Going Viral

In today's YouTube, Facebook, & Twitter world, information is instantaneous. Whether it's a cat playing piano or a fake interpreter at a head of state's funeral, information is at our fingertips & within minutes of something happening, it can go viral & global.

Throughout the history of the church, revival & awakening movements have had a similar effect. What started in a specific place at a specific time & with a specific person seems to go viral as it spreads across a nation or even the globe. This dynamic should remind us of the important truth that even though God's work in us is intensely personal, it is not private. What God is doing in us is designed to spill out into the world around us.

"Revival Begins As God Moves Us To Look In,

But It Spreads As God Moves Us To Look Around."

As Psalm 51 begins to close, the work that God is doing in David's heart is beginning to move David to look around at others who need to experience the life changing, life giving hope that David had found in God's mercy & grace toward him. In Verse 13 David sees the need to teach people God's ways so that they might turn to God. In Verses 14-15 David is moved toward a lifestyle of gratitude for what God has done in his life. Finally, in Verse 16, David is reminded of an important truth about religion: God wants your heart before He gets your religion. Sacrifices & offerings mean nothing if you haven't first offered God your heart. Authentic religion, a life of thanksgiving, & a desire & burden to reach those far from God are all born out of the revival that was taking place in David's spirit. The work of God in David was moving David to let God work through him. 

Revivals can't be confined to your own life or congregation. It is designed to ooze out of you so that the world around you is touched by the mercy & grace of God. Revival begins as God invades our lives & confronts us with our sin. When we're broken & repentant over our sin, God does a work of renewal & revival in us, but that work was never meant to be kept to ourselves. Yes, it's personal, but it should never be private.

Renewed, Reshaped, & Reminded

In Psalm 51, David is confronted with his sin. He's broken over it & cries out to God for mercy, grace, & forgiveness. Beginning in verse 10 David asks God to "Create in me a clean heart O God & renew a steadfast spirit within me." In this section what God's work of renewing us looks like when we come to Him with genuine, broken repentance.

"God Renews Us By Reshaping Us & Reminding Us."

When David asks God to "create" & "renew" there are a couple of things we need to understand about those words. The Hebrew word David chose for "create" was the same word used in Genesis 1 when God created the universe. David's implication is that this new heart is something only God can create. David cannot do this work for himself; he needs God to intervene & replace his sinful heart. The word David chose for "renew" was often used to describe the process of polishing stones or sharpening metal. It implies the need to file away or sand away the pieces that don't allow the stone to reflect its beauty or the metal to serve the purpose for which it was designed. 

As David continues in verses 11 & 12, he is reminded of how his faithfulness impacts his usefulness. He had experienced God's gracious forgiveness but he's still concerned about God's Spirit being taken away. What's that about? Even though David had experienced God's grace, he remembered Saul. Saul's unfaithfulness & unwillingness to trust God caused him to be useless to God. God could not use him as king as long as Saul was unwilling to follow. That's Saul's legacy, & David didn't want it to be his. David also is reminded that his joy comes from the salvation that he has experienced in God. David, like many of us, had been seduced by the temptation that he could find satisfaction, fulfillment, peace, & joy in pursuing his desires & the things of this world. On the other side of that pursuit however, David was left with an even bigger hole in his life. The only thing that could give David real, lasting joy was the salvation of God. David needed to be reminded of that joy so that it could be restored in his life.

All of us have places where we need the edges filed down or polished so that we can reflect God's work in our lives & be used for His glory. And there are many times where we need to be reminded that joy is only found in our relationship with God through Christ. The things of this world always promise more than they can deliver & always cost more than we think. God wants to do a work of renewal in us so that we can do to new places of intimacy with our Heavenly Father, but we must be broken so that He can begin to renew us by reshaping us & reminding us.

The Breakthrough Of Brokenness

This weekend I began a new message series at ZBC. I've been hearing a lot lately about the need for revival in America. However, what I actually hear people talking about & praying for is not revival. What they're recognizing the need for is another great gospel awakening in America. Sadly, many church members & believers pray desperately for an awakening in this nation, yet we're often unwilling to confess our own part in the problem of sin. See, revival is necessary, but it's not for the lost. Revival is for those of us who follow Jesus. According to Scripture when we come into this world, we're spiritually still-born. There is no life in us. You can't revive that. Revival is for the one who once was living but has become unconscious. When God supernaturally invades the lives of His people & renews them spiritually for Kingdom ministry, then revival happens. God does a work of of renewal in us so that we are reinvigorated & released to take the Gospel to a lost world. In fact, when you look back through history the great gospel awakenings of history were sparked by revival in the lives of God's people. In addition to that, the revival among God's people was sparked when they came to grips with their sin & were broken over it.

