Steps to Revival
2 Chronicles 14:1-6 (use NIV)
Intro:
How can you tell when you need revival?
One person suggested that it becomes evident when it affects your hymn singing.
Here are some examples:
• We sing "Sweet Hour of Prayer" and are content with 5-10 minutes.
• We sing "Onward Christian Soldier" and then wait to be drafted into His service.
• We sing "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing" and then use the one we have for gossiping.
• We sing "There Shall be Showers of Blessings" but do not come to church because it is raining.
• We sing "Blest Be The Tie That Binds" and let the least little offense sever it.
• We sing "Serve the Lord With Gladness" and then gripe about all we have to do.
• We sing "The Whole Wide World For Jesus" and never invite our next door neighbor.
• We sing "Cast Thy Burden on the Lord" and worry ourselves into nervous breakdowns.
• We sing "I Love to Tell the Story" but only mention Jesus’ name in exclamation of anger.
• We sing "O Day of Rest and Gladness" and wear ourselves out cutting grass or hunting on Sunday.
• We sing "Throw Out the Life Line" and content ourselves with throwing out a fishing line.
Hopefully none of us here this morning have reached this point…but only two people can be the judge of that: you directed by your conscience and God and His Holy Spirit should be the one directing your conscience.
But the fact is, we need revival…and I don’t think it is a coincidence that so many of our area churches are holding meetings over coming weeks.
Not just because we have a week of special services set aside in a couple of weeks…but because some of the song titles might have rung a little too true.
The question becomes, what is our role in this.
I believe that true revival is a sovereign act of God in the lives of His people that draws them out of the mediocrity of the status quo and into a rejuvenated and deeper walk with Him.
It is a work of God first and foremost.
Revival comes when God brings it.
Does that mean we just sit back and wait?
By no means!
God in His word has given us instructions, and in some cases step by step instructions on what we must do to prepare our hearts and our lives for His movement of revival.
What we fail to realize sometimes is that we are here because of a history of revivals and awakenings.
Beginning in Scripture…we find revival after revival taking place.
The entire Exodus event is a great example of God moving in the lives of His people to take them out of one place and move them into another…and it wasn’t just a physical move either.
The rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem we read about in Ezra and Nehemiah…that was a revival.
Read through the history books in Scripture, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, as we will see in just a moment, and you find a series of revivals taking place in God’s people that prepared them for the coming of the Lord.
How about in our recent history.
Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox…all of these reformers who helped restore the Biblical theology that we adhere to today; this was nothing short of a revival.
And then there is the US…our own history is a history of revivals and awakenings.
The First Great Awakening under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and the Wesley Brothers…an entire generation of revival on US soil that under girded our own independence.
How about the 2nd Great Awakening under the leadership of men like Charles Finney and Francis Asbury…once again it was an entire generation of American History that is marked by a mighty movement of God beginning in His people and spreading like fire through out the United States.
And then there is the 20th Century that was marked by names like Billy Sunday and DL Moody that set the stage for people like Billy Graham to come later on.
Evangelists preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ who became nothing short of celebrities in their own right…products of our history of revivals and awakenings.
We are here today because God has brought revival, will bring revival and desires to bring revival today.
But what is our role in it?
Is it something God does and we just wait for?
Or is it something that we can instigate and bring about ourselves…maybe us awakening God to our needs.
Revival, once again is a sovereign act of God…it begins and ends with Him, and it is Him working in the lives of His people.
We are the conduit that God uses to bring revival, but we are not passive participants.
While I don’t believe we can usher it in ourselves, Scripture is clear to show us what we can do to prepare ourselves for what God wants to do in our lives.
And I do believe that God has something in store for us…bigger than any of us can imagine.
And I’m not just talking about 4 days in a couple of weeks, I’m talking about something that begins today…if it hasn’t already started, and grows into something much larger.
Let’s look at one of those passages in Chronicles this morning.
