Revival Night Tuesday 8/10/2021

Maintaining The Revival Fire!

Let me begin by saying thank you for having me here tonight and thank you for opening your doors to revival!

Bro Levi spoke of Bro Bill texting ministers of the Gospel and praying for them, I am one of them. I have also benefited from his love and care for me, as he has nurtured me when things have gotten out of sorts. I am honored to be here tonight.

One other thing before I begin, the first sermon I ever preached was in the old church building across the way. It was at the behest of my dear brother that I preach. I think I refused 2 or 3 times, but he was relentless and insisted that I preach. That has been close to 10 years ago. Now, last night was the first service I attended here at the new church. Some amazing things have happened here! I remember right after you guys bought the church coming and looking around. Bill was showing me and telling me the whole story, tears filled my eyes and we both knelt at the altar and just prayed a prayer of thanksgiving! That was a powerful moment and this is an awesome moment tonight.

Turn with me to Matthew 5:3, we are going to start here and work to some places, but the thought for us tonight or, better said, the question for us tonight is why does the revival fire dim in our lives?

Many things vie for our attention! The curse of being blessed materially, which we are, there are more things to maintain.

Therefore, maintaining the fire that is shut up in our bones, goes on the back burner.

I have found in some cases church work can get us into a rut, along with Rusty work, and other things.

We busy ourselves with life an all that comes with it.

I heard one preacher use this example, have you ever had a day where you just were in the Word of God the night before and you got up feeling on fire, that maybe you could conquer the world. You didn’t argue with your spouse, you didn’t kick the cat, and you witnessed to folks, it was just a great day, you were full of joy! Then, the next day you wake up fussing, you wasn’t in God’s Word, you watch a show that maybe you shouldn’t of and you did kick the cat, you missed an opportunity to witness and at the end of that day you felt miserable, you were full of sorrow about your day?

The preacher the preacher then said that you know what that is? Idolatry! You have become the source of your own joy! That is a fallen joy!

The source of true joy for us comes from the Person and Complete Work of Jesus Christ

This is the idea tonight! In order to maintain a revival fire or let me say a fire, the source of that fire has to have a fuel and spark and inwardly that only comes from Jesus Christ!

Maintaining that must come from a more exalted view of Jesus, a deeper belief in Jesus Christ!

Take this COVID stuff, I have seen preachers on TV trying to physically blow this virus away, we have so-called experts telling us this and that about it. I would say that there are some differing opinions about the virus and the vaccines in this church tonight!

If we spent our time and focus on trying to figure all of this out or watching folks trying to figure all of this out, how miserable will that make you?

If we got together and discussed all of this, probably lead to an argument, disagreement, or worse.

Church stuff the same way, I have seen and been apart of and ignorantly argued on behalf of one topic or another. What does all of that gain us? Nothing!

Truth is if we come together, with our self worth in the toilet and our own ambitions and thoughts in the trash and taking no thought for our lives and we begin to seek after the Kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness of God, which all is in Jesus the Christ the Son of the Living God!

This brings us to this one verse in the Beatitudes preached by Jesus!

Poor in spirit simply means the opposite of self-sufficiency! It describes one that is hopeless and lost!

In other words, we cannot do anything of any eternal value, without Jesus!

Temporarily, we maybe can, but that never fills the void in the heart!

Jesus offers us the Kingdom of God through His perfect life and His perfect death and His perfect resurrection! We must believe that we have no self-sufficiency, to receive this most gracious gift!

It is hard to move our agenda to the back, I believe we have trouble with that, because as I said earlier we are dictated by so many things going on in our lives! Circumstances move us in so many directions and we want help in those things and it seems that we lose our momentum in Christ Jesus!

I am not making light of anyone’s circumstance and I am not stating that we do not ask God for help, but what I am declaring, is that we must not be dictated by what we think God can do, but by what He has already done!

We treat Him and His Son like a Genie in the bottle. Rub Him whenever times are bad and see what happens. Sometimes we go to Him for something that we want!

Our emotions are run up and down, by the outcomes of those circumstances.

However, Jesus does not change and His Goodness is the Father’s Goodness and it never runs out, but maybe our view is a little skewed or blurred by life!

Let’s look at what He has done! Romans 7:7-25......Paul in chapter 6 talked about being free from the power of sin through Jesus, now he writes about the struggle of the flesh!

Verses 7-13........Paul is telling us about the law, here.

Without the law once: Paul is speaking from experience, for one time he lived this life. He thought that he kept the law completely, but he wasn’t looking at the law of God from the heart (Inwardly)

He saw it in an external, outward concept.

