Video Transcript: Lesson 17 The Fuel for Revitalization
Hello, welcome, right back into this great conversation that we are having about church revitalization, bringing health and vitality and renewal back into your ministry. I'm so glad that you're doing this. I know I often say that throughout this, but I truly am. I'm in I'm in the trenches trying to do this very thing with you. And I'm encouraged that you're doing this, that I'm not alone in this, that there's a whole army of people out there who are trying to do their very best to see God's Kingdom grow. So we're going to continue our series on revitalization. And today, you can see from the screen, we're going to be talking about the fuel for revitalization. What are the things that are going to make revitalization kind of go? We just talked about the gospel, which is kind of the the first things the most important. And now we're going to talk again about some of the elements, two things in particular, that make the church go that make ministry go that make revitalization go. So let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you so much for this day. Wherever this is being heard, Lord, I pray that this lecture would just draw us back to the truth of your word. And it would encourage us and also challenge us Lord to clear our minds of false idols and things that Lord we have falsely attributed power. So God, we love you, we thank you. And we ask that You would bless us in this time, amen. Okay, so let's talk about the fuel that powers revitalization. Now, the word revitalization, it means to, like bring back to life or to to re reintroduce life to take something that was not alive. And to bring it back again, we saw that when we were doing that, in depth study on Sardis, that church revitalization for them was actually a work of resurrection. Because if you recall the scripture that says you have the reputation of being alive, yet you are dead. So if we're trying to bring something from death back to life, it's an impossible challenge. It lies beyond your ability, I don't care how capable you are, how charming you are, what a great scholar you are. Bringing something from death to life is just beyond your ability. It requires divine power. And that power, this fuel for bringing death to life is is given to us as a gift through the Word, and the spirit. And those are the things we're going to be focusing on today, in this lecture on the word in the Spirit, and how God uses them, to bring about new life and revitalization. And to do that, we're going to be looking at a great example of how this actually happened. Although not technically an example of church revitalization, it's, it's really helpful and quite informative. So this morning, or this afternoon, or this night, whenever you're watching it, we're going to be looking at Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones from chapter 37 In the book of Ezekiel, so we're going back to the Old Testament. And the reason we're doing this is that it provides a helpful demonstration for understanding the power of the Word and the Spirit in restoring life to God's people. Now, if you're not familiar with this story, it really comes towards the end of the Old Testament in the kind of chronologically it comes in a time when Israel, the people of Israel are in captivity. The Babylonians have come they have destroyed Jerusalem, and the people who live there have been carted off and they are living in
captivity. In just a very down dark, depressing time. The country's been overthrown, the temples been burned down. All the buildings have been leveled, the walls have been knocked down. The people are taken away by a foreign enemy. And it looks like God's plan for the people of Israel. It's over like there. There's nothing left the northern kingdom of Israel has fallen You know, some time before that, now the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem, they have fallen, there's really kind of nothing left. Now, in the midst of this, what is seemingly the end of the story for Israel, God gives one of his prophets, a man named Ezekiel a vision, in in this vision, he sees a big valley. And in this valley, our bones just innumerable in number a whole valley, scattered with bones. And the bones represent the current condition of the people of God. I mean, it's, it's a very apt thing. They're, they're in this valley there, there's no life to them, there's no hope for them. There's no power within them, you know, skeletons can't bring themselves back to life. So, in the midst of this, you know, very difficult time in which his vision in his mind God asked a question to Ezekiel. That is a question any of us doing trying to do revitalization need to ask, in in he asked whether or not he thinks that there could be any life left in these bones? Could these bones come back to life? And I guess that's the question for you and me, wherever we're at trying to do revitalization is, do we believe that these bones can come back to life, these these dry, withered bones that we're trying to do something with? Can they be brought back to life? Now, obviously, in this vision, if you are, if you're familiar with chapter 37, you know how it goes. And in this wonderful story, God reveals himself as the God of revitalization, he revealed himself to be the God of resurrection, who works this life giving power through his word, and His Spirit. Okay. That's how life comes back into these dry bones. So we're going to take that great principle and apply it into our own ministry context. So let's talk about each of them individually. First, let's talk about the life giving power of the spoken word. Now, I'm going to be reading from Ezekiel 37:4-6. And if you've got a Bible in front of you, you can read it along or you can just listen to me. Then he said to me, God's speaking to Ezekiel. Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones, and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones, I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life, I will attach tendons to you, and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin, I will put breath in you and you will come to life, then you will know that I am the Lord. So the interesting thing here, if you take note is that as Ezekiel obeys God, and He speaks God's words, the bones begin to take on the characteristics of life again, he goes, prophesy to the bones, speak to them. And then he begins by saying, here now the words of the Lord and then he proceeds to speak the words of the Lord, he speaks this prophesy over them. And then all of a sudden, these bones start, you know, you can imagine them starting to rattle around on the floor of the valley, and the tendons and the skin and the muscle and, and they come to life, and then
