Revival Ready [PART 1] | Mark Pugh | Sunday 23rd August

[00:00:03] What a joy to see you today. [00:00:05] It's a great privilege to come around the word of God together. And we're going to start a new three week miniseries this week that sort of flows on from our looking in the Book of John, but we're going to look at one particular story for the next three weeks and we're entitling this revival. Ready? Who wants to be ready for revival in their lives? Who wants to be positioned and postured, ready for what God wants to do in and through your life? Cause you have been determined by God to have a purpose and a reason in your life. You know, I understand that so much of science today is able to analyze the fabric of the world around us, able to analyze the cells within us. And imagine that you'd put some work together to bake a birthday cake for someone. You baked it because you love them. You baked it because you want them to be blessed. You, you baked it because you want to celebrate them and you present it to them. But they're a scientist and when they receive the cake, they begin to analyze all the ingredients and they begin to look at what was formed in this cake, to make it what it is. And they determined that there were self raising flour that was in there. They can pick out the sugar, they can pick out all the flavorings that are in this cake, they can determine what sort of flour was used, they can, they can work out how long it was put into the oven, but they cannot, as a scientist, tell you why it was made. [00:01:29] And so much of this world that we're in today, it can analyze the whole of society, the whole of the fabric of the world, the material world around us. But you and I, we long for the why. [00:01:40] Because you're not just a mix of cells, you're not just made up of a whole load of atoms. But, but you have been created for a reason. And God is the one that gives us our reason. [00:01:53] And revival is when we come alive to the fullness and the purposes of God. When our goal and our aspiration, our desires and our dreams are aligned with an understanding of what God sees in our life. Revival isn't just a wonderful time when throughout history we've seen times when, where whole communities experience the power and the presence of God. Where people cry out in the middle of the street, what must I do to be saved? Where churches flooded with people that they can't fit them in any longer. Where often night after night after night, the people of God, they run to the church because they want to be in the Presence of God above all else. Those are wonderful times in history. But that's not just what revival looks like. Revival looks like you not just attending meetings with and experiencing the presence of God. Revival looks like you coming alive to the story of God on your life, to the purposes of God in your life. And I believe God wants this church to be revival ready. [00:02:56] See, revival begins when we stop allowing yesterday to define what God can do tomorrow. [00:03:02] And I want to just this morning encourage you that God has a plan and a purpose for your life and he wants to do something fresh in you. And whatever is stopping that he wants to address today. [00:03:16] So over this next three weeks, this week, we're going to look at leaving behind yesterday's mindset, one of those big limits to us being revival ready next week we're going to look at how to prepare your life today and then the week after we're going to look at living for God's coming kingdom. [00:03:35] But the Obstacle what is the biggest obstacle to revival in your life and in mine? [00:03:40] Could it be if I was to ask you what are the top three challenges you're facing in your life right now? Would it be something around your family dynamic? Would it be something around your finances? Would it be something around your work? Would it be something around your well being among other friends? What would be your top three challenges that you're facing? Well, whatever it is that's eating your time and eating your energy and taking your skill to solve problems, I am pretty sure that none of those are really the biggest obstacle to why you are not walking in revival. [00:04:14] Often the biggest problems are not around us, they are within us. [00:04:18] Many Christians are trying to walk into God's future while dragging their chains of the past, chains of your memory, maybe failures and regrets that you have experienced in your life. And they feel like heavy chains that even though it happened some time ago, you still hear the clunk of the chains today. [00:04:41] Maybe it's chains of emotion, fear, hurt, offense. [00:04:48] And even though they've happened, they still feel like they're chains that you can feel the weight of in your life and in your day to day. [00:04:58] Maybe there's chains of your will and things like your comfort, your unbelief, all of the things that affect your decision making processes. Maybe they're giving you some chains that are affecting your present today, wherever we walk, whatever we hope for, these chains are designed