My Journey of Faith Part 7
Revival is Living for God's Glory in Fellowship with Believers
I wonder how many people would immediately understand if I told them that revival is not the top blowing off but the bottom falling out?
How many people go to church on a Sunday morning, get excited by the music, and are utterly oblivious that if their worship does not contain repentance (The Turning from sin in real time) that results in heartfelt sorrow over sin and its forgiveness, it is worthless? We must grasp this concept, for the consequences of not understanding it are grave. It's a sobering thought.
The picture to your right is the young singles group we discipled in Redford, Michigan. A fullness can be felt and enjoyed when brothers and sisters worship together in unity, transparency, and humility. I have always wanted more and more of the best kind of fellowship. Friends can have fun together while attending The Moose Club, but that is hardly Christian fellowship.
Revival is Living for God's Glory in the Wilderness
It has taken me years to fully understand that the nature of worthwhile fellowship is transparency if it is to be fellowship at all. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light shine before men so that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." It is easy to miss, but Jesus's main point in verse sixteen is that we are to shine our light on our Father and not ourselves. Attending church as a good Christian only satisfies God if His Son gets the glory. Being a good Christian, as if we are good in and of ourselves, misses the point of the Gospel. Goodness results from sanctification through hardships, chastening, and Fatherly discipline, producing perseverance, prayer, repentance, and increasing faith.
The year was 1981. We joined Global Outreach Mission, and after a year in Michigan serving at Covenant Community Church, we were told that they had no seasoned missionaries in China, which was where I felt led to go, so we had to go to Mexico. That summer, I met a missionary who told me not to let the mission direct me; that responsibility belongs to God alone. His testimony of going to the Congo was extraordinary, to say the least.
We moved to Texas and met with a different Mission that we had been handed off to. Over the years, I have talked with many missionaries who have told of less than Spirit-filled Missionary Boards and their methods to get "Jesus" work done.
The day we met with the board, I was told that because my wife had been married before, I could not pastor, disciple, or lead the church in any way. I was there simply as a member. In a single moment, I went from a sinner not having been discipled for six years to a sinner so grieved over my sin that I wanted to commit suicide to a fully forgiven, justified, believing, born-again, hungry for God's Word disciple-maker to an unforgiven wretch because of a person wrongly interpreting 1 Timothy 3:2. The qualifications for an elder were understood to be the husband of one wife, but for the one who looks at the Greek it is "...a one-woman man." A man can be married for his whole life to one woman without ever being a one-woman man. Churches that do not promote transparent fellowships where sin can be revealed without fear of criticism and where there should be restoration in an atmosphere of love instead encourage people to become proud and hypocritical Christians.
We were living in Abilene, Texas, where we attended a church on our first Sunday morning and heard a sermon that was just what I needed to hear. It was entitled, A Deaon is a Cut Above. I love the fact that I can laugh about this right now, even though I increasingly don't understand how any child of God who understands but cannot conceive of the fact that the eternal, everywhere present, all-knowing, and Almighty God became a man, died as a sinner being pure, and then endorse any pride in the body of Christ.
On one occasion, I went for a run. I was entering a very dark time in my life. The thought that should never be allowed to enter crossed my mind: "Lord, why did you allow this to happen?" During the following year, I did not say anything about my Christianity; reading and praying became obsolete until I stood in my bedroom amid boxes still unpacked and saw dust on my Bible. The thought occurred to me: what are you doing? I can never walk away from God, though the road is hard and the way is dark; God died for me; when that is real, you can't walk away.
Revival is Living for God's Glory Through Chastening
So, I picked up my Bible and turned to the book of Judges, clearly directed by God. I read.
"He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out and took it and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey, I have killed a thousand men" Judges 15:15-16. In those words, I saw God, my Redeemer, who forgave me, loved me, restored me, and, most importantly, used me for nearly a decade. People may never forgive and even shove it in your face, but God wholly and only forgives where the blood has been applied.
I continued to read, "Then he became very thirsty, and he called to the LORD and said, "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?" Verse. 18. It could not have become more plain to me that I said to God, "Have I served you these many years, and is this how you treat ME?" Now I feel like crying. It doesn't matter what people do in the name of God; it matters what I do, or you do to God.
One of the big lessons I learned then was asking God why is fine when the words What do you want to change in me accompany it. Those words change our approach from accusing God to inquiring in what way the Father wants to make me more like his Son.
I finished my time with the Lord by reading, "Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left. And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life" Judges 16:29-30.
Samson braced upon the pillars, arms outstretched, that held the building in place and called for his death with those of the Philistines. It was a picture of Christ on the cross. I did not hear an audible voice, but it wouldn't have made the words any more clear if I had; I don't think I would have been surprised, "If you want to serve Me, you have to die."
Such a death has affected my concern for my reputation, so-called full-time ministry, and especially the respect accompanying it. When in Bible School, I read a book that seemed to call to me from the Christian book store: From Shadow to Substance by Roy Hession. While in Texas and shortly after, I got my hands on every book he wrote and read them. The two most important were The Calvary Road and My Calvary Road.
Ministering during a revival in East Africa in the mid-twentieth Century, Roy did not write like anyone else I ever read then or since, except for the Medical Doctor Martin Lloyd-Jones. His ministries occurred in Wales and Britain, but with humility, I have observed in no one else except for Mr. Perkins.
You know the extraordinary thing, which is not strange at all, is that Samson, with all his mischief and sins, appears in the Heroes of Faith chapter eleven of Hebrews. Still, Solomon, with all his blessings of wisdom, learning, great buildings, and accomplishments "for God" does not.
Revival is Living for God's Glory when we humble ourselves through repentance and faith and do not care what others think. Fellowship can prosper in an environment that fosters transparency without fear of ridicule or judgment within the confines of God's demands for His holiness.
In response to His humble disciples' question, that's sarcasm, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" who learned humility but not until the cross. Jesus replied, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 18:1-4.
Revival is not the top blowing off; it is the top falling out.
"Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us." "He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him" Hosea 6:1, 2.
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