My goal in sharing this shocking confession is not to make fun of any seeker sensitive model, which is not our model for ministry, but my response to this story is to reiterate what we have been preaching– it is all about God and doing church as God has asked us to do church.  What we are about as a church is inviting and setting up a climate for the Spirit of God to fall, for the manifest presence of God to fall in our midst, so that we are changed people.  When we are a changed people, we will affect others around us each day.  As we are a changed people, we have changed priorities.  As our lives reflect the life the Lord has called us to live, then we will watch as God brings renewal and refreshment to His people, brings His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. 

We are finishing our sermon series on revival this morning, before heading into the Advent season.  What is God asking from us individually and corporately as a body?  He is calling us to marvel at His goodness, grace and love which He has poured upon us.  He is calling us to repent of all our sin.  He is calling us to set aside time to seek Him with our whole heart.  And He is calling us to believe His Word, who He has made us to be as His people– to have a correct view of who we are as His children.  These have been sermon themes over the last few months and I would encourage you to get the CD for ones you missed so you can be a part of what God is doing at Trinity.  This morning we will build again on these ideas, and look at this theme: When we put things in God’s order, He heals and restores our land!

I. A look at what God does to bring revival– shows the holiness of His Name; cleanses us from our idols and sin, gives us a heart of flesh, puts His Spirit in us which moves us to obey Him, saves us from all our uncleanness, restores what was taken way during His discipline, removes disgrace among the nations, and rebuilds our ruined cities.

We won’t spend much time on each point, but I would like to walk through this passage in Ezekiel with you this morning so you can see what God does when He brings revival.  These are things God is interested in seeing happen, so we know these things are His will for us, as He brings renewal to us. 

1. God shows the holiness of His Name– verse 23.  God is holy, which means He is set apart as God and there is no other.  Whenever you look at God and marvel at any aspect of His character– “Wow, God is loving!  Look at the beauty of God!  God is so merciful to us!”– then God is showing the holiness of His Name!  He desires to show the holiness of His Name, meaning His character, in and through us.  This is God’s will!  When a person, Christian or non-Christian comes into our midst at a Fall Festival or worship service or gathering of any kind, that person should have an encounter with some aspect of the Lord’s character as the Lord is at work through His church at Trinity.  If that person leaves without having encountered the Lord on some level, then His character– His Name and holiness are not being displayed through us as He intends, and for that we need to repent.  We offer ourselves to the Lord so He will be seen in and through us!  How are you doing?  How are we doing as a body?

2. God cleanses us from our idols and sin.  Only God is able to cleanse us from sin, and He does this through the blood of Jesus!  Verse 25 tells us that God will sprinkle clean water on us– that is symbolic language, illustrating what happens when God works in our lives.  Most of you understand this, but let me be clear– we are cleansed by God when we believe the truth that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross in my place, as a substitute for my sin when we receive Jesus into our lives to make us His own.  After you come to saving faith in Christ, then you put away all your former idols.  In these days, pagans often had household gods which were passed down from their ancestors, and they worshiped graven images.  We are a little more sophisticated– we don’t usually worship carved figures, but we spend our time and money on ungodly things too.  Anything which hinders you from worship is an idol.  If missing a golf game is more important than worship to you, it is an idol.  If soccer is something you will do anything for, then that is your idol.  If your car is your focus, your pride and joy, the thing which you spend the most time thinking about, then it holds the place of god in your life and is an idol.  It could be anything, literally.  Put these away.  If you cannot lay something down for 6 months, it has an ungodly hold on your life.  I love ACC Basketball, but if God asked me to lay it down, I know I could.  I love coffee, but if God asked me to lay it down I know I could.  I don’t need to be pastor of this church or any church, so I know that isn’t an idol in my life.  What has a hold on your life and needs to be removed?  Ask Jesus to take this out of your life.  As this happens, there is revival going on in your life!  You walk in freedom of forgiveness!  You receive His grace!