there's a breath of life in these bones. So we see right here that God through His word, the power of the spoken word, was able to do something that Ezekiel could have never done on his own. So I think there's really just easy parallels we can draw between the dry bones and trying to do a work of renewal in our ministry. Now, first of all, we have to hear and then respond to God's word. Listen to these texts that speak about the power of Scripture. Hebrews 4:12. Scripture is living and active. It says it's alive. Scripture isn't just a dusty words in an old book. Scripture actually has the quality of being alive and it's active and it's moving and it does things it make things happen. It changes circumstances and situations. In Jeremiah 23:29, says scriptures like fire, and like a hammer that breaks a rock into pieces. So, Scripture again here it has forced, it does things it moves. It breaks things down. Right Ephesians 6:17, Paul says that the word is the sword of the spirit. It's how God moves. He either he cuts hearts open, he, he pricks us, this powerful weapon that the Spirit uses to convict us to encourage us it's a weapon. And then II Timothy 3:16. It says scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Scripture is useful it has, it has value to it, and it has a purpose. And it can teach it can change our minds. It can rebuke it can call us to repent, it can correct us get us back on track, it can train us so it can build us up. It can do all these things, the power of the spoken word and of course, the word as we read it, but we're sticking kind of with a spoken word and teaching and encouraging each other. So what this all comes down to is this, that the Word, the Word of God, as revealed in Scripture, it is the primary means by which God works in the church. And it's certainly the primary means by which God speaks in the church. That's why we have scripture. So let's think What does Scripture do it contain? Or what what is it? It contains the gospel that leads to salvation? How could we know the story of the incarnation, the death and resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus Christ, if it were not for the testimony of Scripture. So the God worked salvation through the revelation of His scripture to his people, it contains doctrine about the right thinking about God, to how in a world that's full of all kinds of idols and competing views about God, how do we know which is the right one about God? Well, because we turn to Scripture, God has revealed himself in Scripture. If you want to know who I am, this is who I am. This is how I've made myself known through history. This is how I shared myself, this is how I woven myself into the story of human history, okay. And then it's the primary means by which we have direction on the practice of the church. How are we to live? How is the church to function? What kinds of things are we supposed to do? I mean, we wouldn't know about the Great Commission and to go into all the world and make disciples. If scripture had not told us to do that. We wouldn't know we're supposed to forgive each if scripture did not teach us that we would not know that we needed to repent if scripture did not teach us that. So all of these things are just pointing like the word, the centrality of the word. Not just
that, though, but the power and the force behind God's word. And that's what he uses to move his people from death to life, right. The story of the dry bones coming to life, it's not just the story of revitalization is, it's what God always does, every story of conversion isn't it's a story of God's Word, the Gospel, bringing something that was dead now to life. It's the same model we see over and over and over again. So I would say this, just as I said, revitalization is really impossible. Without this act of repentance, and being humbled and being built up by the gospel. I would say in the same way, revitalization is truly impossible, apart from a commitment to the teaching and the application of his word. Now I know that sounds so basic, but I think it's our failure to do the basics that lead us to, to the decline that we may all be experiencing at one time or another. So how do we, how do we really just elevate the Word of God in our churches? How do we get back to this primary focus on the word? There's a few things about, you know, restoring our sense of authority in God's Word. We can start every meeting with a scripture devotion, a short reading or reflection, but just like every time anybody meets it, we begin by looking at what the Word says. And just even something like that. that the more that the word is spoken, the more people are going to begin to respect it, but also begin to hear it in new and fresh ways. If you're a person who does a lot of teaching at your church, or you're the main preacher, you could do a sermon series on the word or you could teach a class on the word or if you're lead small groups, you could teach on the value of God's word. I mean, you could do anything with it. But just something that really, really reaffirms, like, Hey, this is, you know, the things we've been talking about, you know, today, but in this lecture, but