to be heavy enough to keep you from being fully alive to the purposes of God. [00:05:25] Those chains have been crafted in the pit of hell and they are designed to keep you in a place of being contained. They're designed to keep you in a place that stops you coming alive to your purpose. They are designed to keep you under restraint and under control. [00:05:45] Jesus described it this way, that the enemy has come to steal, to kill and destroy. [00:05:51] And those chains are things, they're subtle things because they think that they're your chains. They think that they're your issues. You don't understand that they are the distractive strategies of the enemy to keep you from the purposes of God. And the enemy wants to drag you backwards. But the gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ wants to liberate you into a new life of favor today. And that's what the gospel does. When we give our lives to Christ, he makes it possible that all of those chains are lifted off us, that all of our limitations are dealt with. He makes it possible. It's a miracle. It's the greatest miracle. You could see this ceiling open, as we heard last week, and you could see the bed come down, and you could see someone who's been on a bed all their life raised up to the in full health and strength, and you could see them run out of his place. And you say, wow, that's a miracle. But. But it's not as good a miracle as the one that's happened in your life, because the gospel has scattered the powers of darkness. He has nullified the work of darkness on your life and caused the light of Christ to come. [00:06:56] And you can live free. [00:06:58] But the thing is, we still carry the chains. [00:07:01] And you don't need to, because the gospel has done everything. Jesus on the cross, he declared these words, it is finished. And when you give your life to Christ, it is finished. Oh, I know your past still happened. I know the fears still feel real. But it is gone. It is gone. The old has gone and the new has come. And the question is, will we receive and step into the fullness of the new that has come, or will we keep on dragging the things of our past? [00:07:32] That's when revival comes, when we step into the fullness of the new has come. [00:07:38] It's here now. [00:07:41] Not someday, not maybe, but it's here now. [00:07:48] I want to take a look at two ordinary people wrestling with an impossible problem in front of them. [00:07:54] And we're going to look at the same story over the next three weeks. [00:07:57] And I want you to notice how each one is carrying a weight that seems reasonable to them, but potentially could stop them from stepping into something. And Jesus helps them. And the story is in John's Gospel chapter six. [00:08:14] We're going to look together. Verses one to nine. Often known as the story of the feet of the 5,000. [00:08:20] And it says these words, they should appear on the screen as well. [00:08:25] After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. [00:08:34] A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. [00:08:43] Then Jesus climbed on a hill and he sat down with his disciples around him. [00:08:49] It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. [00:08:54] Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. [00:09:00] Turning to Philip, he asked, where can we buy bread to feed all these people? [00:09:08] He was testing Philip for he already knew what he was going to do. [00:09:14] Philip replied, even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them. [00:09:25] Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. [00:09:31] There's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. [00:09:38] But what good is that with a huge crowd? [00:09:46] There's a few things I'd like us to sit on before we unpack this together. [00:09:51] First of all, there are thousands gathering in this moment. [00:09:56] It's late in the day. [00:09:58] It's an impossible situation in order to express their care for the physical well being of such a large group of people at such a time of day. [00:10:10] Now this crowd, this crowd of thousands, they are chasing signs, wonders. [00:10:18] They're not necessarily there to surrender. [00:10:21] They're there for the entertainment. [00:10:24] They're there because there are rumors that Jesus is doing miraculous things. [00:10:29] They followed him because they saw miraculous signs. [00:10:34] That's really worth noting. [00:10:37] Some of us here may be hungry for an experience or a sign or, or we love the miracles. We love what we see God do around us. But we're not yet ready for transformation. [00:10:51] Revival readiness requires us not just to love the signs and the wonders. It requires us to be ready for the transformation. [00:11:00] Another thing that John points out and nothing's wasted in the word of God. It says it was nearly time for the Jewish Passover. [00:11:10] Now John doesn't waste details. This is the same feast that remembers God feeding his people bread from heaven in the wilderness. [00:11:24] John is quietly telling us as all