Read 1 Chronicles 14:1-6 and pray.
God gives us 4 steps that we need to take both before and during a time of revival that He has promised to bring.
First of all there is…
1. Revelation
Background: This is the early years of a long and bumpy road for the nation of Israel.
David’s son Solomon had died and his son Rehoboam took the throne and some refer to it as a “reign of folly”.
It wasn’t long after that the nation of Israel split into separate kingdoms…Israel and Judah, with Jereboham becoming king of Israel or the northern Kingdom.
In our passage this morning we find Asa becoming king of Judah after Rehobam’s son Abijah son died…and we find in vs. 2 that he made a major policy change.
Read vs. 2.
How did Asa know what was right in the sight of the Lord?
It was in the written Chronicles of the works of the Lord in the lives of the nation of Israel…he found it in the Law and he found it in the scriptures.
Some how and some way Asa became acquainted with the ways of the Lord and according to 1 Kings 15:11 he did what was right in God’s eyes, just like David did.
He chose to live according to the ways that David lived, and David was a man after God’s own heart.
God revealed Himself to Asa and God reveals Himself to us through the Chronicles of His word and His work in the lives of His people.
Scripture tells us do not be content with status quo.
Scripture tells us that God is a God of activity.
Scripture tells us that God desires to move in the lives of His people.
Scripture tells us that God wants to wake up the sleeping giant called the church and breathe new life into us and use us to bring about another awakening that will over shadow those of the past.
Read Rev. 3:1-3
Sardis was a “good” church, in that they did a lot of the right things and didn’t have a lot of problems…but it wasn’t enough.
They were stuck in neutral, and God wanted them to wake up.
And God’s Word revealed that to them in the way God’s word reveals this to us today.
Are you asleep in the light?
Then God’s revelation is to wake up and see what He is doing and see what condition you are in.
And that brings us to the 2nd step this morning.
First there is revelation, and then it must be followed by…
2. Destruction, vs. 3
Judah took their eyes off God, and in doing so they turned their eyes elsewhere.
They built alters and high places to these pagan false gods and began to incorporate worship into their lives of someone other than the one true God.
God’s law calls it idolatry and it is condemned by God from beginning to end.
Once again, it began by taking their eyes off God.
And you know what, we are no different.
“What are you talking about? I haven’t built any foreign alters or high places…I’m a member here, and I worship here.”
On Sunday’s…but what about the other days of the week.
And when you worship, is your heart really here?
Where is your mind?
• On where you will eat lunch?
• On what you will be doing the rest of the day?
• On what you have going on the rest of the week?
You have taken your eyes off God and built high places and foreign alters in your heart and they must be torn down.
Asa went through and totally destroyed and removed whatever it was that was keeping him and anyone else from doing what God had called them to do.
They destroyed anything and everything that kept them from being the people of God that His word called them to be.
The high places must be torn down.
Are you willing to do that?
What are the high places in your life?
They come in different shapes, sizes and forms…
• For one it might be a job…
• For another it might be television or what you watch on it…
• For this person it might be the music they listen too…
• While that person may have issues what comes out of their mouths…
Whatever the high places is in your life, it must be torn down.
I’ll tell you how to figure out what the high places are in your life...answer this question: What is the one thing you think you can’t live without?
What do you make excuses for in your life?
I realize that I’m crossing the line between preaching and meddling now...but it is that important.
Is it on TV?
Is it on the radio?
Is it something you put into your body that defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit?
What is your high place?
It needs to be torn down because God has revealed in His word that it needs to be destroyed.
Not because I say so, but because God says so…and revival is not anything you will experience until you decide to clean house.
What are the steps to revival?
Revelation, destruction and then there is…
3. Dedication, vs. 4
Two words found here:
A. Seek
The Hebrew word used here is “darash”, which can also be translated as “tread” or “frequent”.
The picture we should get in our minds is that of a path that we are set to follow, a singular way to travel.
Seek God and God alone.
