The Next Awakening Part 2
The Next Awakening • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Last week we started a new sermon series on The Next Awakening. This series has stirred within me examination about my own walk and challenged me to leave no stone unturned.
Starting last week and going for a few more weeks at least, we will be looking at the book of 1 John.
This idea of awakening and revival was brought to mind as I was reading about the First Great Awakening in North America and about the role Jonathan Edwards played in New England. He wrote about what a genuine move of the Holy Spirit looks like. He needed to write this as some were challenging what they were seeing happening.
Here are what he saw as 5 signs of True Revival:
When esteem for the true Jesus is raised
When Satan’s kingdom is attacked (sin and worldly lusts)
When people come to love Scripture more
When men are led away from falsehood to truth (sound doctrine)
When there is an increase of love to God and man
Our passage last week focused primarily on numbers 1, 2 and 4. As we dig further into the letter written by John to the early church, we will touch on all of these. And since John’s letter is to the church, and therefore you and I, I hope we will all be personally challenged in each of these areas.
In speaking with folks this week, the idea of Awakening and Revival is exciting. It’s exciting to me as well. In order to see this happen, it is going to require us to buckle in and get real about what God wants to do in our lives individually. It is always much easier to tell someone else how they need to change than it is to change ourselves, but that is precisely where we need to start - with me. Say that with me…It starts with me.
We cannot have awakening in the culture until we have revival in the church. We can’t have revival in the church until enough of God’s people experience personal revival themselves. This was a major key to the First Great Awakening.
Let me give you a very quick history lesson about this time in our history. Two major things were happening...
The culture of the day was going through what they termed the age of enlightenment.
This involved philosophers of the day - Voltaire, Rousseau, Newton and others - teaching a form of rationalism that sought to minimize the influence of the church and other religious thought. Reason, science and all things secular were all the rage.
Ultimately, those pushing this philosophy wanted all things faith and religion to be relegated to second place. They no longer wanted religious thought or teachings to influence cultural thought, decisions or policies especially within the government. Some of this reaction came from the brutal wars that were fought over church issues.
This was the wider cultural climate…within the church,
The Christian church service and experience had become less personal and more formal.
People came to church because it was how people stayed connected. Church was a place people got the news and caught up with others. Faith was something that was done for the people by the ministers and very few carried their faith outside of the church walls into their daily lives.
Apathy, complacency…these are words that would describe church life. Listen to this story from 1686:
Elias Keach was son of the famous Benjamin Keach of London. Arrived in this country a very wild spark about the year 1686. On his landing he dressed in black and wore a band in order to pass for a minister. The project succeeded to his wishes, and many people resorted to hear the young London divine. He performed well enough till he had advanced pretty far in the sermon. Then, stopping short, looked like a man astonished. The audience concluded he had been seized with a sudden disorder; but, on asking what the matter was, received from him a confession of the imposture with tears in his eyes and much trembling. Great was his distress though it ended happily; for from this time dated he his conversion.
A minister converted during a sermon…this was the state of the church at large.
It was so difficult to get people to commit to church that church leaders instituted a halfway covenant which allowed people to join the church without a public testimony of conversion. The church was filled with people who did not have a personal faith relationship with Jesus.
Both of these factors set the foundation for what would become the First Great Awakening. Let me give this encouragement to you. No matter how far gone the world around us looks, no matter how many issues we see within the church, God is still on the throne and those things we notice might just be the catalyst for the Next Awakening. But let’s say it again…It starts with me.
If you haven’t already, open your Bibles to 1 John. I am going to read starting in chapter 1. Each week, we’ll read the passage from the previous week just to refresh where we’ve been.
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
4 We write this to make our joy complete.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
Keep in mind that as John wrote this letter, He did not have verses or chapters noted, he just wrote the letter. These first two verses are a continuation of the thoughts we talked about last week.
