Revival Sermon #2

As we talk about revival we are focusing on three areas. Individual revival, congregational revival, and community revival.

Last night we began by talking about the first revival. Or as I said last night, maybe the Vival of the church. Pentecost is referred to by many as the birthday of the church. So I guess it is the birth or Vival instead of the revival or re-birth.

Anyway, at Pentecost, God sent the Holy Spirit. The Spirit empowered the disciples as they began their mission of preaching the Gospel to Jerusalem, Judea & Samaria, and throughout the world. So that is the beginning of any revival; the presence of the Holy Spirit. We cannot renew our selves. We cannot revive our own spirit. It takes God’s Holy Spirit working in us to do that.

Last night we also talked about the progression of a revival as seen in the Pentecost story. It begins with personal revival (the Apostles in the story of Pentecost). That personal revival then spreads to the church (we saw the changes in the early church they prayed, worshipped, and shared the Lord’s Supper together), and then to the community and into the world (the revival of the early church led to God adding to their numbers each day). Over the next 3 nights we will talk about these 3 types or 3 steps to revival. Tonight we will focus on personal revival. Spiritual renewal within each of us.

The Holy Spirit first worked in the Apostles to empower them to preach the good news. The disciples spent their time with Jesus confused, alternately excited, discouraged, and afraid. Then at Jesus death, they ran. After they learned of the resurrection, they were still not fully motivated to fulfill the Great Commission given to them by Jesus. In fact some of them went back to their former jobs as fishermen. Even after the resurrected Jesus met with them and encouraged them for their coming ministry, they were told to wait. Wait before you preach to the people. Wait for the Holy Spirit.

Then a rushing wind moved through them and flames like tongues of fire rested on their heads. Jesus’ followers were filled with the Holy Spirit and they transformed from confused, dormant people into focused and effective preachers of the Gospel. They underwent a spiritual renewal that empowered them to fulfill God’s call for their lives.

So that brings us to us. What does it mean to have a personal revival? What does it look like to see a renewal of the Spirit in our individual lives? Well, let’s first look to the Bible. We can find several instances of personal revival there. Let’s look first at the story of Jonah. It’s one of those Sunday school stories we hear a lot as kids, so it’s familiar to most of us.

Jonah is a prophet of God. God calls him to go to Nineveh to preach to them. God tells him, “Go there and tell them they’re wicked and they’d better repent!” But Jonah, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to go to Nineveh. We learn later that he didn’t want Nineveh to be spared. So Jonah gets on a boat headed for Tarshish. God calls him and Jonah runs away.

As he is in the boat on the run, a great storm comes up and tosses the boat. The entire crew is fearing for their life. They begin throwing things overboard to lighten the boat and prevent it from sinking. Finally Jonah tells them it’s his fault. The storm is there to prevent him from running away from what God called him to do. He asks the crew to throw him overboard, and they do. Jonah is swallowed by a huge fish. He spends 3 days and 3 nights in the fish until finally he prays. He prays a prayer of Thanksgiving.

Jonah 2:1-10

In the midst of a horrible situation Jonah thanks God for saving his life. He ran from God and expected to lose his life because of his disobedience. God, though, provided the gift of a fish to save him. I’m not sure that’s such a great gift, but in this case I guess it is. Talk about a salvation story!

Jonah knows from where his salvation comes. Look how he ends his prayer: “Salvation comes from the Lord!” Jonah realizes he has disobeyed God. Here we get to witness Jonah’s personal revival. He realizes that he has let his own fears and prejudices turn him away from God’s call. Now, he cries out in faith. He is ready to accept the call. Ready to obey God.

So out onto the seashore he goes. Then God calls him again to go to Nineveh and Gives them God’s message. You are wicked. Repent or face destruction. Jonah fulfills God’s call to him.

Jonah tries to run, but God pursues him. Finally Jonah realizes he has turned from God’s will and he repents. And in doing so he experiences a spiritual renewal. A personal revival. But don’t think that Jonah renewed his own spirit. He agreed to let God work in his life. He agreed to answer God’s call. God took care of the spiritual renewal.

Just like we talked about last night with Jesus first followers at Pentecost, spiritual renewal, or revival, is not something that can be manufactured or manipulated into being. IT can only come from God and often it comes when we least expect it.

John Wesley, many of you know, was the founder of the Methodist movement, or the Methodist Revival as some called it. That movement eventually became the Methodist church. We look back at Wesley today as this great pillar of faith, a theological dynamo.

But that wasn’t always the case in his life. Just to give you a little background, Wesley was born in 1703 in Epworth, England. In 1725 he was ordained as a Deacon in the Anglican Church, and then in 1728 Wesley was ordained as an Anglican priest. But over the next 10 years or so, Wesley life was a spiritual roller coaster. It was filled with ups and downs, highs and lows. At times he was unsure of his own salvation. In 1736, he was sent to the Georgia colony as a missionary. He had high hopes for the trip. High hopes of converting Native Americans. He returned to England 2 years later discouraged and depressed. A couple of months after his return to England Wesley attended a prayer meeting at Aldersgate Street. There he had a transformative experience.

