Prayer for Renewal (Week 1)
JUSTIN SERRA

August 2, 2020

Title: The What and Why of Revival

 

1 – What is Renewal? (3:16)
  • Strengthening the inner man.

  • We desperately need to be seekingit, praying for it – personally and together.
  • Does your life prioritize the strengthening of your outward life or your inward self?
  • Tim Keller says, “if you inner life is strengthened than it doesn’t matter what happening in your outward circumstances because you can move towards them in strength. If your inner life is in taters than it doesn’t matter about your outward life because you move toward them in weakness. The absolute priority of the power of the inner life, the power of the life in which you are able to know God, have communion with him is the point.
2 – We Seek Renewal So Christ May Dwell (3:17)
  • Tim Keller says, “the heart of the Bible is referring to the center where your mind, will, and emotions meet. It is in all three spaces that the inner man represents. The heart is where the theology manifests intself in emotions and practice.

3 – What is Renewal? Rooted & Grounded in Love (3:17)
  • Family, to be renewed is to be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ…
4 – Why We Seek Renewal? Strength to Comprehend the Breadth, Length, Height, & Depth (3:18-19)
  • Paul says, I want you to be grounded in love, rooted in it, so that you can comprehend again its breadth, it is as wide as east is to west. Like loving arms spread wide to embrace you.
5 – A Warning from Revelation (Rev. 2:2-3)
  • Let us not trade renewal for tactics.
  • Let us not trade the revival of our hearts and the hearts of our church family for right thinking on secondary and tertiary issues.
  • Let us examine ourselves. Let us repent. And let us continue
    to pray for the revival of our hearts.

Charles Spurgeon’s prayer for revival…

“O God, send us the Holy Ghost. Give us both the breath of spiritual life and the fire of unconquerable zeal. O thou who art our God, answer us by fire, we pray thee. Answer us both by wind and fire, and then we shall see thee to be God indeed. The kingdom comes not, and the work is flagging. O, that thou wouldest send the wind and the fire! Thou wilt do this when we are all of one accord, all believing, all expecting, all prepared by prayer. Lord, bring us to this waiting state. God send us a season of glorious disorder. Oh, for a sweep of the wind that will set the seas in motion, and make our ironclad brethren now lying so quietly at anchor roll from stem to stern. Oh, for fire to fall again, fire which shall affect the most stolid! Oh, that such fire might first sit upon the disciples, and then fall on all around! O  Spirit of God, thou art ready to work with us today even as thou didst then. Stay not, we beseech thee, but work at once. Break down every barrier that hinders the incoming of thy great might! Give us now both hearts of flame and tongues of fire to preach thy reconciling word, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”