John’s desire and hope for us is that we will not sin, but our sin does not disqualify us from forgiveness. What Jesus did on the cross, his atoning sacrifice, was not just for the sin we already committed when we came to Jesus, but he also took care of all the sin we would commit. It is in Him alone that we are able to say that we are saved. Not because of how good we are, but because of how good he is.
John continues...
3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.
4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.
5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him:
6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
You ever been around someone who just tells you like it is? They don’t sugar coat things…I think John is one of those people. These are pretty strong words. If we don’t keep Jesus’ commands, we are a liar, the truth is not in us.
And this is how we know…if we claim to live in him, we must live as Jesus did.
The first question someone should ask reading this is: How did Jesus live? If we want to compare our life and how we live to something else, we have to know what we are comparing to. If you don’t know how Jesus lived, how will you know how you are doing.
The problem with the church in the early 18th century is that they were only getting Jesus on Sunday and the world was telling them how to live the rest of the week. When The church began to examine their life and compare to Jesus, things began to change.
So often we think if we make excuses for someone it will make it easier for them to stick around and really all we are doing is hurting them and the witness of the church.
Here is a challenge for you this morning…take some time this week and examine the life of Jesus. Then ask: Am I living like that? When we do this, we are esteeming Jesus and putting him in the proper place when compared to our life. This exercise is less about our actions and more about knowing who Jesus is.
7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.
John addresses the reader as a dear friend. This is his way of saying to them and us that we are in this together. This is not meant to be confrontational, but something we’re doing together. This thing that we are doing together is not something they haven’t heard before. As believers, we’ve heard it from the beginning of our walk. Jesus summed it up the commandments:
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
To the follower of Christ, these should be known. It would have know by the church that John was writing to. Then John says:
8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
Hold up. Say what John? I’m not writing you a new command, yet I’m writing you a new command...
John also wrote this in his Gospel that Jesus said:
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
Although Jesus said this was a new command, it was still something God’s people should have been doing. The part that changed was the reference. See, the commandments just say to do things that were loving things to do: Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet and so on. Jesus is taking that a step further…What you saw me doing…how you see me loving…specifically how I loved you, that’s how you love others.
This is the new command that is really an old command and at the same time it’s new...
8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
The truth of this commandment is seen in Jesus, in how he loved and it is seen in us in how we love others. And this is possible because the enemy is losing when God’s people love each other. When the enemy is losing, the darkness is passing away, it’s going away.
We have another quality of a move of the spirit that Jonathan Edwards noticed: When Satan’s Kingdom is being attacked...
He continues:
9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. 11 But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.
This is pretty clear here. Hate is a path that is not very well lit. We aren’t going to be able see where we are going, what obstacles are in the way, we are blind. When people hate, they say things they don’t mean and do things they wouldn’t normally do. And because they are blinded by the hate, they have no idea what impact they are having in that moment.
Imagine this. It is pitch black dark. No moon and you are in the middle of the woods far from any city. If you’ve ever been in that situation, you know that no matter how hard you try, your eyes just don’t adjust. You can’t see a thing.
That is where people are at without Jesus. The only way they know how to go is what they are told. This is what you look like. This is what you are. Pretty easy to get lied to when you can’t see to know the truth.
Then Jesus comes and lights the way for you. The more we follow his commands and love Him and one another, the brighter the light gets. The more we are able to see the truth.
But then that challenging person in our life does that thing that irritates us the most. In our hate, we step our body in front of the light and cast a wide shadow over the entire landscape. What was once visible is not darkness. And just like when the lights are first turned off, we really can’t see, yet we lunge forward in our hate, in the darkness and we have no idea what’s ahead. That’s when we do the most damage, to ourselves and to our brother or sister.
But the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus forgives. The light isn’t taken away, we’ve just chosen to cover it up in our hate. The way forward is repentance. Saying we’re sorry, asking forgiveness. This act shines the light back on the situation and we can get out our spiritual first aid kit and begin mending the wounds we caused by loving as Christ loved us.
It doesn’t mean we’ll always agree, but we must always love.