Revival Brings Healing
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Revive Us Sermon Series
Part 4 Revival Brings Healing!
Scripture: 2 Chronicles 7:14
Prayer
Well, we began the revival with a powerful word from the Old Testament Book of Jonah. And we learned that Jonah is all about revival.
After trying to hide from God, and being swallowed and sitting in the belly of that fish, Jonah cried out to God and He revived His servant which in turn brought revival to the great city of Nineveh.
Then Tuesday we discussed how revival brings a great awakening. From the book of Ephesians chapter 1. We found to change our focus to God we are to live as enlightened people.
Enlightened to the hope of God’s calling, to the glorious riches of God’s inheritance. And to the greatness of God’s amazing power that also dwells in us.
Then last night we spoke from the book of Colossians 3 of how revival changes our focus as we seek from what is above- to keep looking up, When we focus our attention on Christ we are able to get rid of the old baggage and put on the newness of Christ.
Well, tonight I wanted to finish up the revival series with this title:
Revival Brings Healing.
If you have your Bibles with you and I hope that you if you do open your Bible to the Old Testament book of 2nd Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles chapter 7.
If you are unfamiliar as to where 2nd Chronicles is, you can find it, if you find 1st and second Samuel, First and Second Kings and 1st Chronicles then you will find 2nd Chronicles chapter 7.
Before we get started let me share with you some background information about this section of 2nd Chronicles.
This scripture that we are looking at today is probably the most used passages to preach about revival.
Solomon and the people of Israel spent seven years building the temple it is now complete and Solomon was having this incredible celebration to dedicate the temple to God.
The celebration lasted for 24 days before he sent the people home and then God spoke to Solomon. God has warned the people in previous verses that their disobedience to Him and His commands would bring dire consequences for them and their land.
In this our scripture God is speaking to Solomon.
Can i just say that like Israel the things we do things out of pride, selfish gain, or going against the commandments of God and the laws that there are consequences.
For example, when you speed and get caught, you get a ticket, loss points on you license or worse you must go to court. There are consequences to all things that we do wrong.
But the good news is that God in all His glory is a God of second, third and more chances.
As we will see in this scripture today.
Well, if you are there in Old Testament Book of 2 Chronicles 7:14 Begin reading with me from verse 14. This is the Word of God, and it begins like this:
“14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.”
THIS LEADS US TO OUR TAKE-HOME TRUTH TONIGHT
OUR TAKE-HOME TRUTH IS:
TRUE REVIVAL COMES WHEN WE CHANGE OUR FOCUS FROM US TO GOD.
This has been our take-home truth throughout our revival. Folks we really need to understand that when we change our focus from us to God it will bring revival, restoration, but it will also bring healing.
You might be asking; what does change our focus mean? It means that we turn from glorifying ourselves, we turn from worshipping things/ idols and even people in our lives. We take our eyes off our life, the world and look to the One who is on the throne. We keep looking up to where Jesus is.
It also means that we turn to God through trusting that He will be there for us, we glorify and worship Him not just on Sundays but a daily basis, even in the good times and the bad times of our lives.
Have you ever noticed that when things are really going well that some people lose their focus on God?
But when the stuff hits the fan, it amazes me that those folks then run back to Jesus.
It’s like they are saying I don’t need you God when things are going good in my life.
But, If you noticed in v13 when God speaks to Solomon He says When I shut up heaven, there is no rain, Locust to devour the land our scripture today God has set conditions to reverse His judgement and to revive Israel and these conditions are also set for us.
What we see in the scripture that God gives us a clear path to be revived. God gives all His children the same four steps to not just receiving revival, but also healing.
A four-step program to be revived to change our focus back to Him and give us healing as well.
And it’s all right here in our scripture tonight.
So lets examine those steps.
STEP ONE TO BE REVIVED AND HEALED WE MUST FIRST HUMBLE OURSELVES BEFORE GOD.
Other countries believe Americans are arrogant; did you know that? I know it’s hard to believe, but I used to be arrogant also.
When I was serving in the Army I was a very arrogant soldier. I knew that I was good and they knew it too. Thankfully, my superiors saw my arrogance as confidence.