I’ll let John Wesley tell it in his own words. This is from Wesley’s journals: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

From that experience, John and his brother Charles, began a movement of renewal in the Church of England. I’d call it, as many do, a revival. John Wesley, like Jonah, felt far from God. Maybe it wasn’t of his own choosing as it was with Jonah, but it seems the feelings were similar. And in the case of John Wesley, just as in Jonah’s story, God pursues him. And God works with transformative power in his life to revive his faith and bring a spiritual renewal that spread through the Church of England and eventually into the Americas. But that’s tomorrow night’s subject matter.

Tonight we focus on revival within our own hearts. Each of us stands in need of revival. Each of us has a faith that needs to be revived. We need to experience this same sort of spiritual renewal.

The only way we can experience that is to open ourselves up to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is not something we can gain by our own efforts. It is only by God’s grace.

There are some steps we can take as we seek this renewal of our faith. The first step is to make a choice to live as a Disciple of Jesus Christ. That is step one. That may be a step you took many, many years ago. Or not so many years ago. Or maybe you’ve never taken that step. Maybe you’ve never made that conscious decision or spoken the words, “Jesus, I want to be a disciple.” If not, I invite you to do so. I invite you to accept the gift of salvation that God offers through Jesus death & resurrection. I invite you to embrace God’s grace and let God’s grace embrace you. It’s a simple step. Acknowledge your sin; acknowledge your need for salvation. And accept the gift God offers.

The next step is simple as well, Invite the Holy Spirit to work in you. God has a call for each and everyone of us. No one is too old nor too young for God to use. God is calling you. Invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you to help as you discern what you are called to do.

As I said yesterday morning, it doesn’t take faith to sit here in these pews, there’s no risk in that. But to open yourself up, to offer yourself wholly to God. That takes faith. That takes courage. And the Holy Spirit is here to bolster our faith and to give us courage.

The last step might be the hardest. And that is to allow the Spirit to work in you. Allow the Spirit to guide you. Listen for the God’s call, hear God’s call, and answer God’s call.

But also remember that just as Peter called out to Jesus as he began to doubt his faith and sink into the sea, and Jesus grabbed him and helped him walk back to the boat. God will do the same for you. When you step out. God will be there to grab you when you sink.

Revival Sermon #3

Tonight we continue talking about the process of revival. I’ll be honest, it even sounds odd to me to say something like “the process of revival.” I guess it’s a very Methodist way to look at things. I know a process doesn’t seem spontaneous or exciting; the things we usually associate with the work of the Holy Spirit. But I believe the Spirit can work through structure and planning, and process. Maybe if we look at it as the progress of revival instead of the process. A revival is as we said earlier this week, an increased spiritual interest. That renewal can be as we’ve said individual, it can be congregational, and it can be community-wide.

I believe true revival is all of those things. It begins with the individual. The spiritual renewal of the individuals leads to renewal in the church. In turn, that leads to renewal throughout the community.

We have held up as our example the early church and the experience of Pentecost. God sent the Holy Spirit and the first followers of Jesus, about 120 at the time, experienced a shocking spiritual renewal. Their increased faith spread and their numbers grew. They began worshipping as one, eating together, praying, taking communion together. They became the body of Christ. This unity began to influence their community. The people of Jerusalem noticed and many wanted to become a part of what they saw.

Last night we looked at individual revival. We talked about Jonah who had his own personal revival in the belly of a fish. He was called by god to go to Nineveh but he turned and ran. A great storm battered the boat he fled in and the crew threw him over-board, at his request. But god saved Jonah, with a fish. Then in the belly of that fish, Jonah decides he is ready to accept God’s call for him. The fish spits him out on the shore and Jonah heads to Nineveh to live out god’s call.

We also talked about John Wesley, the father of the Methodist church, and his experience at Aldersgate Street. Wesley had been an Anglican priest for 10 years, but it was a tumultuous decade. He had just returned from an ill-fated trip to Georgia. He was disillusioned, depressed, and discouraged. Then at a prayer meeting, as he listened to someone read Martin Luther’s preface to Romans, he said he felt his “heart strangely warmed” and he knew that Christ died for his salvation, he knew that his sins were forgiven. Wesley underwent a personal revival.

But we have to realize that a personal revival is well and good, but what good does it do as it relates to the Kingdom of God? I can feel renewed and refreshed. Like God is sitting in my living room with me each night and that is wonderful: for me. Here’s the problem with that, my mission as a disciple of Jesus Christ is not me. Your mission as a disciple is not you. If revival stops at the personal level, well, that’s no revival at all. That’s just me holding Jesus hostage. Revival is not a revival unless it spreads. Any one of you can feel closer to God than you’ve ever felt, but what good does it do if you leave it at that? Well, for you it’s a good and wonderful thing, but we’re not called to feel good and wonderful about ourselves. We’re not called to feel close to God and leave it at that.

