Inland Empire: Riverside
Transformed by Revival - Audio
of my family. To be a part of the family's guide, to be able to look around, to see the people that are in here, we experience something on a day-to-day basis that most people will never experience in their lifetime. Most people will never have a functional family, let alone a highly functional family. And I know that before I became a Christian, this was beyond my ability to even imagine. And so to come together and worship him, I appreciate what John shared about how he feels about being out here and worshiping and the things that Doug shared. I just feel so much when we're together. And it's not because in and of ourselves we're all that awesome. Look at the guy next to you. I rest my case. I look at my own physical family and that's a little bit scary. At least we've recently had a Kelsey, it's like putting a, you know, a table cloth on an old dirty table. But it is good to be able to come together here and to see what God makes out of us. What He gives us to be a part of and was so proud to have the different brothers and sisters go with us to the Middle East. Because I know how much they want to be connected with us over here and show up and all they get to see is living in me. And that's not a very good representation, much of anything. But to be able to bring in their many people over and to see on their faces what that meant to them. That there were 15 people that went with us to the Middle East. In all the years of the churches over there they've never had that many people come from the United States. And the message that it sent to them was a message from you and that is we care about you that you're more than just a check that we write once a year. And to watch as the first couple of days there were some awkwardness is the people from the US were kind of hanging out together and not even raw they're hanging out together but the people that knew each other were kind of hanging out together. But by the end of the week there was no barrier. There was no separation. Didn't matter where they were single or married. Now the female it was just one big family. And I couldn't help but think about how that must make God feel to see his children playing well together. And so for God to come here and to see us I want him to see us playing well together and to feel the sense that this is my family and I hope you feel that. When I walk in this morning the first things I saw was Lindsey Patterson's up here on the stage and I appreciate so much the people that come together with the worship ministry to to see and help prepare our hearts and minds and they do a phenomenal job amen. But as I walked in Lindsey standing over here and I thought what the heck is that? And she had her hair up in colors. I haven't seen colors in a long time but I couldn't have to think only in the kingdom. But there'd be that kind of security to be able to look like that and still get up on stage in front of everybody. And I couldn't help but think I couldn't relate to that. And then to be able to look out and to see Carly Boyd out here. Most of you don't know Carly stand up. Stand up. Really high. She's not really tall. So play really late. And Conan John Alice was John. Is he in here? Someone? John Boyd. Yeah. There's John. John and Connie came over to our house yesterday because they used to really love and giving people and they wanted to serve us. Actually it was because we had paid money to help them go to camp and they were finally we were able to track them down and get them to come over there. And it was so fun watching them because I think they came there thinking they were going to be doing inside chores because maybe it had most of the communication and it was so good for me to be able to be involved. The look on their face when I came out it was like you're not Libby. There was a realization like they knew they weren't in Kansas anymore. And so we started in Abdoin some different chores and it was so funny because at one point Connie left out this scream and I thought oh my gosh she's been hurt. They're gonna sue. I'll lose my house. The children won't get an inheritance. Libby can't shop anymore. And I went outside and she'd seen a bug. In the garden. And it surprised her. And I thought about how different that was from my children because when Scott and Jacob come in we had to have them turn their pockets inside out because they would have the bugs and the slugs and everything else in their pockets. I love being a part of God's family. I love what it means to me what it means for me that I've been married this long that we still have hope we still have a relatively stable relationship when you have two unstable people. The fact that we can even have some stability is pretty impressive but we still like each other. And that may shock you. I think that shocks Libby some time but for the most part we really like being together. We enjoy each other's come in. Our marriage seems to be getting better and better as we go on. And that means the world to me. And I'm not naive enough to believe that that's because we're so awesome. And I think Libby's awesome. Otherwise I wouldn't have married her. I could have gotten stuck with some of you but thank God. The shelves are still filled before I got into the store. But I mean that seriously. I look at my life and there are so many things that remind me that I'm God's son. The God has chosen me that God blesses me every single day of my life. Children ask chapter two. Name of the lesson is transformed by revival. And it's a trivial sounding title. But I've seen for the years to be transformed for us to radically change. And we're at a time in the church when we've had kind of this summer slump and everybody's been out doing their own thing. We're trying to get people refocused. But the idea of allowing that focus, allowing this time, allowing this service to revive you and transform you is completely up to you. What you do with it is completely up to you. And we want this to be something that is kind of like the second stage booster of a rocket to just explode and goes to places that we never even could have conceived was possible to go before now. That can't happen because of whatever I share. It can only happen