"In Order For Revival To Break Out,

We Must First Be Broken Over Our Sin."

We see this principle radically on display in the life of David as he cries out to God for mercy in Psalm 51. David had been confronted with his sin with Bathsheba, & he was genuinely broken over his sin. He cried out to God for mercy not based on his past goodness but because of God's unfailing, covenant love. He knew he needed to confess his sin, not try to manage it. He knew that the only hope he had was for God, in His grace & mercy, to expunge his record & to restore David to Himself. Before David could be used by God, he had to be reconciled to God, & only God could bring about that reconciliation.

The same is true today for God's people. If we want to see the lost come to faith in Christ, then we must take the Gospel to them. However, if we want to be used by God to reach the lost, we must walk in fellowship with Him, & the thing that will keep us out of fellowship with God is our sin. It's only when we're hit with the depth of our sin & are broken over our sin that we can truly repent of it. Our sin is an assault on God & an attempt to usurp His authority, yet in His grace He has made a way to forgive the rebellious usurpers.

Walking through the valley of brokenness is the first step to climbing the mountaintop of revival. We are all wrestling with self & sin. We have a simple choice: to be broken over our sin or broken by our sin. When we allow the Holy Spirit to convict us & break us over our sin, we are renewed & revived, but when we run from God's conviction we will eventually be broken by our sin & its consequences.

Are You Involved?

Last week I wrote a little bit about the gap between attending a local church & serving in a local church & how the gap between those two realities is the very gap that keeps most people & congregations frustrated in their faith.

Somehow we've bought into a faith that is neatly confined to our favorite seat on Sunday morning. Somehow we've bought into the lie that somehow we get to retire from ministry at some point. As a result, most congregations are stretched to their limits because those serving in those congregations are stretched to the limit. It's time for all of us to get involved in what God is doing. We all have "reasons" why we don't: ability, time, etc. Jesus cuts through all those excuses today the way He did when He told His disciples in Matthew 14:18, "Bring them here to me." Whatever you have, bring it.

"You'll Never Know What God Can Do With What You Have

Until You Bring Him What You Have."

The backdrop of that verse in Matthew is when the disciples were freaking out about the huge crowd & lack of resources to feed them. You know the story. They tried to get Jesus to send the people away, but He turns the tables on them & tells them to feed the people. Of course, the disciples protest & list all the reasons why they can't do it. After all, they've only got 5 little biscuits & a couple of fish. Jesus' response: "Bring them here to me." The truth is that all you have is all He needs to do something incredible, maybe even miraculous. We don't have to have all that it takes to meet a need or fulfill God's call. All we need is the faith to bring what we do have to our Savior & allow Him to bless it & do something unforgettable. So get out there, close the gap, get involved, & find your place in God's work in this world.

Close The Gap

There is a gap in many churches that for many leaders seems impossible to close, yet if we can figure out how to close the gap in our particular congregations, our ability to influence & impact our homes, communities, & the world dramatically improves. That seeming insurmountable gap is the gap between simply attending the local church & serving the local church. For too long too many of us have simply sat in a pew or a chair & filled our space each week. The cost of simply attending & not serving & investing our lives in ministry is too great for us to ignore.

1) The gap between attending & serving the local church is the same gap
    that keeps people from experiencing the power of God in their lives.

2) The gap between attending & serving the local church is the same gap
    that keeps congregations in a coma instead of becoming fully alive.

3) The gap between attending & serving the local church is the same gap
    that keeps cities from seeing the power of the Gospel.

What if each of us who say we follow Jesus refused to simply sit in church & decided to invest our lives in the church? What if we all began to find a place to serve? What if we found people to serve, people to invest ourselves in? Do you think that we would see God do a fresh work in our own souls? Do you think our congregations would be energized through the faithful ministry of its people? Do you really think that our cities wouldn't be affected by a congregation of God's people who are no longer on the sidelines but are boldly serving & sowing the seeds of the Gospel everywhere they go?

It's time to close the gap. If you're sitting & soaking, you're probably also spoiling. Where can you invest your life & in whom can you invest your life for God's glory? If the gap is going to close, it has to start somewhere. Why not with you?