What I have come to know we have a hard time humbling ourselves.
Now one would think that born- again believers would be the ones that would be better at this than anyone. But that is not true, we also have a hard time humbling ourselves.
We hear that we should be humble, the bible teaches us about humility, but rarely is it taught the reason to be humble or how to be humble. When I look at this passage, I see the reason that God has set this as the first step towards revival.
One pastor said it this way; “When we think more of our ways than God’s we are living in arrogant pride and the only solution is to change our focus back to God is to humble ourselves.”
After all it is pride and stubbornness, and arrogance that has gotten us to the very place we are to begin with.
Now the word humble means to be under another.
And the one thing that we should never forget is who the Lord is.
When we humble ourselves to the Lord, we acknowledge His Lordship and headship over our lives.
We are also admitting that we can’t do everything and our weaknesses as we reach out for His power. James 4:6 tell us “But He gives greater grace. Therefore, he says God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
We read in Matthew 23:12 “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
The point of these verses is this - if our focus is on us and our earthly life we can become prideful and God will humble us at some point. I was the on the receiving end of God humbling me. I don’t wish that at all for anyone.
Years ago I was listening to my pastor preach on how we need each other and I thought I only need my wife and family they were the only ones I could depend on. I was defiant to the Word.
But God took that from me to the point that I could only depend on God getting me through it, God took my pride, my selfishness, and put me in a place where I had no choice but to lean on Him and to depend on other believers in our lives.
But on the other hand the one who takes their focus off themselves and focuses on God, then they will be exalted.
The word exalt means to elevate by praise or glorifying. Do you see the importance of this? Focusing on us brings praise and glory to ourselves, but focusing on God brings praise and glory to Him.
And the truth is if we don’t humble ourselves before the Lord then one day, He will humble us. That’s what He was going to do with Israel if they did not change.
STEP ONE - BECOME HUMBLE.
STEP TWO - TO BE REVIVED AND HEALED WE MUST PRAY.
A good prayer life is the staple of a mature believer. (x2)
Prayer is an essential ingredient in the mystery of revival! In fact, our praying may seem weak, but it will yield far more fruit than the effort demands!
Now I don’t think that I need to define the word prayer, I believe that believers and non-believers alike know what this word means. For revival to happen in a person’s life, we must spend quality time with God.
There are a lot of statistics out there about prayer, there are a lot of studies of prayer some say that the average believer spends less than one hour a week in prayer.
Now let me break this down for you there are 24 hours a day, and there are 7 days a week.
If we multiply those numbers we find there are 168 hours a week. At one hour a week that equals to spending .0059 percent of your week praying to God.
Does that shock you? For me that is convicting. I wonder what God thinks about us.
For me, for many reasons I spend a lot of time in prayer as I have my own study and prayer, I pray for our ministry. I pray for Churches; My family, I pray for the sick.
But here is what happens if we are not a humbled people before God, then our prayer becomes sporadic at most. SO, the reason why people are not praying more is because they think they don’t need God. However, once a person humbles themselves then the prayer life changes.
So, I ask you to look at your prayer life and if it is suffering, then look at your humility towards God.
Listen to this story from Pastor John Ramsey;
"Pastor John Ramsey had grown accustomed to someone providing him with a rose boutonniere every Sunday. That routine took on dramatic new meaning when a young boy approached him after the service and politely asked if he could have the little rose.
Ramsey knew the flower was destined for the trash, so he offered it to the boy and asked what he planned to do with the used rose. The little guy replied, "Sir, I'm going to give it to my granny. My parents got divorced last year. I was living with my mother, but when she got married again, she wanted me to live with my father. I lived with him for a while, but he said I couldn't stay so he sent me to live with my grandmother.
She is so good to me.
She cooks for me and takes care of me. She has been so good to me that I want to give that pretty flower to her for loving me." Ramsey said tears filled his eyes as he listened to the little boy. He then told the compassionate boy, "You can't have this flower because it's not enough." He pointed to the large array of fresh flowers at the altar and said, "Please take those flowers to your granny because she deserves the very best." The little boy lit up with excitement and said, "What a wonderful day! I asked for one flower but got a beautiful bouquet."
