Experiencing Church Revival

The job of the Holy Spirit is to take the people of God to another realm. Dr. Tony Evans says when we lack a connection with the Spirit, we suffer as individuals and as congregations. See, the reason why the church is not filled is because the folk who go there aren't. This is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Revival happens one changed heart at a time, but today Dr. Evans explains how it can transform entire congregations into the churches God wants them to be.

Let's join him. Today I want to say a word about church revival from Acts chapter 2, when God revives His collective people, the church. Unfortunately, many people do not understand the word church. For many people, for most people probably, the word church refers to the building located at a certain place where I go to worship God, to be spiritually inspired, and where I return next week to repeat it again.

That is the sum total of church. In fact, some people will use the word church about places they never even go to. It's just a word that speaks of an institution. The word church is taken from a Greek word pronounced ekklesia. The Greek term ekklesia means called out ones or an assembly. But in New Testament theology, in fact, in New Testament usage, the word ekklesia, called out group or church, was not merely a random group of people who gathered together because of something they held in common, although that was a part of it. The word ekklesia was used in classical Greek of an official gathering of legislators, like you would call a congress or a parliament, who would legislate on behalf of the group of people that they represented. So it was not simply an informal gathering. The ekklesia was also a formal gathering of legislators who would render judgment on behalf of the society of which they were a part. But they were unique because they were called out from the masses to be part of this special group that would speak on behalf of the broader group. We have representatives in Congress who have been called out of the general population by election, and this group of called out people, these men and women who legislate on behalf of the American populace, seek to render judgment to pass laws on behalf of the broader society.

So predicated on the legislation done by the called out group, the assembly in Washington, DC, the Congress, based on what they do to legislate, affects how we respond as a people because of this legislative group. So when you think of church, we want you to think of more than simply a building where people gather for mutual stimulation, spiritual stimulation, and mutual spiritual edification and mutual spiritual inspiration. You are part of God's legislative body. It is the role of the church.

Jesus said, I will build my ekklesia, my church, in Matthew 16, 18, and hell will not be able to stand against it. It is the job of God's corporate gathering, the ekklesia, to render legislation from heaven down to earth on behalf of our King. That's why you will hear us regularly talk about the kingdom agenda and refer to the church, that the job of the church is to render on earth the legislation from heaven. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 10 says that God waits to see how the church will vote to determine what He will do, to see whether His legislative agent is going to render in history His perspectives from eternity, because that's the only way you'll see His presence, His power, and His performance. So when you come and hear the Word of God, it's not just supposed to encourage you, inspire you, teach you, and while it includes all those things, it is also supposed to control your vote.

It's supposed to control you rendering judgment based on a kingdom mindset and a divine orientation. Obviously, the church needs a revival. The reason why the church needs a revival, because we've got to answer a question simply.

How can we have all these churches on all these corners with all these preachers and all these deacons and all these ushers and all these choirs and all these members meeting in all these facilities and still have all this mess? The church, God's congressional gathering, is not being what its creator has designed it to be, therefore it has become anemic, lost its effectiveness, and is not representing the interest of another order. So the church needs to be revived. There's no greater illustration of a church revival than the birth of the church in Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, the church is born, and it is reborn in the context of a red-hot revival. He says, when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all gathered together in one place and there came from heaven the noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting, and they appeared to them tongues as a fire, distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. This is the birth of the church, 120 people have gathered in a central place and have been waiting on something.

They have been waiting on something. The something that they've been waiting on is told to us in chapter 1 verse 8. In chapter 1 verse 8, he says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. So Jesus Christ had promised them that they would get a power to pull off their purpose and to fulfill God's program. Now this comes after three years of Bible study. They've been in three years of intense Bible study with the greatest Bible study teacher that has ever lived, Jesus Christ.

You can't get a better Bible study teacher than Jesus Christ teaching the Bible since he wrote it. They were hearing the living Word, teach it, then they were watching the living Word do it. So they did not have lack of information nor did they have lack of visualization. They could both hear it and see it. They saw things that men could only dream of. They saw blind seeing, lame walking, the dead rising. They saw miracle after miracle. They saw thing after thing of God demonstrating the reality of His Word.

So they weren't lacking for anything. But in spite of three solid years of biblical teaching, Jesus says none of this is going to work until the Holy Spirit comes upon you. What's my point? Coming to church for information is not enough.

Coming to church to hear somebody preach won't cut it. All of us knows what it is to hear a message, agree with the message and not be able to use it. Because when reality hit us, we forgot there was a message.

Information is not enough. They had plenty of information, but He told them, don't do anything until you receive the power. You will receive the power. It is the job of the Spirit of God to make real the truth of God in the life of His people individually. But since we're talking about church, we're talking about collectively. They gather together in one place, all together.

It's the church gathering, and they're going to officially become the church. And they've gathered, and suddenly, one of the great things about God is His unpredictability. You don't have to know how it's going to happen. You don't have to know when it's going to happen, where it's going to come from, or how this thing is going to flip-flop, turn, twist, or be tweaked. He can do it suddenly, all right?

