built upon.

John preached 46,000 sermons and wrote 400 books / pamphlets.

And one day he would have a man named Cliff Sanders fall absolutely in love with him.