part of our Exodus story and the passing over of the angel of death and the taking into the wilderness and the manna and the quail from heaven coming and feeding the people. Miraculously, that John is saying, this provision, this miraculous provision is about to happen again. [00:11:46] Except this time it isn't bread falling from the sky. [00:11:51] It's coming through. [00:11:53] What's Already in the crowd's hands now. I love the creative genius of God. I love that when people think that how God did it in the past is how he's going to do it in the future, God turns up and surprises us all. [00:12:08] See, I've experienced quite a number of times throughout even my 50 odd years of living that there have been different types of expressions of the move of God. I remember that time that we often phrase as the Toronto Blessing. There were unusual manifestations of the Spirit at that time and it was controversial. Some people speak said, this is God, it's changing my life. Other people said it's just weird. [00:12:34] And then few years later there was something called the Pensacola Outpouring. And it was just thousands of people running to the altar to give their lives in surrender to Christ. [00:12:44] And there are lots of ways that God has moved just recently. In the last few years there has been an understanding that people are young guys in particular are showing a fresh inquisitiveness faith. [00:12:59] A friend of mine who leads Kensington Temple in London told me last night that four months ago they felt God call them to challenge the church to lead a thousand people to Jesus in the next few months. He texted me last night and said They've just seen 1034 people in the last few months give their lives to Jesus. [00:13:23] It always looks different and we should never get married to the methodology of Jesus, always to the heart of Jesus. [00:13:33] Because what God might want to do next might look very different to anything you and I have ever known. [00:13:40] But it will always be consistent with his Word, it will always be true with an understanding of the character and the ways and the heart of Jesus. But he is a creative God and he can do what he wants to do. [00:13:53] And I love that there's this promise here that John is just teasing out. Jesus is going to provide just like God provided in the wilderness. [00:14:02] But Jesus, this is fascinating. [00:14:06] He turns to Philip and makes it sound like he's asking Philip for help. [00:14:15] Where shall we buy bread, baker? [00:14:23] I don't think Greggs existed in those days. But whatever the equivalent was to that, where should we buy bread? [00:14:34] It sounds a naive question. Why would the manifest Son of God, born of a virgin birth, lived a sinless life, why would he be asking, why would he knowing that from the beginning of time, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He knows everything but except it would seem, where the bakers are. [00:15:02] You see, when God asks us a question, it's rarely, it's never because he doesn't know the answer. [00:15:11] It's always because he's inviting us to draw close and to be part of a miracle. [00:15:18] He's always asked questions to me, to lead me in my life. [00:15:25] He rarely has given me a solution or an answer to enact. He normally asks a question and he does that here with Philip. [00:15:38] Jesus wasn't short on ideas. He was, the Bible says, testing Philip. [00:15:44] Now it's important to understand that when God tests us, he's not testing us to see whether we can get an A star star. [00:15:56] He's not trying to give us a pass or a fail. [00:16:00] He's testing us to teach us something. [00:16:04] And right now, Jesus was teaching his disciples something. God's questions are there for our formation and our transformation. [00:16:15] The first thing I want to pick up from this text, number one, stop measuring tomorrow by yesterday, see, Philip immediately calculates another one of the accounts of this 200 denarii, roughly 8 months wages would have been required. Now, what a clever thing Philip was doing. He had no calculators, no spreadsheets, and he looks around, he does a bit of a head count and he works out the average cost of a meal deal at Tesco and he sort of does the calculations in his head. Eight months wages, that's what it's going to take. [00:17:02] But that really still wouldn't be enough. And Philip never asks Jesus, he never asks Jesus, what do you think we should do? [00:17:18] That's a really important thing to note the absence of in this story. [00:17:26] Jesus asked him a question. [00:17:29] I think if I was on a pub quiz with Philip and with Jesus, I'd want to know what Jesus thinks, not Philip. [00:17:37] And yet Philip never stops and says, actually, Jesus, what do you think? [00:17:43] See, I found over the years that a failure to ask that question, Jesus, what do you think? Is often the seedbed of disappointment in someone's life. [00:17:55] It's often the place where having gone through their circumstance or their situation and coming to their own conclusions, it may be a different