Revival Recap & Resources

WE’VE ONLY JUST BEGUN ASKING GOD TO WORK

We just completed a Sunday morning mini-series on the subject of revival. A month of journeying through the pages of scripture and chapters of church history to explore what revival is, how it comes, and why we should expect it today. And while our sermon series is over, our pursuit of revival has just begun.

Below you’ll find a collection of resources that’ll stoke your longing & fuel your faith for what God can do among us. All the sermons from the series, key quotes and takeaways, along with articles and books that will enlarge your vision for how the Lord might work in Santa Ana.

WHAT WE’RE AFTER

Over the past month, here’s the definition that guided our pursuit of revival. This is what we’re praying for when we ask God to bring it:

What is revival? When God’s Spirit works through ordinary means to bring about extraordinary results. Blessed moments in the life of God’s people when the Spirit of God is poured out upon the ordinary means of grace that have been given to the Church - especially the word and prayer - in order to produce extraordinary fervor for Christ. “Thus what characterizes a revival is not the employment of unusual or special means but rather the extraordinary degree of blessing attending the normal means of grace” (Revival and Revivalism, Iain Murray).

Put another way, what we hope to see is:

  • God’s Spirit,

  • Working through the ordinary means to reform and restore our church,

  • In order to bring about renewal in the city we’ve been placed in.

CATCH ANY SERMONS YOU MISSED OR GO BACK AND LISTEN AGAIN

  1. What is Revival? A Work only God Can Do - Zechariah 4:1-7

  2. How does revival come? By Ordinary Means - Nehemiah 8:1-18

  3. What sustains us in suffering? The hope of that day when all we’ll know is revival - forevermore - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

  4. When will Revival come? Whenever God wants it to - Mark 4:26-32

  5. What will revival look like when it gets here? It will come with Extraordinary Results - Acts 19:8-27

KEY QUOTES

“Revival. I define as a work of God by his Spirit through his word bringing the spiritually dead to living faith in Christ and renewing the inner life of Christians who have grown slack and sleepy. In revival God makes old thing new, giving new power to law and gospel and new spiritual awareness to those whose hearts and consciences had been blind, hard and cold.” (Revival-Defined, J.I. Packer)

On Prayer

“On the subject of means, something needs to be said more particularly on prayer. As with the truth that is preached, prayer has no inherent power in itself. On the contrary, true prayer is bound up with a persuasion of our inability and our complete dependence on God. Prayer, considered as a human activity, whether offered by few or many, can guarantee no results. But prayer that throws believers in heartfelt need on God, with true concern for the salvation of sinners, will not go unanswered. Prayer of this kind precedes blessing, not because of any necessary cause and effect, but because such prayer secures an acknowledgement of the true Author of the blessing. And where such a spirit of prayer exists it is a sign that God is already intervening to advance his cause. One thing that can be said with certainty about the 1790s [that time of revival or any revival that’s ever been], before any general indications of a new era were to be seen, is that there was a growing concern among Christians to pray” (Revival and Revivalism, Iain Murray).

“We should pray daily for the Holy Spirit from the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. This is the daily work of believers. They look upon, and by faith consider, the Holy Spirit as the one promised and as the one sent. In this promise, they know, lies all their grace, peace, mercy, joy, and hope. For by him, as the one promised, and by him alone are these things communicated to believers. If, therefore, our living to the glory of God or the joy of such a life is important to us, then we are to ask for him from the Father as children ask their parents for their daily bread” (Communion with God, John Owen).

“I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer” (Martin Luther).

On the Word

“The Puritans read the Scriptures, and believed, “at once that all the successes of the Reformation were repeatable—as repeatable as the victories of the apostolic age—for Scripture places no limitation upon the Spirit’s work of glorifying Christ and extending his kingdom.” It is striking that the Puritans read, preached, meditated, prayed the Bible expecting God to stir his people by his Word” (The Puritan Hope, by Iain Murray).

On Waiting upon the Lord

Speaking of the Kingdom of God’s advance in the parables of Mk 4:26-32, one scholar notes that we are meant to take notice of “the fact that the man who is the beneficiary of the seed’s growth contributes nothing towards it beyond the initial sowing of the seed and the eventual harvesting; in between he has nothing to do but wait” (R.T. France).

“At first there may be little to show for the sowing of seed, and a skeptical observer might think nothing was happening. But there is an inner dynamic in that message [the gospel] which will in due time produce its effect, even if human insight cannot fathom how the process works. In the meantime the wise disciple will wait in confidence for God’s work to be accomplished in God’s way” (R.T. France).

On Extraordinary Results

"Yet we submit that many Christians have grown so content with the ordinary that they don't bother asking God for anything more. False biblical dichotomies that widen the chasm between the New Testament and us cannot justify reluctance to pray as Jesus and the apostles prayed. We who live in an era of small things must remember eras when the big things seen and heard in the Bible returned once more...We cannot pretend that we can see things perfectly from God's perspective. But we can plead with him to give us a glimpse of the world from a loftier vantage point. Few of us are tempted today to dream too big. Rather, our vision shrinks to the size of our limited experience. Yet all things are possible for those who believe in the God who created the heavens and the earth. In our disbelief, we can ask God for inspiration to believe. That he may give us a vision of divine size." (A God-sized Vision, Hansen and Woodbridge)

Northampton 1735 - Jonathan Edward’s account of the sweet fruit the sweet fruit the Spirit of God bore in the church of Northampton, MA and the renewing effect it had upon her city:

“This work of God, as it was carried on, and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town: so that in the spring and summer following…1735, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it never was so full of love, nor of joy, and yet so full of distress [on account of the souls coming under conviction through a refreshed seriousness about God and spiritual things], as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought to them; parents rejoicing over their children as new born, husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands.

The doings of God were then seen in His sanctuary [the church], God’s day [Sunday] was a delight, and His tabernacles were amiable [and lovely]. Our public assemblies were then beautiful: the congregation was alive in God’s service, every one earnestly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly in general were, from time to time, in tears while the word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbors” (A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, Jonathan Edwards). 

Moulin 1799 - Pastor Alexander Stewart’s retelling of the “ordinary sort of revival” that took place in the village of Moulin in Perthshire, Scotland. A village of a couple thousand, similar in size to our French Park neighborhood. In 1799, 3 years after a deep change in the pastor and a fresh devotion to declaring the biblical gospel set in, an ordinary sort of revival - we could say - took place in this small church and community. Speaking of what took place over the course of 4 months of Sunday services in the year 1799, Pastor Stewart writes: “These were attended with a more general awakening than had yet appeared amongst us. Seldom a week passed in which we did not see or hear of one, two or three persons, brought under deep concern about their souls, accompanied with strong convictions of sins, and earnest inquiry after a Saviour” (The Puritan Hope, Iain Murray). 

Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if this ordinary sort of revival took place among us? If regularly, not even hundreds or thousands, but 1, 2, or 3 sinners experienced conviction and confessed faith in Christ? If the outworking of our mission, week to week, led to new neighbors and guests joining us each Sunday, who would hear the gospel, and come to believe? 1 more blade of grass painted blue. 1 more bird of the air sheltered under the branches of the tree that God has planted here at Cross of Grace. What if we needed to have baptisms every month - instead of a couple times a year! It would be extraordinary!

We pray the Lord would do now what he did back then. That Santa Ana would “be full of the presence of God.”

ARTICLES

BOOKS

LORD, DO WHAT ONLY YOU CAN DO

“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation” (Ps 85:6-7)

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, in Santa Ana as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:9-10).