3. God gives us a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone.  Verse 26 tells us this.  The idea here is that our hearts are focused upon self and hard towards the things of God before we come to know Christ.  People who are not yet Christians do not understand the things of God nor can they.  The Word can be preached powerfully, but they will not respond to it, because of their hard hearts towards the gospel and towards God.  When revival comes, God changes this and gives to us a heart of flesh, meaning a heart which is responsive to the things of God.  When we hear about something God is doing, our hearts well up with joy.  When we see something which grieves the heart of God, our heart is also grieved.  This is what it means to have a heart of flesh– we are sensitive to the same things God is sensitive to and see things the same way God sees things.  Our prayer here is, “God, give me a this heart of flesh!!”  When He does this, revival has come!

4. God puts His Spirit in us which moves us to obey Him.  Verse 27 tells us this truth.  Listen, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in you and in me, we will choose sin.  We will act according to our sinful nature.  There is a work of transformation going on inside of all born again believers, to make us more like Christ.  It is a matter of submitting our wills to that of the Spirit who is at work within us, which enables us to act by faith in a manner that pleases Christ.  Where is the Holy Spirit?  If you know Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells within you.  Ask for grace to say no to ungodliness.  When temptation comes, stop and pray and ask for His strength and choose godliness.  If you are not yet a Christian, you do not have the power of the Spirit at work in you yet.  You need to ask Christ to come into your life and to save you first.  Then you will begin to discern the work of the Spirit within you!  As you listen to the Spirit, and as you worship and fellowship with God’s people, you will be moved towards obedience!!  What a fabulous gift!  Our prayer here is to ask the Lord to place His finger on anything in our lives which does not please Him and remove it– cause our hearts to obey Him!  Then we agree with what the Spirit of God desires to do, and there is grace to meet us and move us to obedience.  Revival means we are desiring more obedience in our own lives.  Is this true of your life today?

5. God saves us from all our uncleanness.  Look at verse 29a.  This is what God does for us and it is fantastic!  There are severe consequences to our sin.  God not only saves us and makes us His, but He reclaims us for Himself and begins to protect us in His perfect way.  The more you live for Christ, the less of a hold the things of the world have on you.  The consequences of your sin– broken relationships, broken places of your heart, financial and physical ruin– God begins to redeem even these things!  When you see God using and redeeming things which used to drag you down, revival is coming in your life.  George Verwer shared 2 weeks ago about the struggle pornography had been in his life, even as a born again college student.  Now, the Lord uses his past struggles as a ministry for others who are currently struggling with pornography, which is a sign of revival!

6. God restores what was taken way during His discipline.  Look at verses 29b-30.  This is closely related to the last point.  God’s judgement for sin is no longer falling on you because of your sin.  In its place, you begin to reap a harvest of righteousness.  I have seen financial disasters redeemed as a person came to Christ, began to live by biblical principles in their finances, tithed and gave away all that God had asked of them, worked hard at their area of skill.  God restores.  I have seen this in relationships.  Children will not speak to a father because of his past sin. A man comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ.  He learns that God desires to restore what was lost, and this will happen when he follows God’s design for reconciliation.  He repents  to his children and asks his children to forgive him.  In one case I know about, it was a process, but after he asked his son to forgive him for his past sin, he was invited out for a short visit.  This was kind of like a test to see if the change was real.  Joe went out and got to know his son again, served his son and their family, got to know his grandkids and sought to bless them.  After Joe returned, there were more and more phone calls and then the invitation to come again and stay longer.  When revival comes into your life, God will begin to restore what has been stolen from you by the devil or by His judgement.  Pray and ask God do this.  You seek to serve, love and reconcile relationships, but God has to be the One to restore.  This happens on a personal level, but also on a corporate level.  There are communities all over the world where revival has come when the church in the area followed God’s principles, and then God restored the land.  There are 4 “Transformation” videos out now which document the move of God in certain communities.  The first of these happened in a small community called Al Amonga, Guatemala.  The reason this one is so significant to me is one of the elders from the last church where I pastored visited this community.  He has pictures of carrots as long as your arm and cauliflower as big as a basketball.  This happened when the people of God repented of all their sin, and began to break demonic strongholds in the community which had reigned there and wrecked havoc for generations.  Farmers in this community barely could eek out a living until the church responded and God brought revival.  Today, they don’t need police except to direct traffic.  They don’t really need a judge or jail.  The bars have all closed down.  Farmers drive Mercedez trucks and pay cash for them because the harvests are so great.  God restored their land!  The judgement of God has been removed and blessing has been left in its’ place.  When this happens, there is revival in the community!