I thought a lot about that, and I see that when it comes to prayer our approach to God is not unlike what took place that day with this child and Pastor Ramsey.
We come in our pain, troubles, problems seeking a small response to our situation, but God points to a greater answer and invites us to take the greater blessing.
You know folks I believe that God has greater plans for you than you could ever imagine.
You see God has given prayer as the second step in revival and healing because we truly need Him, He wants to answer us, He wants to bless us.
We know that because when Jesus died on that cross that Friday the veil was torn from top to bottom. The very veil that separated sinful man from God. Yet Jesus’ death gives all believers access to God. So, God says that if you want to be revived you need to talk to me, personally.
We also see prayer throughout the Bible.
Don’t we?
We see through the ministry of Jesus that He prayed to the Father, Jesus taught the Disciples how to pray, the disciples prayed, Paul prayed in all his letters. We have God’s Holy Word telling us that we should be in prayer, we see that God wants us to completely trust in Him.
What prayer does for us is this we are able through prayer to see our own inabilities and recognize God’s great power and ability.
I think that we all know these things, Israel knew these things, yet they strayed, over and over and Like Israel we do too, our pride often stops us from praying in public, and even in church. Here is what prayer shows. It shows what type of relationship we have with the Creator. It is hard to get right with God if you are not spending time with God.
How can we be right with God if we aren't in a conversation with God?
Prayer is the place where we seek forgiveness of the sins. It is the place where we seek intervention of our problems and issues – It’s the place where we go for requests for other people. It’s where we bring petitions to God.
The Bible tells us that we don’t have because we don’t ask! I was reminded of that this week. In other words, you may be waiting for God, for something, but you will continue to wait because part of God’s plan is for you to ask Him. Yes, He knows what we need, but He wants you to seek it from Him.
I want to tell you that God gave us two weapons to use when spiritual warfare comes in our lives the first is the word of God, “THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT” Jesus was in the wilderness and the devil came at Jesus and Jesus did not stand up to him and say get away I am the son of God!
Instead, He used the word of God, the scriptures. That’s how powerful our sword is.
Then second is prayer it is powerful is equally as powerful. The more you realize how powerful prayer is the more you will seek it.
First Become humble, second make Prayer a priority.
THEN STEP THREE - TO BE REVIVED AND HEALED WE MUST SEEK GOD’S FACE.
The third requirement is that of "seeking His face".
I really see here that God is not asking for some long-distance relationships with His children. No, no, no, He is not even hinting that by this statement this shows us that God is personal.
He wants a one-on-one relationship with you. The word “seek” in this context means to search out (by any method, specifically in worship or prayer); to strive after.
The Hebrew word for “face” in the Old Testament is often translated to “presence.” When we seek the face of God, we are searching, desiring His presence.
The call to seek God’s face was issued to His people because they had abandoned Him and needed to return to Him.
This idea here is that we come to the place where God is the number one priority and desire of our heart! That is, nothing in life is more important, more precious or more needful to us than having God and all He has to offer.
When God says “SEEK MY FACE” it shows us that He wants us to desire Him and to be in His presence. He doesn’t ask us to seek His hand, yet too often we seek God's hand. What He can do for us?
Rather than seek God's face showing who He is.
If you want to have a revival in your life and in the church, we must not seek what God can do for you, we must seek His presence to know Him.
When we seek God’s face, we must know that we cannot physically see God’s face and still live. Moses could not see God’s Face. In fact God told Moses that he could not see God’s face and that when HE passes by him, he must hide his face in the cleft of the rock.
What the face of God signifies is His Glory, Joy and the benefits from being in His presence, His approval and His communion. So how do we do this?
We can take advice from Jesus’ Brother James says in James 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
This is something for you to think about James the younger brother of Jesus was next to Jesus all his life. He probably slept next to Him, ate their meals next to each other, He played with Him, argued with Him, but James was not near to Him.
