Revival 1982

Suppose you come here for church one Sunday, you're a few minutes early and to your amazement you discover that you can't even get in the building for the crowd. The porches are jammed with people. You kind of work your way through the crowd here in the front porch and peek in the open door and the aisles are jammed.

People are standing along the window and the walls. Suddenly behind you, a woman in the porch begins to weep and cry out to God for mercy. And pretty soon the whole porch is just alive with prayer, praise and thanksgiving and worship.

When it's over, as you're going home, you decide that you're going to begin that Tuesday night home fellowship you've been toying around with for five years. First night, seven people. The next week, 30 people.

Next week, wall-to-wall people. Your phone starts to ring at strange hours of the day and at the night. Friends and acquaintances and even enemies trying to find their way into the kingdom of God.

Some of the brothers and sisters are led by God to open a soup kitchen for the unemployed. And almost without fuss, all the labor is necessary arrived. All the food that's needed keeps pouring in.

We could go on to describe this strange outpouring of life, which may sound ridiculous as we think about it and try to picture it in our minds, but may be closer than we could imagine. Such things have been called revival. Life coming down from God.

And for a season, stirring a city or a neighborhood or an assembly of believers. This kind of revival always takes place at God's initiative. It cannot be engineered or organized or set up by man.

God sends it. And yet, whenever God decides to send such revival upon this earth, it will only visit where there are some people who are responsive to his call. From John 21, first eight verses.

After this, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the sea of Tiberias. And he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.

Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. They said to him, we will go with you. They went out and got into the boat.

But that night they caught nothing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to them, children, have you any fish? They answered him, no. He said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some. So they cast it.

And now they were not able to haul it in for the quantity of fish. The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it is the Lord. What we're looking at here is a sign which is indicating to the disciples something that's going to take place just about a month later.

A sign which is giving them a picture of an outpouring of life that's going to visit Israel. Now it's fish coming up in a net. Then it's going to be men and women pouring into the kingdom of God.

Now this sign, which preceded the revival, was also a call to these men to wake up and stop dabbling in their old life. And get their hearts ready for the work to which the Lord had already called them. They spent three and a half years walking around with Jesus.

Learning, growing. Then came the trauma of his death. Then the glory of his appearance to them, alive from the dead.

And now they're in this strange twilight zone deal that they can't quite adjust to. These 40 days in which Jesus appears, teaches, disappears. Appears, teaches, vanishes.

It's just not like it used to be. I mean, before Jesus was with them all the time. If you had a question, you could turn and ask him and he could answer you.

He was there and he was in charge. But now, it doesn't work like that with this occasional appearance of Jesus at an unpredictable time. Forcing the disciples now to begin to do some things on their own and to be responsible in a new way.

And to organize a few things by themselves under him, of course. But during this period of time, these 40 days, it's really easy to become relaxed. And there is the temptation to kind of drift back into their old life.

So Peter says, I'm going fishing. The rest of them say, we'll go with you. They went out, got into the boat.

That night they caught nothing. And these men knew that in doing this they were wasting their time. Is this the best you can do as soon as the Lord puts a little bit of responsibility into your hands? Wait a minute, what are you talking about? We haven't left the kingdom of God.

We still love Jesus. I mean, can't we just take a break once in a while? Is it always boom, boom, boom all the time? We love to fish. It's relaxation for us.

Now, there's nothing wrong with taking a break, getting a rest, a little vacation. But that's not what you guys are doing. You're dividing their hearts.

You're opening yourself to something which is already competing with the kingdom of God for your heart. And you're drifting away from the voice of the master. And as they drift away from the voice of the master, obviously they go right back to where they were.

Jesus comes to them. They don't know really that it's him, Jesus yet. But he comes to them in the middle of their stagnation and calls, Children, have you got any fish? No.

Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll get some. Now, this sign of the net coming up loaded with fish is a revelation of what is about to take place in Israel. And it's also a call to them to come on and wake up.

Israel is about to be engulfed with a revival of life. And this revival is to visit Israel through these very men. If they will cooperate with their hands and with their hearts.

With their hands. Drop the net on the right side of the boat and you'll get something. But also with their hearts.

Jumping on in this chapter to verse 15. When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs.

A second time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, send my sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.

Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me more than these fish? See, the issue here is not, what's the matter with you, Peter? As soon as I give you a little leeway, a little responsibility, you goof off. That's not the issue.

The issue is, Peter, do you love me? Settle that in your mind and you'll never go off the track. Now, Lord, you know that I love you. And if you love me, turn away from your fish and start feeding my sheep.

If you love me, feed my sheep. Now, the same Lord who dealt so graciously with those disciples is now dealing with us in the same two ways. First, he's showing us and will be showing us what's coming up down the road a little bit.

And he does this by, again, performing a sign. And in the same way, he says to us, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll get something. In other words, go out there and do a little fishing.

Invite somebody to the banquet of God this week. Manifest God's mercy today. Point somebody to Calvary.

Begin to speak the treasure I already put in your heart. Begin to do that and you will see a response. There will be results and you will see those results.

And that response, which will come if you lower the net, will be a small sign, a tiny taste of the response that will come in the real harvest just down the road for those whose hearts are ready for the harvest. And for the heart to be ready to work in the harvest, it has to be single. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Do you love me more than the old life you keep drifting back to? Then feed my sheep.

And so he says to us, if you love me, turn away from your fish, whatever that is for you, and feed my sheep. Begin to nourish the people who are already coming to you for food, for bread, my bread, living bread. And if you do this, you will soon find yourself engulfed with people who come to you for bread.

And your life will be consumed in feeding those hungry. That will be your life. Keep feeding them as I feed them, and I will lead you all the way, perhaps even to a death like mine.

Two things the Lord is asking us to do today, two things. One, cast the net on the right side of the boat. Go out and do some fishing.

Allow me to manifest the kingdom of God to you afresh. Let me restore your vision of my kingdom. And two, if you love me, settle that.

Do you love me more than those fish? Then start feeding my sheep. A short distance down the road, the body of Christ on earth, including the body of Christ in Detroit, will experience revival. That will no doubt make the revival that we saw in the early 70s around these parks look very pale.

It will be a harvest initiated by God himself, and the laborers in that harvest will be raised up by God himself. Will we be in it? Or to be more accurate, are we in it and part of it now? And the question which will decide whether in fact we are involved in that harvest is put to us by the Lord again today. Do you love me more than these fish? Do you love me more than the things that distract your life? Do you love me above all things? May the Spirit help us as we give him our answer today and in the days ahead.

Let's just spend some time in prayer. Let's take some time in silence first, and then we'll go into prayer. Lord, you know how easy it is for us to lose our vision of the kingdom, how quickly we just kind of sink right back into the dullness that was there before.

And we're just asking that your grace would just move upon us even now and refresh our vision of the kingdom today. Lord, enable us to be the disciples in that boat and enable us to obey you and give us, as you gave to them, that sign that we need to see. Or whatever it is that you choose to give us, that we might be able to once again get our hearts singly upon you.