because of what you receive out there. How do you choose to take the songs, the sharing, the scripture, every aspect of this service and applying that to your life. That's going to determine whether or not you'll be transformed by revival or your heart will be haunted by just going through another series of lessons. In chapter two, you've got the story of 12 men who were about to begin a revival that would not only transform them, but transform the world. And to really understand that we've got to go back to the crucifixion that Doug was talking about because it has to be personal. It can just be about some necklace that you and I wear around our our necklace. We've got to recognize that Jesus chose not only to die, and he didn't really choose to die. He had to surrender to die. It wasn't his choice. He even begged that guy would take that customer. They wouldn't have to do it. And yet what was forefront on his mind were two things. Number one, he designed to please God. But number two, he was thinking about you. And he was thinking about me. And he was thinking about all the people that have left us down in the world. All the circumstances that have wronged us of life and of joy and of hope. And Jesus wanted us to know there was one ray of hope that he was that hope. And so not only was he willing to go to the cross, but he lived the life he did so that every day we can look back and have hope for our lives. He wanted me to be able to sit here and to hear the songs to the song that we were seeing before I came up here, Rejoice. Rejoice. Let my voice rejoice. Let me think of God and rejoice and be overwhelmed by his presence. And he spent three years desperately trying to pass on to the disciples. His understanding of God, how much God meant to him. And they just didn't get it even on the night before he was crucified. And Jesus, you subjects himself to the humiliation of taking on the form of a servant and watches their feet. They didn't get it until the cross until the cross. Someone might save you a seat here to make you feel special. And they may even call it an empire. And that will pass. Someone may give you a drink of water or they may share a hug with you. That will pass. But what if that person chose to die for you? To communicate to you that you're being here right now. Forget anybody else. He chose to die for you. And you see that the disciples didn't get that until he actually died. Peter devastated because it forced him to see himself. And then when Jesus was raised from the dead, Peter wanted to believe that he couldn't find the faith to believe. And yet over time, Jesus convinced him, this is all about you. And this sermon that he preached was his attempt to communicate to other people just like you and me. The revival that was beginning to take place in his heart and the transformation that he hoped that that would produce. And so when we read this, I want us to read it with the reflection of the cross. The cries of my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And the final finishing statement is finished. And realize all of that happened for you to sit here right now and believe we have so much value to God. Everything that has ever happened has happened to bring us to this one point in time. With this hope that it would create us a revival, a desire to rejoice in our love for God that would create in us transformed lives. That's chapter 2 verse 36. Therefore, because of everything he had shared with him. And we don't even have recorded all that he shared. But I guarantee you, for Peter, this is the one chance, the first chance publicly, he's had to communicate what it means to him that Jesus chose to die for him and that in spite of him betraying him. He still believed in Peter and was giving Peter the opportunity to be his representative to the rest of the world, just like he's giving you and me the opportunity right here, right now can be his representative. Are we going to represent him? Well, and so everything in Peter is coming through in that spirit. Therefore, because of all this, let Israel be assured, know for certainly without question, God has made this Jesus, my Jesus, whom you crucified because you're just as guilty of sin as I am. God has made this Jesus, both Lord and Christ, the master and the savior. When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, what shall we do? What is necessary? What can we do to reflect the fact that we get it? We get it. Peter replied, repent and be baptized, be transformed, change for wherever you're at now to reflect Jesus glory. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus in his honor by his authority for the forgiveness of your sins because your sins have been nailed to the cross and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is meant to remind us of everything that Jesus came to teach us. The promise is for you, for your children, for all who are far off, for all, from the Lord I got to call. With many other words, he warned them and he pleaded with them. He not only told them of the dangers of not getting the message, but he begged them, you've got to get this. There is nothing more important that I can communicate to you right now than what I'm trying to communicate to you. But this Jesus, my Jesus, died for you. Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Let that take you out of the world and stop living like people in the world. Those who accepted his message were baptized about 3,000 rather to their number that day. They devoted themselves. They literally surrendered their will to the desire to please. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of it. How devoted are you to the fellowship here today? Time running out? Stomach growing? To the breaking of bread and prayer? To taking communion on memory of Jesus and praying to God? Everyone was filled with awe. When we walk out of here, do we walk out of here having experienced awe? We've been in the presence of God and God's people. We've seen simple, ordinary people share life-changing experiences and we see the Spirit of God resting over this place. And many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Do we have everything in common? Are we really together? Stowing their possessions are good. They give anyone as they have been. Every day they continue to meet together in the temple course. They broke bread in their homes, ate together with gladness and seer hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. In this short sermon, Peter's expressing with a depth of conviction and emotion that only someone who's witnessed the crucifixion who's betrayed the Messiah and been set free can understand. And he's trying to communicate that down through the years for 2,000 years. This message has been resonating to come and rest on your heart today. There are four simple things that I want us to play. This is the cross of Jesus set us free. You have to understand the freedom you experience isn't from a declaration of independence. It's not from the Constitution. It comes from a crucified Savior dying on the cross for you. Then Jesus loves you so much. He puts it this way in John 360. God so loved the world. He's so loved you. He's so loved me. We can never go tired of hearing that. How many times does a child have to have a pair of weapons on hands? Yeah, I love you. We're going to get sick of it. Are we sick of hearing God loves you? You remember what he was like when you came upon to one of you had made your confession and faith and you were baptized? Jesus will say, I love you so much. I will die for you. Do you get that message? Is it personal that for you? God so loved the world. He's so loved you and me that he gave us one and I always said, there's not going to be a spare. This is it. God said, I'm giving my best. My all to you. All to you. I surrender. Did you ever believe in him? She'll not perish. But have eternal life. Be step free. God gives him the son and the world to condemn him, but to save the world through him. Is this a safe haven? Or is this a place of condemnation? Do we come here because we're coming home and this is our father's world. This is our father's own and in here we are safe and we're protected. These are our brothers and sisters or do we allow Satan to come to be a house of condemnation? See the cross and the street in John chapter 8 we're talking to the Jews here. Jesus literally said in verse 31, the Jews wouldn't believe him to those people who believe. Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching and we trivialize that their expression, hold to my teaching, if you become like me, if you will live like I live. John talked about it wasn't just a Christian but it was how Jesus lived and so in John chapter 8 to the Jews who had claimed to believe Jesus said if you will live like I live, if you will walk in my shoes, same expression, same heart, same spirit that was used in my chapter 1 when he called the first disciples and he told them to come and follow him, become like him. He said I want you to get it, I want you to understand God, God loves you so much. He's not trying to condemn you, he's trying to set you free. If you hold my teachings, it's a conditional clause then you are really my disciples. So if you and I are not living like Jesus lived, when I really disciples were masquerading, then then you'll know the truth. Some of you, you've been coming out forever and you back like disciples, you even talk like disciples, you walk, you look good on the outside, but on the inside you are full of dead men's bones. Why? Because you're not living as Jesus lived, you're not surrendered. There's a conditionality clause to your walk and so you can't even begin to know the truth and that truth will never set you free and so for you this is a house of condemnation because every sermon, every message, every discussion you have is a stripe on your back, a reminder that you're still enslaved to your own sin and Jesus said what do I have to do? My cross, come and take my burden upon you. Why? Because my yoke is easy. I'm not here to hurt you, I'm not here to judge you. I am here to set you free. Second thing says in our text in verse 40, he says with many other words, he warned them and pleaded with him, save yourselves from this corrupt generation. That's the second thing, we've got to save ourselves from this world. This world is not our home, it's a cesspool. It's a cesspool of decay and filth and we've gotten so used to it, I grew up around pigs. And pigs really weren't designed to have bows and be pets. They are carnivorous garbage disposals. You say that's why they're important. Chickens are just like pigs. So those health nuts out there, they're the only pork. What you're eating is no better than the pork. Chickens will eat you if you lay down. But I can tell you being in a chicken coop or being in a pig pen, it's nasty. I've never thought let me go and relax in the pig pen or let's lay down for a nap in the chicken coop. They're filthy. And yet that's literally what we've done with the world. It's a filthy, disgusting, vile place full of impurity and morality, greed, selfishness, hatred, every kind of godless behavior imaginable. And we are so at home there that we don't want people to think we don't belong with the rest of the pigs. We're so busy not wanting to stand out as Jesus freaks that we look like pig poop. We blend in. It's the waste product produced by something that's meant for nothing but destruction. So what he's saying to us is I get Jesus. He died for me and I betrayed him. But even after all of that, he reminded me that I love him and he told me to feed his children. And now I'm here sharing with you. This world is not your home. Save yourselves from this corrupt defiled world. Women, let me tell you something. You will never find a man who will treat you the way you should be treated outside of God's kingdom. Quite frankly, inside of God's kingdom it can be questionable because a lot of men in the church don't act like godly men. They act like no better than the pagans outside. And you deserve better. God wants you to experience better. But your only hope is to stop looking to the world and start looking to the family of God. This world doesn't have the answers. Romans 12, Paul says in verse 1, I urge you, I beg you, I plead with you brothers and he's talking to people in the church. In view of God's mercy, in view of the mercy that God's already extended to you. I mean, which of us has not been given God's grace and mercy in here? You're here by God's grace. You think no, it's because I've put enough makeup on and I'm starting profile and I'm deceiving everybody. They don't see what's really going on behind closed doors. No, God sees it and chances are people run you see it too. They may not know exactly what it is, but they're picking up something's funky about you and you seem to be the only one that doesn't get the smell. I urge you, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual activation. Surrender, surrender your will to God's will and stop conforming to the pattern of this world. Stop looking, talking, walking, and acting like a bunch of Godless even who you're so worried about them thinking you're weird, you become decayed. You're like a living being that calls into a coffin with a cadaver. Pretty soon you start smelling dead yourself. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6 he says that this one verse 17 therefore come out from them and be separate. He's pleading with them to stop being unequally yoked to the world. Stop being like the world. We want to be like this politician that way. When did we stop having heroes in the church? When was it? I want to be like A, B, C, and D outside. When did we as disciples stop saying, you know what? I want to be just like this brother, God's putting my life because he calls me higher. Therefore come out from them and be separate. Touch no unclean thing. How much? How much freedom and purity should you have? Touch no unclean thing. And I will receive you another conditional clause. If you stop trying to step as close to the line as you can get without crossing over, and instead start searching for the reflection of Christ, I will be a father to you. Do you want God to be your father? On judgment day. Do you want him to say? No, no, no. Don't toast this one. He's mine. Or do you want him to say crispy, extra crispy? Helpless, helpless, hell-bound. Touch no unclean thing. And I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters. Third day I want us to take from this is the concept of remaking ourselves in Christ's image that I want to look like Jesus. I'm trying. I'm trying in my life for people around me to be able to look and say he's walked in the footsteps of Christ and consider where he had to start. Okay. I'm not there yet. But when Jesus said to those people in Mark chapter one or something, come follow me and I will make you fish as a man. I will cause you to draw men to you. What he's saying is if you will become like me, if you will learn to love the way that I love, if you will be patient, the way that I'm patient, if you will surrender, the way that I surrendered, all men will be drawn to you. Why? Because they're looking for hope and are hopeless in the helpless world. And God has chosen you and he's chosen me to be his representative. That needs to strike us with a sense of all the causes us to flock together to sing and to shout and to rejoice because it's a miracle. The church in Philippi Paul says in Philippi chapter three, I want to know Christ. It doesn't mean to know about him. It's literally I want to experience his life. From the very beginning, Jesus had come and become like me and all men will be drawn to you and you will reflect God's glory and Paul towards the end of his life before he's dead, before he's put together, he's fine again. He says, I just want to know Jesus. I want to be like Jesus. And I want to know what position or what possessions I want to know Christ. And the power of his resurrection, what it meant to surrender to God's will and let God lift you up. Let the super hero that derives from again, let the surrendered Messiah who's simply trusted in God. Why? Because God still loves this world. And the fellowship of sharing these sufferings. You know what? This is a fellowship of suffering because the world is still happening. I really hope the economy will change for me. I'm a Christian. I hope my housemates who just saw us through the roof, they didn't. They settled with this line. What's up with that? I'm a Christian. You. Fellowship of sharing his suffering, becoming like him in his death. That's a powerful, powerful. It's not saying God. It's saying trust God so much that you're able to surrender to your willy his wife because God still loves you. And you trust he'll raise you from the dead. Don't trust your eye or your education, your resume. Trust your father. Fourth and finally, simply share that good news. This is my father's work. And I can't wait to share it. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 14, "The love of Christ compels me, controls me, demands. I be who I am and who I am is my best attempt at reflecting his glory. I want people to look through me and see the cross of Christ. It compels me. I can not share. I'm personally in the same. If you can only see, if you can only express what I've seen and what I've experienced, I just want you to see it. It's what Peter was trying to communicate next to. It's what the book of John was written about. John wrote that at about 90 years of age, 40 years after the other gospel. He's the last of the apostles, and it is his attempt to communicate to all of us. Now he felt about his Jesus. It's the story of the cross in your life. Why? Because we're convinced one died for all. And he died for all of those who there should no longer live for themselves. But for him, him who died for them. Someone gives you a glass of water. You'll remember a moment. Someone chooses to die. Remember a lifetime. Why are we here? We're here because we're forgiven. We're here because this world has nothing to offer and we're longing for hope. It's why Paul told Timothy and Second Timothy chapter four in the presence of God in the Christ Jesus. As if you were standing in his presence, remember what it meant for him to set you trade. Praise the world. Share your face. Share your nose. Say, I don't really know how to send a bottle. Do you know how to be grateful? I don't know much, but I know this. I was blind. And now I see it. When I felt like nobody even in my own family loved me and cared about me, a stranger gave me that. And I don't know. Could this be the Christ, the Samaritan woman who's phone sent.
Regional worship service in Desert Cities. Lesson by Mike Rock