John Wesley knew that. He knew that this warming of his heart didn’t give him a reprieve, it gave him a mission. He, for maybe the first time in his life, felt assured of his salvation, assured that his sins were forgiven. And he knew this was a feeling he must share. The revival and renewal in his life soon led to the same sense of spiritual renewal in his brother Charles. The two of them then led a renewing of the Anglican Church.
Wesley began doing something previously unheard of, preaching outdoors. He made converting sinners the focus of his ministry and believed it should also be the focus of the church. Soon he began to form Methodist societies. Then he sent preachers to America to represent the Methodist societies there. Through his personal revival John Wesley sought to revive the church, and he did to an extent. His movement eventually became the Methodist Church.

Just as with Wesley our personal revival can lead to a revival of the entire congregation. And it doesn’t take everyone. Not all of us will experience a renewal of spirit. And definitely not all of us at the same time. But it really only takes a few. Just a few people revived and renewed can help to revive a church.

I think first, we need to look at what a church is, and what a church should be. As a United Methodist congregation, we fall under the governance of the Book of Discipline. It is many things. It gives rules and guidelines for running the church. It contains our articles of religion, what we believe as Methodists. And it contains positions on many social issues which face our world.

One thing it gives us is the mission of the church. I want to read that for you “The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Taking that one step further, the mission statement of the North Alabama conference is: “Every church challenged and equipped to grow more disciples of Jesus Christ by taking risks and changing lives.” Well, that sounds familiar. I think I’ve preached something similar to that before. And just a few days ago, too. Remember, Peter and the disciples in a boat on a choppy, windblown sea. And along comes Jesus, only they think he is a ghost. Peter asks Jesus to call him to come out of the boat. Jesus calls. Peter goes. Peter was ready to take a risk to obey Jesus. He was ready to risk all to answer his call.

And that is what we as the church should be ready to do. We are to seek our call, to hear it, and then answer it. What is that call? That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?

We know that we are called to make disciples. But how do we do that? And is there anything else? What does it mean to be a church?

The Apostle Paul wrote a great deal about what it means to be a church. Most of the letters we have from Paul were written to churches from the 1st century. Many of them were written to churches in trouble. Churches who were trying to figure out what it meant to be a church. So Paul wrote back and gave his vision of what the church should be.

Author Andrew Chester summarizes Paul’s vision for the church from all of those letters this way – “Paul’s vision for the communities that he wrote to can be summed up quite succinctly. He sees them as being a new creation in Christ, filled with the Spirit, possessing gifts of the Spirit and overflowing with the fruit of the Spirit, controlled above all by love; they are communities that should be pure and holy, mutually supportive and interdependent, completely united, transcending the oppositions and tensions between different groups within the community, and with every kind of barrier that would divide them in normal society broken down.”

What does that mean in a practical sense though? How does this affect Mt. Moriah? You know, I can’t really answer that question. I guess I could. I could stand up here and give you a blueprint for what it would take for Mt. Moriah to become that church that Paul desired for all churches to be. But would it accomplish anything?

No, once again, true change can only come from God. No matter what I preach, I cannot change a thing. Only God working through the Holy Spirit can bring change. All we can do is leave ourselves open for the Spirit to work in and through us.

Going back to the Book of Discipline, not only does it give us the mission of the church, it also gives some guidelines for how we can carry out that mission.

· First of all, proclaim the gospel. Not just from up here or even in this building, but everywhere you go. We should “seek, welcome, and gather persons into the Body of Christ.” That is at its simplest, inviting people to church.

· Lead persons to commit their lives to God through baptism by water and the Spirit and profession of faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, it’s not enough to just get them in the door. We need to show them God’s grace and lead them into accepting that grace.

· Nurture persons in Christian living. This is disciple building and it applies to all of us. Worship, prayer, study of the scriptures, other disciplines such as fasting, the Lord’s Supper. All of these things move us toward true discipleship.

· Send persons into the world to live lovingly and justly as servants of Christ by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the stranger, freeing the oppressed, being and becoming a compassionate, caring presence.

And here’s a statement I want you to hear as well. This is a section called “faithful ministry.” “The people of God, who are the church made visible in the world, must convince the world of the reality of the gospel or leave it unconvinced. There can be no evasion or delegation of this responsibility; the church is either faithful as a witnessing and serving community, or it loses its vitality and its impact on an unbelieving world.”

I know I haven’t read any scriptures tonight, at least not directly. But know this, if we as a church are not making disciples, if we are not faithful in our ministry as a witnessing serving community, well, that’s unbiblical.

Everything I read tonight from the Discipline is grounded in scripture. I’m sure you recognized many of those elements. Things like the parable of the sheep and goats where Jesus tells us when we care for the least of these we care for him. The great commission to go and make disciples.

So this is what a church should be. How we get there and how exactly that looks for Mt. Moriah is up to us. It’s not up to us in the sense that we can decide to be those things and then just be them and all is well. It is up to us to be open to the Holy Spirit. It is up to us to seek God’s call for this church. Then it is up to us to answer that call.

God wants us to be a church that makes disciples. We just have to be open, to listen, and be ready to step out in faith to answer that call.

I saw a tweet from Bishop Willimon today that fits well with this message. He said, “God speaks, that doesn’t mean God always says what we want to hear.” That’s the risk. When we truly listen for God, we never know what message we might hear back. But we have to be open ad faithful and ready to take risks to make new disciples.

Then we can be a revived church.