Let's Talk about Revival
TEXT: Acts 3:19
TOPIC: Let’s Talk about Revival
Pastor Bobby Earls, FBC, Center Point, Alabama – March 15, 2009
Portions of the Outline and message from Dr. James MacDonald's book Downpour
There’s something about a dry spell that gets people talking. The National Weather Service reported recently that the drought conditions in central and northern Alabama are over. At times over the past few years we have been classified in stages 2 and 3 Drought conditions which mean we were experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions where we live here in Alabama.
I don’t know about you, but each time the Lord causes the rains to fall like this weekend, I give Him thanks! The showers from Heaven we’ve received will shortly return our lawns from a dry brown to a lush green and cause flowers and shrubs to bloom with brilliant colors again! Home gardens will soon spring up with the promise of delicious vegetables and fruits.
The bible teaches that the human heart is like a garden. Our heart is that part of us, not physically speaking, that can know God; it’s the part of us that will live forever. It is sometimes called the soul or man’s spirit. For many, many people in our churches across America, there is a spiritual drought going on in their heart. Many today are living with a dry and dusty heart.
I. A DRY AND DUSTY HEART?
The Lord will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58:11 (NKJV)
Isaiah tells us that even if our hearts are dry and dusty we can, by properly tending or caring for our heart before God, experience a bumper crop of God’s grace in our lives.
Twice the Apostle Paul warns the Christians in Corinth not to lose heart by neglecting the spiritual part of their lives.
Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.
2 Corinthians 4:1 (NKJV)
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16 (NKJV)
The wisest man who ever lived cautions us to guard our heart.
Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
Proverbs 4:23 (NKJV)
If you are like many church attenders today, you may have been going through some parched days lately in your relationship with God. Maybe you’ve had some seasons where time with God was nonexistent and worship left you cold and dry. If so, then listen to this next verse because it holds the wonderful promise of revival for you.
Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,
Acts 3:19 (NKJV)
Are you ready to end the spiritual drought in your own life? Then repent, be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. Then you will know times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. The word for refreshing here carries a beautiful word picture. It is like a cool breeze blowing over us on a particularly hot day. It’s like a cool drink of water for a dry and parched thirst.
That is revival. But do we really understand revival? We need a biblical definition of revival.
II. A BIBLICAL DEFINITION OF REVIVAL
Will You not revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You?
Psalms 85:6 (NKJV)
It may surprise you to learn that the bible doesn’t actually use the word “revival.” Revival refers to a movement of God, or an act of experiencing God at work in a person, place or history that goes beyond our normal understanding of God.
But the bible does use the word “revive” or “revived” frequently. When it does it always speaks of an activity or action, a work of God in the life of His people. Revive is a verb, an action word. Revived refers to a state of being, an experience of the past or present.
Psalm 19:7, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
· Revival is renewed interest after a period of indifference or decline.
· Revival is getting back on the path, getting the goal in view again, and pursuing with new passion the One who can make your life more than you ever dreamed.
· Revival is: God, gladly at the center of my life, experienced and enjoyed. I see God working. He’s working in my life, and I’m loving it more and more. That’s revival.
Maybe you remember a time when you were really fired up about the Lord, but somehow you’ve drifted away. There use to be a day when you couldn’t get enough of God. You just couldn’t wait to the next time you could make it to church or get alone with your Bible. But not anymore.
Your fire has gone out and your wood is wet. If you’re honest you’d have to say, “Somewhere along the way, I lost my passion for the Lord.”
Well that’s what we want to get back in our lives, and God wants you to have it back.
Finally, there is one very important reality that we need to understand about revival. You cannot be revived until you have first been vived!
III. VIVED VS. REVIVED
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away;
behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
Remember, the word revival means to live again. Like the brown grass that lies dormant during the winter months, along with the trees that grow naked and bare until the return of spring when they once again begin to bud with new life. So it is with revival.
But we need to remember that it is impossible to cause something to live again unless first of all it has lived before. To be vived means that you are alive in Christ.
We must not get the cart before the horse spiritually speaking. Do you know for sure this morning that there has been a definite time in your life in which you have received Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord? Are you alive in Christ? If not, you are still in your sins and spiritually dead, barren and lifeless.
Galatians 2:20, says, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me.
Do you know that to be true in your life today? If not then that may be where you need to begin today. By receiving the new, eternal life that Christ gives.
But those who know Christ’s new life but have all but lost that refreshing spirit of the Lord must return and be revived.
Ms. Bessie Head wrote the blessed hymn, “O Breath of Life.”
O Breath of Life, come sweeping through us. Revive Thy Church with life and pow’r; O Breath of life, come, cleanse, renew us, and fit Thy Church to meet this hour.
O Wind of God, come bend us, break us, till humbly we confess our need; then in Thy tenderness remake us, revive, restore, for this we plead.
O Breath of Love, come breathe within us, renewing thought and will and heart; Come, Love of Christ, afresh to win us, revive Thy Church in ev’ry part.
O Heart of Christ, once broken for us, ’tis there we find our strength and rest; our broken contrite hearts now solace, and let Thy waiting Church be blest.[1]
Certain points and material for this sermon gleaned from
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[1]Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace : 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, Includes Indexes. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1990), 267.