dynamic to feed in thousands of people. The answer, the conclusion, the calculation may look different to eight months wages to pay for. [00:18:16] It might be something very different going on in your life, but you have made a conclusion that something was needed that you didn't have and therefore you've been disappointed. [00:18:30] And this was an appointment time for Philip, not a disappointment time. [00:18:36] And you and I, every experience we have in life, we have an opportunity to have an appointment with God with or a disappointment with Him. [00:18:46] And the disappointment comes when we fail to turn to him and say, what are you doing? [00:18:53] What's going on? [00:18:55] I don't understand this, because everyone in this room has experienced something in your life that you do not understand, that you don't have the narrative, that you can't make sense of it, that it has no logical conclusion, and you have determined that. Therefore, it was wasted, it was a failure, it was a disappointment. [00:19:19] But, you know, even if you don't get a conclusion from God, where He says, this is why that happened, you can rest in knowing that he does know. [00:19:32] And that one day, when all the secrets of hearts are laid bare, when all the mysteries of the universe are communicated, when. When all of the disappointments of our life are unveiled, that everything will make sense in God. [00:19:50] So I want to encourage you, do something that Philip never did and ask God, what are you doing? [00:19:56] And when you get silence or when you get an answer, put your trust in him, whether it's silence or a clear conclusion. [00:20:09] You know, I. Over my life, there have been times when answers have come maybe 10, 15 years after I asked them. [00:20:20] I remember a period of time when we had experienced a real disappointment in ministries, going back many, many years ago. And it was really difficult. Nita and I had to trust that God was in control. Even even though it felt like the enemy had caused something to happen that we didn't understand, even though it felt painful to walk through. And if you'd asked us what had happened, we would have said, the enemy is one. We would have said, other people have hurt us. We would have said all of these things. We would have given a narrative if you'd asked us. [00:20:51] But we tried to ask God, and God never answered. [00:20:57] Instead, God opened the next door. [00:20:59] And we walk through it trying to guard our hearts, because that's what the scripture says above all else. Guard your heart, for it's the wellspring of life. And we sought to guard our hearts. So we walked into the next door still hurting, still carrying some of the pain of the last season, but trusting God that he had an answer, that he knew what he was doing, that even though he wasn't telling us, that we could trust Him. Do you know, when I came here 14 years ago and there were some difficulties in the church prior to us coming. There's been a few since as well, actually. [00:21:33] So, you know, there's always difficulties whenever there's a community of God's people. But I remember I was sitting with some people that were processing their pain. And something in me knew that God had prepared me all of those years previously in how I'd managed My heart that I was able to help these people today. [00:21:52] And I knew. God said, you remember that question you asked many years ago, decades ago? [00:21:59] Here's the answer. [00:22:02] You can always trust that God knows the answer. [00:22:06] Choose not to live in disappointment. Choose to live in appointment. [00:22:12] Choose to embrace that God knows what he's doing. [00:22:18] See, past experiences can train us. [00:22:22] If you live in disappointment, they can train us to carry those chains into our present. [00:22:28] And therefore we begin to live a Christian life that now expects small things, expects disappointment, expects things to not go as we hoped. [00:22:42] Churches do this. [00:22:45] They say, we've tried it before, didn't work. [00:22:47] We had a mission, no one got saved. [00:22:50] We had a 24 hour prayer night. No one turned up except me, the pastor, our neighbors, we invited them to church because the pastor said, invite your friends to church and your neighbors. And they didn't come. [00:23:04] And then when we try and do things and step out for God, it's like we don't have enough leaders to do what we're doing, never mind anything new. We don't have enough resources, we don't have enough time. [00:23:15] And the language of faith slowly becomes the language of calculation. [00:23:20] We begin to look around the room, count the numbers, count the cost for each sandwich, and we think, can't do it. [00:23:32] God has called us to walk by faith, not by spreadsheets. [00:23:37] Walk by faith, not by sight. [00:23:42] Earlier this year, I introduced the year by calling it what I believe was a year of miracles. I was reminded of this recently. [00:23:48] A year of God's intervention over the limited calculations of our own possibilities. [00:23:54] Miracles