7. God removes disgrace from His people among the nations.  This is spoken in 30b.  Disgrace came upon the people because they had been defeated by their enemies and dragged into exile.  There was famine in their land.  The surrounding nations watched this and began to mock Israel– where is your God Israel?  He is either powerless or hates you!  They were covered with shame because they could not feed their own people.  Shame comes into any community where they cannot feed their people.  There are plenty of resources to feed people.  We have all we need, and more than that, God is able to produce any size harvest He desires to produce!!  When people look and see the blessings of God flowing over a people, they want to know the God we worship!  What is happening in America today?  When the world looks at our economy, and at what we are exporting, does it want what we have?  Economically, this is sometimes true, but the biggest things we have exported over the last few decades is trash through our media.  It is no wonder strictly Muslim countries hate us– we cause their kids to lust after things.  We have become a disgrace among nations because of this.  God removes shame when He brings revival. 

8. God rebuilds our ruined cities.  Read verses 33-36 with me again.  What is desolate in Florence, SC?  A place God created to flourish is struggling with feeding its people.  It is embarrassing to drive through some of our neighborhoods, because they are so run down and desolate.  It is easy to point a finger and say, “It is their fault.”  Listen, this is our city!  When we see God restoring these neighborhoods, we will know revival is here.  Gangs are rising up because there is no place to belong.  The church has given up its calling to embrace lost people, to walk with them so they may be healed and restored and delivered.  Most Christians look at the drugs, single moms, kids having babies, drop out rate, poverty and all the other issues which go with desolate places in our city and shrug their shoulders.  God will restore these places when we, His church in Florence, live according the principles about which we have talked over the last few months.  I have perfect hope for the inner city.  When the church joins hands, prays in faith using the authority God has given to us, begins to serve the people in the city and joins God as He brings redemption to our city, streams of living water will begin to flow through these desolate places.

Several pastors and churches in this area are seeking to join together to adopt a needy neighborhood.  We hope to join hands and prayer walk the streets, to pray over and bless every family, to serve the community in many ways to reclaim lives.  We desire to remove shame and restore hope.  God will do this as we follow His lead!  This is revival!

II. People will know that the Lord is God and that He is in our midst.
What is God after?  What does He ultimately want to see happen in our midst?  The Scriptures today tell us that the Lord wants His Name to be known, His character to be revealed, His love to be manifest in our midst.  As we repent of our idolatry, choose to lay aside every hindrance to both seek the Lord with all our heart, and then do the work of Kingdom which God has in mind for us to do, we will experience revival like we have never seen before. We want a revival which transforms lives and transforms the way our community functions.  There are many great ministries going on at and through Trinity today.  I am delighted with many things the Lord is doing, and I believe He is delighted with these things.  What is next for us?  Fast and pray until we know the mind of the Lord, but move forward in planting churches in places where there is a need; develop this site so that all the ministries which God has in mind to do are happening to their fullest capabilities; keep our priorities crystal clear– worship, growing in faith, healed and delivered,  be equipped to do the ministry, reaching out in significant ways so that every person who comes into our community has the chance to both hear the gospel and experience the love of Christ through us.  We want for it to really difficult to go to hell if you live in Florence, SC!