Sermon Tone Analysis

Revival

 

August 13, 2006

 

Luke 24:36-43

 

Is there anyone here who doesn’t want to experience revival here in Millet, in Alberta, in Canada, and~/or worldwide?

If any of you don’t want to experience revival, please put up your hands.

OK, so am I safe in presuming that we all want revival?

We want it, but do we even know what it is?

Do we know what price we each have o pay in order to see it come?

I hope this message will give you some clear answers to these difficult questions.

Revival is nothing more nor nothing less than the return of the life and the presence of God, or the establishing of a fresh, personal relationship to God.

When God thoroughly touches a life, the full measure of the life of the Lord becomes ours.

You may have a desire in your heart for a fresh touch of God.

For some reason, however, you have allowed your circumstances to change your relationship to God.

He hasn’t changed, but you need His life to become your life one more time.

As I was thinking about our time together this morning, I thought back to the first great revival in the New Testament: Pentecost.

Pentecost was the conclusion; what preceded it?

Pentecost came after the disciples did what Jesus told them to do.

In other words, revival came after the disciples were obedient to what Christ had taught them!

We now to see from God’s perspective how He prepared for that moment of revival.

What did He do in the lives of the disciples?

How did He prepare them?

Revival waits on the preparation of God’s people in their relationship with God.

I see that all through history but especially as I look at the New Testament.

There was a process that Jesus took the disciples through until they came to the point of total release of their lives to His right to be Lord.

They had a long way to go from the first time He called them up until Pentecost.

First, God seemed to prepare the disciples, and then they obeyed, and them came the outpouring of His power at Pentecost, followed by the preaching which brought about thousands of professions of faith.

But first it had to take hold of the disciples.

The end of the book of Luke, chapter 24, contains some very special instructions from our Lord that had to be in place before Pentecost came about.

As we read, beginning with Luke 24:36, I want you to identify what things Jesus said are absolutely essential to be in the hearts and lives of the disciples so that He could pour out His Spirit upon them.

This was not a minor moment.

Earlier in Luke 24, we read about two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus made a full disclosure of His presence to the men, and He did it in an incredible way so that when it was over, they said, /“Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” / Jesus deeply touched their hearts, but in a very simple way.

He didn’t overwhelm them.

There began to be a stirring in the hearts of the disciples in a way that God chose, and He let these men bear witness.

The reality of the living Lord was so real they had to go and tell the rest.

These two men came back to the other disciples who had come together, and the two bore witness to what they had encountered.

God intended the two to stir the hearts of all the rest.

God created us to be interdependent.

He has not created us to be independent.

Revival happens this way.

God chooses whose heart He is going to touch.

When the two disciples began to bear witness to what they had experienced, the Lord appeared to all of them (please turn in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 24 and we’ll read verses 36 to 43) /:” As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace to you!" \\ But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.

\\ And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?

\\ See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.

Touch me, and see.

For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

\\ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

\\ And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" \\ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, \\ and he took it and ate before them.

“/

/ /

Isn’t that a beautiful picture?

That is how God prepares for revival.

Someone needs to bear witness to an encounter with the living Lord.

Don’t get discouraged when you give a testimony and the hearers all get scared.

God is preparing them, and He is taking them to the point where they release everything to His right to be Lord.

When I am in meetings where people are praying for revival, I see some whose hearts are troubled and doubts appear.

The Lord who walked into the midst of the disciples and began to prepare them for the moment of Pentecost, is doing the same things with us.

It looks very ordinary, but God uses ordinary people.

Reading on in verses 44 through 49, : /“Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."

\\ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, \\ and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, \\ and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

\\ You are witnesses of these things.

\\ And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.

But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

/

How many years had Jesus been speaking to His disciples?

About three and a half.

Intimacy with Jesus is a pre-requisite for revival.

You have to go through the process of the Father bring­ing you to be so intimate with the living Christ that you can say from your soul, /"This is the Christ, the Son of the living God"/ and know that He has then com­mitted to you the keys to the kingdom of heaven (Matt.

16:16).

I am finding in my own life that by the time I come to a great moment when God releases His presence and lets me be there, I can look back and say, "What I am hearing and experiencing is what He already told me.

I just didn't pay atten­tion when He did."

It is critically impor­tant that you listen to what Jesus says to the disciples.

The disciples were in the middle of things that Jesus had already told them about.

Did the Old Testament Scriptures thor­oughly and completely describe the com­ing, the life, the death, and the resurrec­tion of Jesus?

Did they give a clear pic­ture?

Incredibly clear.

Did the disciples all get it?

Not at all! How could they have missed it?

They were not living in the light of the clear Scriptures, so He had to open their understanding to all the Scriptures, because this was the prereq­uisite.

The full Scriptures also spoke about Pentecost and about everything that was about to happen.

We are in the middle of another situa­tion.

The Scriptures have clearly, unmis­takably shown us about the return of Jesus.

The average person is no more attentive to what the Scripture is saying about the signs of His coming again than they were about the signs of His first com­ing.

But make no mistake about it.

The same Lord has given us all the evidence we need to prepare for His final return.

But how many of us are living in the light of those Scriptures?

How many of us are searching the Scriptures to know the signs of the times in which we live?

It has been a passion in my heart to say, "Lord, these men and others missed the first coming of Christ, but it wasn't because they didn't have the Scriptures, and it wasn't because they couldn't have known.

And Lord, what about us?" Would it not be an utter tragedy for our Lord to say, "I told you all of these things.

Why are you behaving the way you are?

Why aren't you living out what the same Scriptures are saying to you?"

(REPEAT)

 

And it is the same when it comes to revival.

Our Lord could say, "I told you about the conditions.

Why are you just crying for revival and ignoring all of the conditions that I laid out for you?" It's not that we don't know; it's that we are not paying attention.

We don't want to go through the process.

We want the ex­citement of revival, but we don't want the prerequisites.

But if we are going to be the ones upon whom He pours out His Spirit, we had better understand what the prerequisites are.

The first prerequisite is an intimate relationship with the Lord.

The disciples spent three years in intimate relationship with our Lord.

Some church members don't respond correctly to Christ because they were not introduced to Him in the way they ought to have been.

We have a huge dysfunction at the point of evangelism.

Jesus came to Peter and the others, each in a unique way, and He basically said, "Why don't you leave everything and follow Me?" I believe that is the essence of salvation.

We have to leave the old life and become immersed in the person of Jesus Christ.