call us to step up, to stop calculating what we can do and open our eyes and our hearts and our understanding to what God can do. [00:24:09] Let me ask you this really blunt question. [00:24:12] What have you stopped expecting because of your earthly calculations? [00:24:23] So stop measuring tomorrow by yesterday. Secondly, bring what you have. [00:24:31] Andrew appears next in this story, and he doesn't seem to do much better than Philip. [00:24:39] He sort of fails in a different direction. [00:24:42] He sees something that Philip has missed. [00:24:47] There's a boy. [00:24:49] And this boy has got five loaves, not any loaves, but barley loaves and two fish. [00:24:57] And then he measures the boy's lunch against the crowd. [00:25:06] And dismisses it before Jesus even gets a chance to touch it. [00:25:14] What are these? [00:25:15] Among so many, does that sound familiar? [00:25:21] Philip's failure is not seeing any resource at all. Andrew's failure is seeing the resource and writing it off. [00:25:31] Both of them are just one step short of a miraculous transformative surrender. [00:25:43] Listen, Jesus never asks for for enough. [00:25:51] He never Demands that we feed the thousands because we have the resources in our hands to feed the thousands. [00:26:04] He invites us to participate in a miracle, and we never have enough when it comes to miracles. [00:26:19] He asks what we have. [00:26:23] The miracle begins when the lunch changes hands. [00:26:27] It doesn't begin when the multiplication is spread out. We'll look more at that next week. But the miracle happens when anything transfers from the hands of this little boy and the hands of Andrew into the hands of Jesus. [00:26:44] That's the moment of miracle. [00:26:47] It's a little bit like when you have a packet of seeds that you've picked up from the garden center and you go in your garage or your greenhouse a year later, and you still see those seeds sitting in the packets with the same picture on the outside and the same instructions on the back, and nothing has happened. And you're like, I thought they said they were going to grow tomatoes. [00:27:13] Why have they not grown tomatoes? It's because of the environment that they're in. They do not grow in packets. They grow in ground. [00:27:23] They grow in earth that's got nutrients. They grow when they're watered. They grow when they're exposed to sunshine. And the same miracles do not grow in. In our hands, they grow in Jesus hands. [00:27:37] That's why when Jesus said, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, be moved, and it will be moved, I used to think, mustard seed's really small. All I've got to do is have a little small bit of faith. And if I can just think positively enough, I can say to that mountain in the Ronda Valleys where I grew up, move out of the way. And it would move. But that's not what it means. [00:28:04] You see, faith the size of a mustard seed. If we think it's about what we can think to change something, then we will, like, squeeze our eyes together and we'll get all intense and we'll keep praying harder and keep praying harder, and we say, God, help me to move that mountain. [00:28:21] But when we understand that faith is that inadequacy, that inferiority, that sense of hopelessness that we have in comparison to the need, and we place it into the hands of Jesus. [00:28:37] See, outside our home, we have a tree that has grown like crazy. [00:28:42] This tree is tall and large, and this tree, this time of year, just sheds loads of seeds. They're everywhere. You open a window mouse, and it's full of these seeds on the. On the mantelpiece. These seeds seem to go everywhere. But at one point, that tree started with a seed Now I know I've seen some forestries that they have controlled environments because the trees are taking over and they are, they're moving the mountain, they are impacting the construction of the mountain. There's slips and slides happening because these mountains are being eaten up by the trees. [00:29:23] And you see, in our life, God has called us to have faith the size of a mustard seed that it might feel like five loaves. And they're not just any loaves, they're barley loaves. They were the poorest sort of bread you could get. [00:29:38] There was a class system in place and barley bread was the cheapest to make. [00:29:44] So it wasn't even, it wasn't even made with the best quality. It was a poor offering, it was an inadequate offering, it was a low grade offering, but it was all they had and they invested it. And the moment it goes into the hands of Jesus, it's like the seed going into the earth and it begins to work. [00:30:12] Do you know one of the things that happens when you bury a seed is that you lose it. [00:30:17] You can't see it. [00:30:20] You literally eliminate your ability to say, I own that seed. [00:30:25] It goes, it disappears. [00:30:29] Now you don't grieve over it because you know, you know that there will be life that will come from that seed. Whenever you place anything that the Lord is asking you to give to him into his hands, you