That's good news for all you single folks, suddenly. That's out of nowhere. It says that came from heaven, the noise of a violent rushing wind filled the whole house where they were sitting. He distributed to them tongues as of fire, not tongues of fire, but as of fire, and they rested on each one of them.

Now, here's where the church becomes aflame. It rested on each one of them. It rested on each one of them.

Now, there are 120 people gathered at the service because they're all together. There is this noise like a mighty rushing wind, tongues as though they were like fire, and they come and they rest on each individual, and it says, and they were all filled. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. What is lacking is a congregation that's been filled with the Holy Spirit.

The ministry was, each one of them was filled with the Holy Spirit. What is missing is the filling of the Holy Spirit, where the Holy Spirit is controlling the atmosphere in the individual's lives, each one of them, so that when they bring all of that filling together, you've got a forest fire. You see, if one person is filled, you got a pilot light, but when you got a whole forest full of folk filled, you'd have lit up a whole neighbor, and when you have wind mixed with fire, you have a blaze, because wind causes the fire to spread, right?

When you've got mighty rushing wind, it's blowing hard, and you've got folk who've been lit up by the Spirit of God, you've got a fire that's tough to put out. One of the reasons why our little pilot lights get put out so quick, usually by the time we hit the parking lot, is because we were individual pilots and not a collective blaze. You put one log in the fireplace, and it won't stay hot for very long, because it's a long log trying to stay lit, and a long log trying to stay lit won't stay lit for long.

But now you stack logs next to logs and logs on top of logs, and you light up the group. Well now you got something that can heat up the room out in the fireplace, because you're no longer an individual pilot, you're now a collective flame, so that even if you want to die out, you're not allowed to die out, because something else hot is rubbing up against you. And that is why you need the family of God and the body of Christ, so that when you feel like dousing your own flame, the other pilots are not going to let you go out, because then you might mess them up and make them go out. So the whole point is that the whole group is lit up by the collective fire of the Holy Spirit, but touching each one of them. So each one was affected on this Sunday morning when they gathered together and the Holy Spirit entered in, and the job of the Holy Spirit is to take the people of God to another realm. The job of the Holy Spirit is to keep you from staying on earth. You don't need Him to stay where you are.

You can stay where you are, where you are. What you need Him for is to lift you up to another realm. His realm is called the kingdom. Dr. Evans will talk about how different things are in that kingdom when he continues our message in just a moment. First though, I want to remind you that Tony's just completed a new book, an in-depth study of the attributes and characteristics that make the Lord who He is. The book is called God Himself.

The more you learn about God, the more there is to worship. This book will deepen your sense of awe as well as your understanding of God's nature, His values, and His heart. And it's yours as our thank you gift when you make a contribution in support of Tony's ministry. As a special bonus, it will come to you bundled with all 14 messages in our current teaching series called Revive Us Again.

If you've ever felt like your faith is about to flicker out, this collection of messages will teach you how to rekindle trust and devotion to God, not just in your own life, but in your family, your church, and even our country. This special resource package is only available through this Wednesday, so be sure to contact us today and make the arrangements to get it. To do that, visit tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222. I'll have our contact information for you again after Part 2 of today's message and this. Are you hungry for more of God?

More of His truth, more of His power, and more of His wisdom applied in your life? Then you need to connect with a community of passionate believers who are growing in God's Word through the Tony Evans Training Center. With exclusive video and audio teaching from Dr. Tony Evans, this interactive online study experience allows you to explore theology, biblical history, and real-life application of the kingdom agenda anytime, anywhere. Visit tonyevanstraining.org to get started today.

That's tonyevanstraining.org. It says that when the Holy Spirit hit them, and watch this now, they were doing things that were not natural to them. They were doing things, they were speaking in languages they had not learned. So they were speaking Spanish, French, they were speaking Italian, and others. They were speaking languages that were known by other people. They heard it in their own tongue. Here's the point. The point is not that you need to speak in some language nobody knows you're talking about, but you, and you don't even know it.

That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about doing something that is outside of your natural capacity. He says there was a supernatural ability to talk in languages they had not yet learned. And so the folks were saying, how can this be that these Galileans are able to speak our language when they weren't raised in our community, didn't grow up in our neighborhood?

How did they learn to talk this language, and to talk so many of them, so that all of us could hear God's Word in our own language? How do you know when the Holy Spirit has set a fire, the church has revived the church, because the church collective and its individual members are doing things that's not natural to their personality, natural to their history, natural to their background, natural to their orientation, because the Holy Spirit has lifted them up to a whole other level of functioning. So if you're still earthbound, you're not filled. When you fill a balloon with helium, it's going to go higher.

It's going to go higher because it's been filled with something to take it off of ground level. These folks are no longer operating on ground level. One of the great tragedies of the church today is that we're operating on ground level. We're operating like anybody else operates.

We're operating like any civic group, any social group, any political party. We're still waiting for solutions to come to us on Air Force One, because we're so on ground level that there's nothing lifting us up to another perspective, to another attitude. See, the Bible says that when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, it bears fruit. In other words, it's not a fruitless tree.