You have torn down the high places; your vision should not be singular and focused on God alone.
Seek after Him, and don’t give up until you find Him.
ILLUS: Anyone ever lose your keys? Is there anything more frustrating than not being able to find your keys when you have some place to be 5 minutes ago?
What do you do?
Anything and everything to find them.
You will retrace your steps…turn over cushions; check in drawers, behind things and under them if possible.
You will call someone if you need too…but you will seek them until you find them.
Do you seek God that way?
Do you set your focus on finding Him and His way for your life, knowing you aren’t going anywhere until that happens?
If we want revival, we need to dedicate ourselves to that.
But not only to seeking, but verse 4 also says we should…
B. Obey
The Hebrew word here is “asah”, which can be translated as to do, fashion, accomplish or make.
Meaning that when we make a dedication to God we are putting our lives in line with God’s word and His revelation to us.
We are making a decision to do what He has said and to be what He has called us to be.
ILLUS: Parents, any of you ever content with your children doing only a fraction of what you asked them to do?
“God clean your room”…30 minutes later a path is cleared out between the door and the bed; will that work?
How come we do that with God then?
God says “tear down the high places, get your focus on Me and dedicate yourself to Me and Me alone” and we come on Sunday morning at 11am…cleaning the path from the door to the bed and say, “There you go God, I’m done.”
It’s called cheap grace.
God gave His all for us, He gave His Son…and in return God gets an hour or two out of our week and we think we are doing Him a favor.
Cheap grace.
God doesn’t want an hour on Sunday, or even an hour on Sunday night.
God doesn’t even want an hour from you on Wednesday night.
What God wants is your life…24/7.
He wants a dedication of you to Him.
Read Phil. 1:21
What does God want…everything.
What does God deserve…everything.
What are you giving to God today?
If you can’t say everything, you aren’t giving Him enough.
Revival can begin when we make a dedication to Him to seek Him and obey Him…no matter what.
And that takes is to our final step this morning.
God reveals Himself, we destroy the high places in our lives, make a dedication to seek and obey than God brings…
4. Restoration, vs. 6
Keep in mind that this passage comes on the heals of many years of turmoil.
Israel was divided into two kingdoms…becoming Israel and Judah.
And then along with the wars against the enemies, they also warred with each other and at times themselves.
2 Chronicles 13 tells us about the civil war that was fought within the nation if Israel.
But because of God’s revelation to Asa to turn to Him, they destroyed what was keeping them from being the people God called them to be, dedicated their lives to seeking and obeying Him and he brought a restoration.
God brought a revival.
God’s plan all along was for the people to be committed to Him…but they dropped the ball.
In Exodus 6:7 God told them that He would be their God and they would be His people…it was His covenant, and all they had to do was follow.
In fact over 100 times in the OT God makes reference to “My people”…but they chose not to be His people.
Yet God desired to bring the restoration, and He sat in waiting for the moment that they would take the step of faith toward Him and like the prodigal son’s father He ran to them.
God’s offer to you this morning is revival and restoration.
It is revealed in His word and in His Spirit speaking to you now…all you have to do is go through the steps of destruction and dedication.
God’s offer for this church is revival and restoration, as revealed in His word…all we have to do is go through the steps of restoration and dedication.
It begins with action.
Trans:
My message this morning has been a little one side, mainly for the born again believers…but I don’t want to leave out the pre-Christians here today.
If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, you can begin a revival in your life today by being made alive.
You see we are all dead in our sins, Romans 6:23…condemned.
But God in His love sent His Son to die for you (Romans 5:8)…and if you believe in your heart Jesus is Lord and Confess Him you will be saved (Romans 10:9-10).
You can be revived today from your death.
Now for the born again believers here this morning…are you ready for revival?
God is ready to send it…what are you willing to do to usher it in?
What are you willing to get rid of in your life to allow God’s Spirit to begin moving you to a time a dedication and restoration?