know, it looks like you lose it. But you don't lose it because you know that there's a life that's going to come by what God is going to bring from that investment. Because whenever you place something in his hands, miracles happen. [00:30:56] That's the scale of the economy of God, the economy of the kingdom. [00:31:01] You know, right now there are beautiful seeds that you can go and buy from a garden center. There are plants that you can buy that someone else has done that initial stage. And you know, if you expose them to the right environment, they will grow. [00:31:20] I've always wanted a palm tree. [00:31:22] And like I'm living in the right part of the world for a palm tree. This is, this is like where you should get palm trees. So I went to a garden center last year. Have you seen the price of them? [00:31:32] Like, they're really quite expensive. [00:31:34] And I went to a garden center that had a fire a few months previously and they had some fire damaged goods. [00:31:43] And there was this sad looking palm tree where its plastic pot was half melted and there was still a bit of green on there. [00:31:53] And I thought, I think I could do something with that. [00:31:57] So, so I bought it really Cheap. [00:32:00] Cause someone was about to throw it out and I took it home and I put it in a pot and put some good earth in there and read about how I can look after this. That palm tree's growing. In a few years time I'm gonna have a palm tree that you can come and shade under if you want to. [00:32:20] Have I done that? [00:32:22] Have I made it grow? [00:32:24] You could say, well, you know, you believed in it. You believed that there was an opportunity for something to come of it. Did I make it grow? I haven't made it grow. [00:32:31] It's been the environment, it's been the laws of nature that have made it grow. There are laws of the kingdom. [00:32:37] If you can put your trust in God, no matter how inadequate it seems to you, I guarantee you the laws of the kingdom kick in. [00:32:49] You can trust God. [00:32:54] Thirdly, God doesn't need you to have a perfect past. [00:33:02] I feel sorry for people today whose lives are being documented on social media and online. [00:33:08] That may be a silly statement that they made in their teens seems to survive and affect their job prospects in the future. [00:33:22] There are people who have had to resign from jobs over recent years because of something that's emerged from their past. [00:33:30] It feels like there's this godless righteousness in our society that insists on everybody being right from the past to their present. [00:33:42] The Bible is a real leveler on this. It says these words, there is none righteous, not one apart from Jesus. [00:33:55] None of us have a past that enables us to do what God wants us to do in the present. [00:34:02] Thank God that our past does not determine our future. [00:34:11] If you look closely at what's being offered here, these barley loaves, the bread of the poor, it was a low status offering. [00:34:25] This isn't the first time God has done something with barley loaves. In 2 Kings 4, the prophet Elisha makes 20 barley loaves and he feeds a hundred men with some leftover. [00:34:38] Maybe John was making something of a connection here greater than Elisha is among us. In Jesus, God always has a pattern of multiplying that which looks embarrassingly inadequate. [00:34:53] Notice who's holding the loaves. It's a boy. [00:34:56] Not a disciple. [00:34:59] Not someone with standing in the community. [00:35:02] John is the only gospel that tells us it's a child's lunch. [00:35:09] Children haven't yet learned Philip's calculations. [00:35:13] They haven't accumulated a lifetime of disappointment. [00:35:17] They haven't had people talking to them about being realistic. [00:35:23] And that's maybe exactly why this lunch ends up in the hands Jesus. [00:35:28] Nobody remembers the boy's name. He had no influence, no status, no qualifications. Yet 2,000 years later, here we are in Exeter on a Sunday morning talking about him. [00:35:41] Not because he had much, but because he trusted Jesus with a little that he had. [00:35:48] Revival history is full of people that maybe we've idolized in some way and we've written books and stories about them. [00:35:55] But actually, I'm pretty sure if we had opportunity to sit down with them and to reveal their heart, they would say they're ordinary people that God did extraordinary things with. When they put their hands in the hands of Jesus. [00:36:09] God delights in choosing the unlikely. Are you glad about that? [00:36:14] Well, that sounded like you either think that you're the likely ones. [00:36:22] You do look pretty good. [00:36:26] There are things that clearly you've got gifts and talents on your life, but God's looking to do more than just help you use those gifts and talents. He's looking for miracles because we can't reach the nations of the world just with you using your gifts and talents in the best way possible. [00:36:50] That's Philip's calculation. [00:36:53] We'll use what we've