"Awakening" Community Group Studies - Biblical Revival

• Kevin Larson
• Mar 19, 2010
• Series: Gospel
• Categories: Gospel

In the Summer of 2009, one of our member churches, Karis Community Church, led a 6-week study on Biblical Living through their community groups. Below you will find all of the resources to this study written by Karis Lead Pastor, Kevin Larson.

Part 1 - Nature

"What do you think of when you hear the word “revival?”  Perhaps some summer preaching meetings at your small town church?  You schedule “revival” and God is expected to show up, and you at least pretend like He did?  Maybe you heard the word a time or two in your study of church history.  Remember the first and second “Awakenings?”  Perhaps you read Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” in school.  Or maybe you’ve even heard of churches somewhere in modern America, where weird things seem to be happening, things attributed to God.  Is that revival?  More than likely, if you’re a normal American, or an American Christian, for that matter, you haven’t heard much about biblical revival.  For the next six sessions, we’ll be considering the subject of “Awakenings,” praying together that God would unleash exactly that upon His church..."

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Part 2 - Basis

“The word ‘revival’ isn’t even in the Bible!  Why should we be talking about this?”  This is what some have said about the subject.  But the same people probably cling to the doctrine of the Trinity at the same time.  That term isn’t used in Scripture.  But the reality, God in three persons, is clearly there.  It’s the same with revival.  True, the exact word may not be used (although “revive” is). Yes, the term is oft misunderstood and abused.  But the concept is all over Scripture.  Let’s not throw out the term.  Let’s seek to understand it and learn to cherish it..."

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Part 3 - Marks

“Awakening,” as we’ve seen, refers to a sovereign work of God in the life of His
people.  It’s not something we can program.  It’s something He does by His own
pleasure, for His own glory.  It’s God visiting his people in power.  But, when
God comes down, you might ask, what does it look like? True, it has often led to strange physical manifestations.  Jonathan Edwards, in his book, The Religious Affections, balances such outward expressions of inward change in his period of revival, the First Great Awakening.  He argues that God’s work should rightly have outward, physical manifestations.  But he also notes that strange bodily responses are “no sure sign” that God is involved at all. Genuine revival often leads to attempts by our Enemy to counterfeit what God is doing, in a struggle to undermine the Spirit’s work.  As we seek revival, we should pray for, and even expect, that, should God work in us, that trembling would no longer remain simply a metaphor, and that crying over our sins would not in any way seem unfitting.  It’s cold-heartedness, after all, that we’re asking God to melt.  And cold hearts show themselves with stone faces.  But seeking manifestations should never be our focus. Our focus should be on the deeper realities.  In revival, God works deeply in our hearts, once again “awakening” us to the truths of Him and His gospel. In his book, True Revival: What Happens When God’s Spirit Moves?, John Armstrong lists five biblical marks that have been seen in historical revival.  We’ll briefly consider each tonight.

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Part 4 - Passion

Flip on a light switch in a dark room and two things happen.  If you move your hand close to the bulb, you’ll notice heat.  It will be warm, and if you’re not careful, you’ll get burned.  And the bulb also produces light.  If you draw near, you and the area around will be illumined.  Heat and light.  Both happen. Both are necessary in revival.  During our last session, we saw the necessary heat of
revival.  When God moves, He moves in our hearts, producing, as we saw, deep emotions: an awareness of God’s presence, an uncommon readiness to hear from God, a deep conviction over one’s sin, a heartfelt repentance, and an extraordinary concern for others.  But that heat must be connected to light.  It must be focused on truth.  Many today resist theology or doctrine, dismissing
it as irrelevant, but passion not centered upon truth results in shallow sentimentalism.  It dishonors God as the excitement isn’t centered upon His glory but idols of our imagination.  However, those who have taken such a course have understandably reacted against stiff intellectualism.  As many
throw out truth, others throw out emotion altogether.  They have full heads but empty hearts with a lack of zeal that dishonors the subjects they so eloquently espouse. The truth is that both are needed.

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Part 5 - Means

God generally uses means to accomplish His will in the world.  For example, God calls us to go and share the gospel of Jesus with people who don’t know Him.  He typically doesn’t just appear to people who need salvation.  He sends missionaries to them. Additionally, the Bible gives all credit to the Lord for conversion (Eph. 1:1-14). But that salvation which is by grace is also through faith.  No one who is saved by God does not also profess faith in Christ.  God typically uses means, and it’s the same thing in revival.  As Armstrong puts it, “In revival, then, God does not act in ‘bare’ divine sovereignty.  When God ‘rends the heavens’ (Isa. 64:1-2) with a great extension of grace He always accomplishes this work through human agents.”1 Just as sharing the message isn’t the cause of salvation, and neither is the faith of those who respond - for, if that were the case, the missionary and the convert could take credit and be proud - so also prayer and preaching don’t cause revival.  But historically when awakenings have been seen, people have been passionately praying for God’s Spirit to move, and called men have been proclaiming God’s gospel faithfully.  Let’s take each of those, what Armstrong calls the “catalyst” and “fuel” of revival, in turn. 

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Part 6 - Pursuit

For the past five weeks, we have examined biblical revival together.  Let’s take a few minutes to review from where we’ve come.  First, we looked at the nature of awakening.  We saw that revival is not an event, something that can be scheduled, but rather a surprising, magnificent move of God.  As Ray Ortlund puts it, “Revival is a season of church life during which the normal work of the gospel operates with unusually quickening spiritual power.”1  Additionally, looking  at Revelation 2 and 3, we saw that our need for awakening comes from our tendency to move toward lukewarmness, away from our original love for Christ.  And we can’t snap ourselves out of these wayward shifts.  We need divine “wake-up calls.”  Second, we looked at the basis for awakening.  Examining three views on revival, one that argues against its presence in this age, another that sees it coming through meeting certain conditions (prayer, holiness, unity, etc.), and a third that understands it coming purely and only by God’s prerogative, we argued for the last view, showing its presence in Scripture and arguing that it provides a needed balance between the other, extreme positions.  Third, we considered the marks of awakening. We looked at five things experienced biblically and historically in times when God’s Spirit moves: an awareness of God’s presence, an uncommon readiness to hear God, a deep conviction over one’s sin, a heartfelt repentance, and an extraordinary concern for others.  Fourth, we learned about the passion of awakening.  Revival, in
particular, like the Christian life, in general, is meant to have both heat and light.  Passion, or heat, for light, the truth.  In this study, we looked at four key doctrines that have typically gripped and transformed people experiencing awakening: God’s holiness, the centrality of Christ, justification by faith alone, and regeneration by the Spirit’s power.  Fifth, we examined the means of awakening.  God has always used and will certainly still use prayer and preaching in bringing about about revival fires. 

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