But, when he saw the law inwardly, I believe that is when Jesus approached on him in the road to Damascus, Paul said that he died!

The law of God, reveals the divine nature of God and the divine standard that had to be met in order to enter into His presence!

Jesus strengthen this law for us when He declared in Matthew 5 that if you look on someone in lust, you have committed adultery already and if you hate someone in your heart, you have committed murder already. This is in view of God’s law! It is a pure law!

So, now when you lay this law down beside us, we do not measure up in any way, shape, form, or fashion!

We are not capable, because of the choice that Adam and Eve made, to know as God knows, good and evil. Humans can’t handle evil, God is the only one that can handle, temptations from the devil!

How do we know this? This is why Jesus became flesh! 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He (God) hath made Him (Jesus) to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (Jesus).”

Back to the passage, Paul tells us that the law is not bad because it revealed our sin and without it we would never know how dead we are!

Let’s continue..........Paul talks about the struggle that even he had with flesh! It is a battle within us!

The good that we want to do, we don’t and the bad that we try to stay away from we do.

O’ wretched man that I am! Who shall save me from this body of death?

There lies the right question! I believe we get so busy and caught up in ourselves, we can’t even see our struggle and therein we cannot see the answer to that struggle.

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! He is our Answer! He is the Answer to the dullness of our hearts!

He lived perfectly and He died perfectly to take away the sin of the world! The sinful flesh, Jesus paid the penalty for that and we have life in Him!

The law is good in that reveals the beauty and purity of God (Jesus does too) and it reveals how much we are need of Him!

Look at chapter 8:1.......Because of this victory in Jesus Christ, therefore there in now, NO condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus!! You want to light a fire within yourself? Begin to believe this: Romans 14:8 “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”

We are going back to a perfect God and on our own we cannot stand, but God has sent His Son, He gave His Son to take His wrath in our place, so that the condemnation because of our sinful flesh, would poured on Him rather than us! It is paid, the Only Perfect Man, God the Son, died for sinful man’s sinful flesh!

You might say, right now, “what is this fool talking about???? I have already asked forgiveness for my sins!” I am going to say to you, if we do not live everyday, with a mind and heart that declares a wretchedness in their flesh and a victory in Jesus Christ, we will be tossed to and fro and dictated by life’s circumstance!

Turn with me to John 1:1-14.......... I read this at my Aunt’s funeral just a week or so ago, I want to share something that I shared at her funeral, just to make sure understand the revival that I speak of......

My aunt was faithful servant of God, she lived for Him! The strongest woman that i have known.

About 3 years ago, she had a stroke, she completely lost the use of her right side and lost her ability to talk. In prison to her body.

She would smile when you would visit with her and laugh, so much joy in her heart, despite her circumstances.

The first of this year she got a cancer diagnosis that eventually led to her having a colostomy bag. Making her completely dependent on someone. This was a rough time for her!

Most of our visits from that time on was in tears. It was hard for her, it was hard to watch. I struggled to give her comfort in this time. I was her pastor too.

One day, it was rough day, I was trying to comfort her and failing at it. We read the Bible, talked about funny stuff, and nothing worked. So, I went back to Scripture!

I read from the passage that I just read to you. She would always close her eyes when I would read, probably she was basking in God’s Words!

When I got to verses 12-13, she began to raise her left hand higher and higher, tears were continuing in her eyes, but she was sobbing at this point........Let me read it again for you......so maybe you can get what I learned.............

This is what I was taught that day.......My aunt was rejoicing, not because she was expecting God to heal her, but by what God had already done for her through His Son Jesus Christ!

She was a daughter of God, not because of her good works, not because things were going well in her life, but by the Power of Jesus Christ!

It was because she as born again, not of corruptible seed, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ!

It was so hard for me to see that, at that point, I only saw her condition and the suffering that she was enduring. To people hinging their lives on the flesh, that will not see the glory of Christ revealed in the child of God!

This is why the fire gets dim and flat, dull, whatever you want to call it!

This is what I believe I can say about why my aunt was rejoicing, she knew that it would of been an astounding measure of grace if God just sent us to hell for a while, but He has kept us out completely. It would of been an astounding measure of grace, if He put us in some place neutral, where no place can be found for us and just let us there for eternity, that would of been GRACE in light of our sin. It would of been inconceivable that He would set us on the same level as angels and make us servants in His court. But He has made us sons and daughters. Not children of the law nor of the letter, but children because of Jesus Christ, His own dear Son!

2 Corinthians 5:11-21 “2 Corinthians 5:11–21 (NLT)

We Are God’s Ambassadors

11 Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too. 12 Are we commending ourselves to you again? No, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart. 13 If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. 14 Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”