Tag Archives: Revival

Sunday – December 3, 2017 Gospel of Luke – “Ending the Silence” Luke 1:5-38

Posted on by
Reply

Sunday – December 3, 2017 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday – December 3, 2017 Gospel of Luke – “Ending the Silence” Luke 1:5-38 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Problems viewing?

Word On Worship – Sunday – December 3, 2017 Download / Print

Luke 1:13-15
“But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.”

Have you ever prayed for something over and over again, year in and year out, but God has not answered? I hope that you can answer yes, because if you say no, it only shows that you are not a praying person. If you pray, you have prayed for things that God has not yet answered. One unanswered prayer that every committed Christian should be praying is that God would send revival to our country. It is as of yet unanswered because nothing that is being described as revival today even comes close to the many examples of true revival that God has sent in times past. True revival is not a matter of hanging a banner in front of the church that announces, “Revival This Week, 7 p.m.” True revival is not a superficial, emotional response that results in a temporary experience, but without long-term fruit of righteousness.

True revival is when the living God sovereignly and powerfully breaks into human history with the good news of His salvation. It invariably begins with His people coming under deep conviction of sin and turning from that sin in genuine repentance. It always involves a recovery of biblical truth, especially the truth about how sinners are reconciled to a holy God. Therefore, it also involves a recovery of the centrality and authority of God’s Word over all of life. The renewed sense of God’s presence, power, holiness, and truth then inevitably spills out of the church and into the world, resulting in many genuine conversions.

When God sends revival, He also sends great joy. The angel announced to Zecharias that he would have joy and gladness at John’s birth, and that many would rejoice (1:14). They were not just rejoicing at the birth of the child, but at what this child would bring — good news of a great joy for all the people, the news of the Savior (1:19; 2:10). Sin always causes pain and destruction; God’s salvation and righteousness result in great joy and gladness as relationships are reconciled.

There were no extraordinary means employed, no special campaigns, but rather the normal means of prayer and the preaching of the Word. But suddenly God broke into the midst of churches so that people who before had been complacent were now gripped with the reality of eternity and everyone sensed that in deed, God was in this place. We need to pray that God would graciously send us such a visitation of His saving grace. And, we need to prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord Himself into our midst.

Sunday – December 1, 2013 Judges 6:1-35 “How to Start a Revival (Without Even Trying)”

Posted on by
Reply

December 1, 2013 – Read the Word on Worship

“How to Start a Revival (Without Even Trying)” Judges 6 verses 1 to 35 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Word On Worship – December 1, 2013 Download / Print

Judges 6:7-10
Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian,  that the Lord sent a prophet to the sons of Israel, and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,’It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery. I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land, and I said to you, I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed Me.”

There are two very important forces that affect faith in our culture; pluralism and privatization. Pluralism is the process by which our culture accepts a wide diversity of beliefs and practices as having equal merit. Considering the free society in which we live, this tolerance of other views is necessary for the functioning of the nation. In terms of religion, our nation is made up of many faiths, and our system of government allows people to believe and practice their faith as they see fit, provided they are not a danger to themselves or others.

It is necessary in a democracy to accept the reality that many faiths can coexist and be embraced in our nation, but this does not mean that all these faiths are equally true and valid. According to the Bible, and particularly the Lord Jesus Christ, Christianity alone is true faith, and faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins is the only way to heaven. People have the freedom to believe and worship however they wish, but only Jesus Christ saves, and only the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God.

Privatization not only embraces pluralism, it seeks to promote it. Our culture wants to believe all religions are of equal value and all of them will eventually get you to heaven. So pluralism says you can believe whatever you want, but privatization insists that you must not hold your belief as exclusively true. And so in the culture the only unpardonable sin is to attempt to impose your belief on someone else. Privatization insists we keep our faith – whatever that may be – to ourselves. This is the opposition we as Christians see in society towards evangelism.

Our text exposes these modern beliefs as false. The Israelites did not have the freedom to worship whatever they wanted. They were commanded to believe in the God who saved them from Egypt and had given them the land of Canaan. God told them through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 42:8 “I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images.” The Great Commission demands we share our faith with others who are lost apart from trusting in Jesus Christ for their salvation. Gideon must tear down his father’s idols and publicly worship the God of Israel.  Our text challenges us to confront the pluralism and privatization of religion in our lives. There should be no such thing as “secret Christians” for those who follow Jesus Christ.

http://sunrisetc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/SunriseWOW2013-12-01Web.pdf