Revive: R - Return To God

Why did they put up the sail anyway? So they could catch the wind when it comes. I want us to set ourselves for revival. I want us to get ready for revival and let God work in us and through us. But friends, if we're gonna allow god to bring that into our church, into our communities, into our nation, it begins with us personally. We have to have our hearts right. We have to have our lives ready. We need to have our sails set personally because we are the church. [00:28:26] (39 seconds)  #SetSailsForRevival

We could seek God's face with confidence, but here's where you know the confidence comes from. It's because we're covered by the blood of Jesus that we can have confidence to come into the presence of a holy God. We we shouldn't have confidence to enter his presence. In fact, it should scare us to death to enter his presence and his holiness and his righteousness if we didn't have the covering of Jesus. But because of that covering, we can truly seek the face of God and come into his presence with confidence that he will welcome us into his presence. [00:51:13] (37 seconds)  #ConfidenceInChristsBlood

But what if we shifted our prayer life to not, god, will you do this for me, but god, can I have more of you in my life? Can I be more present with you and have your presence more with me? Because all that other stuff takes care of itself in the presence of god. It does. It doesn't mean we should never ask for the things we need. God teaches us to do that, but that should not be the primary focus of how we pray. When he says seek my face there in that culture, it carried with it the idea of having an audience with someone where you are giving them your full attention and they are giving you their full attention. [00:48:06] (47 seconds)  #SeekMoreOfGod

He gives us this illustration. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. That's the old law. How much more, listen to this, how much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing, the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the spirit of grace? Don't you see what he's saying we're doing when we choose to willfully go on sinning? We're choosing to do this. We are choosing to trample the son of God under our feet. That's the description. We are choosing to treat the blood of the covenant that comes through Jesus that sanctifies us. We're choosing to treat that like an unholy thing when we deliberately go on sinning, And we are deliberately choosing to insult the spirit of grace. [01:06:04] (60 seconds)  #WillfulSinIsAnInsult

He does not want anybody to have to face a raging fire of judgment. He doesn't want us to have to face his vengeance because of our willful sinfulness in our lives. That's what the cross is all about. That's what the gospel is all about. He wants us to have such a sweet taste in our minds and hearts for his grace that we would never make that choice to willfully choose to go on in our sins, but that we would truly repent, truly turn from our sinful ways. [01:10:31] (33 seconds)  #GraceShouldLeadToRepentance

You want forgiveness, you want grace, you want mercy. Stop practicing sin as if it's okay. That's where the blessing is. That's where freedom from darkness comes. That's where the burden of the guilt of sin is lifted. That's where eternal life becomes a reality. It's when we turn from our wicked ways. You don't get the promise without the turning. He said, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Repentance is directly connected to the forgiveness. Without repentance, the Bible even says clearly, there is no forgiveness apart from repentance. But we say, god, forgive me and we go on sinning. The two don't go together. They don't belong together. They cannot exist together. [01:01:10] (65 seconds)  #TurnAndReceiveForgiveness

It's the opposite of what the world says you should do in your life. That's why this life we're called to is so radically different, and that's part of what makes wearing his name so important that we stand out and live differently than everybody else does. See, he wants his people to be set apart, to be distinctly different than everybody around us who doesn't wear his name. But what we see in much of the church of America for a long time now is we look just like everybody else. We live just like everybody else. We talk just like everybody else. We dress like everybody else. We participate in the stuff that everybody else participates in so that we can fit in with everybody else when God says, I don't want you to fit in with everybody else. [00:45:14] (50 seconds)  #LiveSetApart

But the kingdom of god is not the kingdom of this world, and it's an upside down kind of kingdom. And in this kingdom, he says, the least will be the greatest, and the greatest will be the least. So why do we keep pushing to be the greatest? Why do we keep pushing for fame and recognition and notoriety? Why is that so important to us when we belong to a kingdom where that means nothing in that kingdom to have that? You see, in order for god to bring revival to us, we've gotta put ourselves in the right position to receive it, and that's not to elevate ourselves. It's to lower ourselves. [00:42:17] (43 seconds)  #HumbleToReceiveRevival