also in the other ones, just the value, the authority, the power of God's word, and coming back to that, that God's word is the bedrock, and you're going to build on something that my church did for quite a while, as we were reclaiming the centrality of the word in in our lives and in worship is we did a scripture affirmation every week for several years. And right before we would read the scripture for the sermon, we would do this. And so we would read something, you know, like in Matthew 4, where Jesus says, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Or we would read from Psalm 119. Lord, Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light to my path, or also from Psalm 119, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. We could do the II Timothy 3, All scripture is God breathed, you get the idea of the the text of Scripture that refer to the authority of Scripture, again, the Hebrews 4:12, the word of God is living and active, all those sorts of things. And every week, we would read those together over and over and over. And it just really reemphasize the power, the authority of God's word. Okay. And we would just often when a situation would come up, we would affirm Scripture as our final rule as an our authority. This wasn't about personal preference. We wanted scripture to speak directly to this. And we still do this. We're just going through a series on marriage and gender roles. And
that can be very tough and very complicated. But every week we start off, or I start off teaching by saying, whether we want marriage to we're informed by what it looks like today in our culture, or we want to go back to something that it was 50 years ago. We can't rely on that we have to go back and say whatever scripture says, that's our rule. That's our final say, it's not what we want. It's not what the world says. It's what Scripture says. So we still do this in our church years down the road, we're always trying to find ways to reaffirm the role of the importance of the word in ministry. Okay, so enough on the word. Just as Ezekiel talks about the word, he also demonstrates the on limited power of God's Spirit at work in bringing about renewable, so the spirit is also the means by which God restores life. So let's go to Ezekiel 37:9-10. This is a Ezekiel recounting. Then he said to me, again, God speaking to Ezekiel, prophesy to the breath, which is the same word as spirit, prophesy, Son of man and say to it, this is what the Sovereign Lord says, come from the four winds, oh, breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me and breath entered them, they came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army. So Ezekiel is prophesying here, you know, there's a sense of like this, this winds sort of almost like a Pentecost sort of experience, where the wind blows and life enters into them again, the spoken word, ushers in the breath of the Spirit of God into these bones, and they spring to life and now they're standing up and they're this vast army, these pile of bones are now living and active, and not just that they came back to life, but now they're, they're a force or a vast army, they, they cannot be stopped, they, you know, you wouldn't want to meet these guys anywhere. So, so just like the word churches, must be the beneficiaries of the Spirit in order to come back to life. So it's the combination of the Word and the Spirit and really You can't have one operating without the other, because they really work in tandem. But as we focus on the spirit, we really want to see the spirit at live and, and moving just like truly a Holy Spirit led ministry. And nothing, I think, makes people sense that life is returning to the church, as when there is a sense of the presence and the movement of the Holy Spirit. There's there's just nothing that I think turns hearts, and humbles people and excites people, like a real sense of the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, this presents to us a real challenge, because we have the word in front of us and we can preach the Word and we can teach the Word and we can study the word at all times. But the Holy Spirit is a whole lot trickier than that. Jesus teaches Nicodemus you know, the Holy Spirit, it blows where it will just like the wind, and, and we don't have any control over where and how and when the Holy Spirit's going to move and to do things. So that's a real challenge for us talking about revitalization, because the spirit lies outside of our ability to control it, however the New Testament repeatedly demonstrates that the activity of the Holy Spirit is linked to and made available to the church through prayer, that prayer, somehow, in God's design of the universe, prayer is linked to and
connected to the work of the Holy Spirit. And this is in Luke 3, John 14. Acts 1, Acts 14, Acts 2. Again, when the when the Spirit shows up on Pentecost, what were the disciples doing, they were in the middle of a 10 day prayer meeting, right. And then the spirit moves in response to that. So we'll talk a little bit about getting prayer up and going in, in some different kinds of practical ways in just a moment. But before I do that, I do want to just offer a few words of caution to anyone who is seeking to bring about revitalization, and is counting on a fuel of some way to do that. That is something beyond the work of the Word, and the spirit. And often when if you read a book on church revitalization, or you go to a conference, you hear somebody speak about it. The focus is often that you need to have some kind of a structure or follow some kind of a program. And if you do that, if you do with this other church did, and follow these steps, you will see life returned to your church. There's a gentleman who's written a wonderful book, called Can These Bones live? Bill Henard, and he has a great comment on this. And he says, following a particular methodology or program does not guarantee success. One might greatly desire for the