It's not a tree where you can't see nothing happening. It says when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're lifted up to a whole other level of operation so that you're operating outside of your normal capacity. Things that were out of control are now in control.

Things that you would lose it over, you're not losing it over anymore because you're being lifted up. See, the reason why the church is not filled is because the folks who go there aren't. God doesn't fill paper and walls and pews and drums and guitars. He fills people. There's no such thing as holy carpet or holy speakers. He fills people.

These people came under the yielding, under the authority, under the power, under the direction of the Holy Spirit. If you took me to the moon, I could lift a ton. You give me a ton, I can lift it up. I can't lift up a ton on earth. Why can't I lift a ton on the moon? Because I'm no longer hindered by gravity. Gravity that says what goes up must come down, the weight would hold me down.

I could not lift it up because gravity combined with that weight would make it impossible for me to deal with that much weight on my situation. But you take me to another realm. You lift me up to another location and stuff that I couldn't handle down here, I can handle up there because I've been resituated and relocated.

But because we have remained earthbound, we can't lift up our issues, we can't lift up our problems, we can't lift up our difficulties, we can't lift up our personalities, we can't lift up our orientation, it's just too heavy. Jesus told his disciples in John chapter 14 and John chapter 16, I'm going to give you another helper. I'm going to give you somebody like me, the Holy Spirit, and his job will be to enable you to do, to enable you to do what you cannot do on your own. He will come alongside you and he will enable you to pull off what you can't pull off on your own.

And if I can get enough people in the church to pull it off, if I can get that kind of revival going, then you will see what the church can do in a society where the weather is still bad. I was lifting weights the other day, yeah, I do it sometimes, I was lifting weight the other day, and I was there and I was at the church gym and I'm lifting weight and things got heavy, things got heavy, they got heavy. I was weighted down, I was weighted down. It wasn't that I wasn't trying, I was really trying, I was trying, I was doing the best I can and I was, you know I'm trying because I'm grunting and groaning and making noises and when you make noises, you're really trying, you're really trying. So I got it and I'm trying and I'm doing the best I can, I'm doing the best I can, but it was too heavy, it was too heavy after a while.

I couldn't handle it anymore, it was too weighty after a while, I couldn't deal with it anymore. But in the middle of my collapse, in the middle of my not being able to handle the weightiness of my situation, Brother Floyd, who's over the center, he came alongside and slipped two fingers under the weight and he helped me, he helped me, he placed his hand underneath it. I had power that I didn't have, strength that I didn't possess, because I had a helper who came alongside who could do for me what I was unable to do for myself. We say, I can't handle it, I can't handle it, God says, I've given you another helper. Somebody who has come alongside and see that's why, see whenever you get this perspective about this third member of the Trinity called the Holy Spirit, it changes your equation about quitting, giving up, throwing in the towel, I can't make it, it won't work. See, that changes your whole mindset because it's no longer now not dependent upon you or just you.

There is another helper or somebody else who comes along, but you got to be full of him. It's called being filled with the Holy Spirit. It means yielding to God's point of view. So they were in a context of collective worship when they experienced this, waiting on God to do something spectacular. They were waiting in God's presence for the Spirit of God to make himself manifest because they knew when God's Spirit showed up, something big was getting ready to happen. Finally, Peter gets up, by the way, he preaches a sermon talking about who Jesus was and the greatness of Jesus and the glory of Jesus and the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus.

And then he says in repent, he says, if you are full of the Spirit, Jesus is a big deal. And then you see in closing the church on fire, verse 41 of chapter 2, so then those who had received his word were baptized and that day they were added 3,000 souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together, and although they had all things in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing with them as anyone might have need. And day after day continuing with, hey, it is one mind in the temple, breaking bread and house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

This is supernatural activity. It says when the church got filled, folk got saved, and God was showing up. It says there was wonder and awe, shock and awe, at stuff that was happening and, whoa, where did that come from? Wow.

Did you see that? In the middle of a bad situation, because they're in the middle of the persecution of Rome in the middle of a bad situation. The Bible says in Hebrews 10, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as is the manner of some. But he says what I want you to do is I want you to provoke one another, stimulate one another in the love and good deed, rub off on somebody else so that one potted light hits another potted light until the whole church is set on fire, until the whole church is set aflame, until the people of God have been ignited for the purposes of God. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about how the fire of revival can spread through an entire congregation. And the perfect way to build on today's teaching is to request the entire two-volume 14-message series called Revive Us Again. As I mentioned earlier, you can get all these full-length lessons on CD and digital download, as well as a copy of Tony's powerful and insightful new book, God Himself. All these resources are yours as our thank you gift when you contribute toward the work of the Urban Alternative. You can make all the arrangements by calling our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222, or visit us online at tonyevans.org. Again that phone number, 1-800-800-3222, or go online to tonyevans.org. Well tomorrow, Dr. Evans will remind us that no matter how bad things may look in our country these days, God has turned around entire nations before, and He can do it again. Be sure to join us for that. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.