You know you can be next to someone all your life and not know them. James became near to Jesus when Jesus showed Himself to James after the resurrection. He had been next to Jesus all his life, but he did not come close to Jesus until Jesus in His resurrected state spoke to him. It is interesting because how many of us are close to Jesus but not near to Him.
Here is the lesson; to have revival in our lives and the church we must seek His face- we must get near to Him.
Remember Col. 3:1 it speaks to seeking Christ: “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
The Lord wants us to seek to spend time with Him in His presence.
STEP ONE - BECOME HUMBLE.
STEP TWO - FOCUS ON PRAYER.
STEP THREE - SEEK GOD’S FACE.
STEP FOUR - CHANGE YOUR DIRECTION TOWARD GOD.
Turning from our wicked ways shows the direction of our walk towards God.
Notice the God begins this with “If MY people who are called by MY Name” God is not calling out to all people, just the ones who are His.
He is calling His children. The theological word for turning from our wicked, sinful, unholy lifestyle and walking toward God is repentance.
Repentance means to turn around. It is to say I'm going in the wrong direction, I need to turn from my wicked ways and turn to God. You are going down the road the leads to destruction and you do a 180 degree turn around to go down the road that leads to life.
The practical word repent is used to describe a moral and spiritual act of getting right with God. You may be thinking that you have already confessed your sin to God when you became a believer. And that might be true but look at who God is speaking to. He is talking to none other than Israel.
Did you know what happened to Israel, God heard their cry in Egypt sent Moses in and rescued them from the bondage of slavery. After wondering around in the same circle for an extra 40 years because of sin. Once settled in the promised land, they sinned again and God punish them by having another country invade them and put them into slavery (RIGHT BACK WHERE THEY WERE).
They would repent, come clean with God and He would restore them, then guess what they would do it again and guess what God would punish them eventually they would repent and God would forgive them.
We see this happening over and over and over again with them. Jacob was told that he had to put away the idols that were in his household and to be clean if he wished to experience the blessing of God and his reviving power (Gen. 35:1-4).
Likewise, Joshua commanded the nation of Israel that they also had to “throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD” (Josh. 24:14).
In the New Testament Paul tells Timothy in 2 Tim 2:19 saying these words
“The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”
This is not a once a year cleansing or turning away from wickedness it is not a once in a lifetime repentance, it is a daily repentance, it is a daily turning away from the evilness from the world and turning to God.
There is no other way to receive the promises of God.
You can look at these four steps as progression steps. What I mean is unless you become humble, your prayer life won’t be in order. If your prayer life isn’t in order then you wont seek God’s Face and if you cannot do that you won’t turn from your wicked ways.
Revival begins with your humility that leads to prayer. Prayer leads to seeking God’s face. Seeking God’s face leads to turning from our wicked ways.
So, when we complete these steps as an individual or as a church or even a nation God says that once we accomplish these tasks He promises 3 things that He will do.
Look back at verse 14 “My people who are called by My name humble themselves, pray and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”
Look at those promises of God that if we do what He has told us than He will:
#1 Hear from Heaven what this gives us is a description that we were knee deep into the world or ourselves God wont hear our prayers unless we humble ourselves and then pray. Without being humbled God won’t hear your wants and desires for this life and eternity. But once your focus is changed to Him, He says that He will hear from heaven.
#2 God will forgive.
You know if we ask for forgiveness God is there to give it to us. Amen… I don’t know about you, but I am very thankful of that. When we turn from us to God He is faithful.
Aren’t you glad today that God is not only a second and third chance God, but He is also faith to His promises?
The third promise- God will heal the land.
What does that mean? Well, if you look at Israel, they worked for seven years building the temple, but because of their disobedience God destroyed the land. ONCE they come to their senses God will restore everything to them.
Let me ask you tonight what do you need restored in your life?
What needs to be healed in your life?
God has given to a step-by-step process that once we do it then He will hear from heaven, forgive sin and heal.
I want to close by bringing your attention to chapter 15 verse 2“The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you abandon Him, He will abandon you”
Let us be a people who seek Him, in times of restoration and troubles.
Lets us be revived!
Invitation