church to revitalize and grow. But genuine church growth calls for more than personal passion, it requires God's Spirit. Church revitalization begins with laying the foundation of God's word as it is preached and followed through a movement of God's Spirit. The two are inseparably linked. So before we, you know, hitch our wagon to some kind of a program, or 1-2-3, if you just do this, you know, your church attendance will double and really I take great precaution and reservation when whenever reading things like that, because it's the word in the spirit that really is going to be the fuel. So trying some kind of new method isn't really going to do it. In the same way. As you think the answer is updating technology, changing dress standards for worship, getting involved in different social media platforms. Now, I'm not saying any of those things are bad in and of themselves, and they might actually help ministry. But if you think about the fuel for revitalization, what's going to take dead bones and bring them to life? Not because your church has a better website or you're now on Instagram or Facebook or something like that. It takes a lot more than that. And then one follow up. One last thing is this idol we have sometimes in revitalization is this idol of cultural relevance, we just need to become more relevant to society. Now, I will be the first one to say that it is very important that a church or a ministry will understand its community, who you are trying to serve the needs in the community, and how you can effectively communicate the gospel to it. that that's, that's a given, you have to do that. But at no point was this at no point in Scripture was the church ever challenged to become more faithful to God? By becoming more like the world around it? Listen to it again. At no point in Scripture was a church ever challenged to become more faithful to God by becoming more like the world around it. And so let's stick with what Scripture says. Word and Spirit through through the ushering in of prayer. So getting back to prayer, let's just talk about, okay, what are some
things that you can do to get prayer going, okay? Now, remember, we need prayer, because you're trying to do something, it's impossible, yet it's achievable. And what you're going to be doing here is like praying rain, in a famine, you know, in a, in a great drought, there's nothing you can do to bring rain except just pray for it. Just ask God to just, you know, let loose and just send down his spirit in a great work of the Kingdom. Okay, so let's talk about this. So I guess this is just a basic question is, are you praying for this? Like, are you? Are you praying for the spirit to show up in your ministry context, like daily, are you just praying and praying and praying and say, God, send rain? God, we need you to just pour out Your Holy Spirit on this place. Apart from the work of your spirit towards we can do nothing, even Jesus tells us, you know, I'm the vine, you're the branches, if you're cut off from me, you can do nothing. So apart from Jesus, apart from the work of the Spirit, that he says, We can't do anything. So just praying for this daily, all the time, for God to help you as a leader, for God to help you in your teaching, for God to help you in counseling for God to work in the lives of other people, for the Spirit to give, bring about the hearts of repentance and renewal. This is all work that has to be done by the Spirit. And the only thing you can do is to pray. So keep praying, praying, praying, praying. Now, that's obviously your responsibility as a leader, but the question is, who else is praying, this goes all the way back to the very first lectures when I was challenging you, who else is praying for this with you? There needs to be more than just you get other people praying, you know, moving the just like the kingdom of heaven, in your favor, just the wind. We weren't the wind just Ezekiel had in, in the valley that the wind is blowing and bringing these things to life, the wind that raced through in Jerusalem on Pentecost, we want that and we we want this movement of just God's people just praying and calling out his name and, and desiring the work of His Spirit. So who else? Who else is praying? I guess that's a big thing. And who have you asked? Are they praying? Have you checked in with them? Or is there a time that you get together and meet with them and, and pray for these very things? Have you trained them in any way? And not just people in your church, get people outside your church say I need you to help with this, I need you to pray over this, okay? And kind of the next thing is really just kind of this same ideas of building an intercessory prayer team, someone who's going to stand between the God of heaven and your ministry, and just stand in the gap and plead and beg God for the work of His Holy Spirit. So that that's really we're up to work of the word and the work of the Spirit applied. That is the fuel that brings something dead back to life. And so I'm gonna pray over you as we wrap this up. Father in Heaven once again, we turn to you in prayer. And Lord, let me pray for all my brothers and sisters watching us God. May I be counted as a member of their prayer team. And, Lord, I ask that your spirit would pour out on them, God that they would be in such a place of repentance, and seeking your will. That Lord you would just
freely give and offer your Spirit to them. And God I also pray that in their hearts, that you they might be already just on fire with a renewed love for your word and desire to teach it and a desire Lord for others to just enter into the truth of your word and to be transformed by God. Thank you so much for all my friends watching this. And I pray you will do great things in and through them by your word and your spirit. pray this in Your name, Amen. All right, we're gonna come back with one more piece about getting started. And looking forward to spending some more time with you