got. [00:36:56] It doesn't work. [00:36:58] God invites his people to be ready for God to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask, think, or imagine. [00:37:07] That's the call on us as people. [00:37:15] Being revival ready means revering the revelation more than remembering the restrictions. [00:37:22] And that's a choice. [00:37:25] I think most people imagine that revival is how you feel. [00:37:29] I can't wait to get a church. I can't wait to give my best. I can't wait to worship. I can't wait to step out into a new adventure. I think people think revival is when you feel like that. [00:37:43] No, no, no. [00:37:45] Revival is when you have in every moment of your day, a choice. [00:37:54] Do I, in my life, do I remember my restrictions? [00:38:02] Do I remember my limitations? [00:38:05] Do I remember my inadequacy? [00:38:07] Do I remember my chains of the past and make my decision accordingly? [00:38:13] Or do I revere his declarations over my life? [00:38:22] Do I revere his purposes? Do I revere his revelation? [00:38:27] And being revival ready means every time you face those decisions, you choose to revere revelation, you choose to trust his word. [00:38:40] And when we do that, we position ourselves ready for a fresh move of God. [00:38:48] I want to encourage you to leave behind the mindset of the past and embrace the revelation of Jesus. [00:38:56] It says in this story, Jesus already knew what he was going to do. [00:39:02] He knows. [00:39:04] He knows what he's going to do. [00:39:07] Trust him. He's got a plan. [00:39:10] Give him your inadequate offering and watch what happens in his hands. [00:39:17] Next week we're going to look at the multiplying of the bread, and we're going to look at it in that process. He tells the disciples to organize the crowd. Because there is an organization that needs to come in our life. It can't just be make some good decisions. There needs to be some structure around our life and an organization, some process that puts in place. And we're going to look at that together next week. Because God wants to prepare his people for revival. [00:39:43] Revival doesn't just require surrendered hearts. It requires prepared lives. [00:39:48] And we're going to look at preparing together. [00:39:52] But in conclusion today, what are the loaves that you've already written off as not enough? [00:40:02] What is it about your predicament, your circumstance, your situation that you just think is not enough? [00:40:07] What is it I want to encourage you? [00:40:13] Bring your loaves, your barley loaves, put them in the hands of Jesus and watch what he can do. Let's pray together. [00:40:34] We want our hearts to be ready, positioned, expectant and cooperating with revival. [00:40:48] We don't believe that even if every church in the Southwest got together and put its best energies together that we could see this region won for Christ. [00:41:00] We don't believe it would be enough. [00:41:03] The needs would be like us, bringing our best barley loaves and fish among thousands. [00:41:12] But we know you have a plan. [00:41:15] We know that you have a purpose in the earth. [00:41:20] We know that it is your will that none would perish. [00:41:26] And we ask, O God, that each of us will not just be interested in you asking us what we're doing, but that we would be interested in asking you what you're doing so that we can partner with you and bring our best. [00:41:44] As inadequate as it may seem, so miracles can happen. [00:41:49] Lord, let the miracle working power of the Spirit be released in each of our hearts. I pray now. [00:41:55] I pray that every chain of the past that has held any of my sisters and brothers back in this place. Lord, I pray that the confrontation of the Spirit will just reveal afresh, that you can break every chain, break every past disappointment, break every hopeless endeavor that has failed. You can break its impact on our life. [00:42:18] And I pray for a breaking of those disappointments in our life. I pray that those chains will snap and they will lift off our lives. And I pray that we, as we are about to stand on, will stand free in the purposes of God. [00:42:34] Lord, let your freedom rule and reign. If anyone is in Christ, they're a new creation. The old chains have gone and the new liberty has come. [00:42:46] May you know that liberty and your freedom in your life. [00:42:51] In the name of Jesus, going to ask you to say the word Amen. If you're prepared to revere his revelation more than you're prepared to calculate your inadequacy. [00:43:13] And if that's you, I'm going to ask you to stand and say amen and say, God, I want to be revival ready. If that's you. Come on, just lift your voice and amen. Lord, I want to partner. We agree, Lord, we agree. Across this community. [00:43:28] We agree. We want to be women and men, young and old, revived, full of the spirit, full of your power, partnering with miracles. We want to invest the little of our lives into the purposes of the kingdom, and we believe that miracles will happen in Jesus name. [00:43:46] Amen.