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I’ve always been a student of revival.
Since I was a teenager I have studied revivals and spiritual awakenings with a voracious appetite. I have scoured books about them and have listened to sermons on them, looking for the keys to revival, longing to be a part of the next great move of God on earth.
Books like George Whitfield…Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the 18th Century Revival (Volumes 1 & 2), Lectures to my Students by Charles Spurgeon, Movements that Change the World by Steve Addison, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret by J. Hudson Taylor, The Life of Dwight L. Moody by William R. Moody and so many more…have been on my reading and re-reading list for decades.
But, as much as I’ve loved reading these books and others like them, I’m tired of just reading about revival and awakening.
I want to be a part of one.
Just a few weeks ago I was invited to speak at an event called Go2020 USA. My good friend Dave Gibson is the North American Executive Director of Go2020 and he asked me to do the closing challenge to 110 key national ministry leaders attending this catalytic meeting.
Go2020 is a global Gospel advancing movement that is mobilizing 100 million believers worldwide to share the Gospel with one billion people in the year 2020. Of course, this is a movement that everyone at Dare 2 Share, the ministry I lead, is excited about! After all our vision at Dare 2 Share is “every teen everywhere hearing the Gospel from a friend!”
Speaking to these leaders was a great privilege that I did not take lightly. By the time I boarded the plane from Denver to Orlando my sermon was complete. I was going to preach on the 5 characteristics of a movement based on Steve Addison’s book, Movements that Change the World.
But once on the plane, the Spirit of God convicted me that this was not the sermon He wanted me to preach. After praying, He guided me to my new sermon. It was entitled, 3 ways to kickstart a movement based on Acts 4:31-33.
I was ready to preach it…or so I thought.
After a day full of strategic meetings at the Go2020 meeting and just moments before I walked to the stage to preach, I suddenly realized that the 3 points to my sermon were already in full play, not just nationally, but globally.
There was no kickstarting a movement, the movement had already begun, long before I boarded any plane. As I scanned my sermon and looked at the 3 keys to kickstarting a movement, and thought back to all that had been shared that day, it struck me, these 3 keys were starting to happen nationally and were in full swing globally.
Right there I changed my sermon title to “3 Signs a Spiritual Awakening has begun” based on Acts 4:31-33. If there ever was an example of spiritual awakening its the book of Acts and this passage contains all the elements that reflect a true and sweeping spiritual move of God.
Here is the passage and the 3 points I preached that day to these ministry leaders.
“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.” Acts 4:31-33
The first sign a spiritual movement has begun is that…
SOURCE: Christian Post, Greg Stier
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