The Revived Life Begins With Me — Michael Catt

The Revived Life Begins With Personal Surrender

Psalm 138, I want to talk tonight about the revived life begins with me, the revived life does not begin with what God does in you, it has to begin with what God does in me, and the same is true for you.

The revived life does not begin with what God needs to do in somebody else, it begins with what God needs to do in us individually. We're beginning a new series tonight on We Press On, in Jesus' name we press on.

How do we move in a revived atmosphere? How do we live and respond in a revived atmosphere to maintain not the emotions of the moment, but the spirit of the moment? How do we continue in our walk with God?

How do we continue to move forward with the Lord in faith and in obedience and in responding to Him and being sensitive to Him so that we don't slip back to where we were? If you had asked most of us, you know, do you think Sherwood needs to go through a season of revival, a lot of people said, man, this is a great church, I mean, there are great things happening, great Sunday school classes, great fellowship, great music, and it's a great place to be, you know, I don't know, you know, what's the big deal?

But now after we've gone through a season of it, you know what the big deal is, because we can never judge ourselves by how good we think we're doing. We have to judge ourselves by the Word of God and how the Word of God says we're doing.

I was telling somebody this morning, we left here Sunday afternoon and went to Bellevue Baptist Church and drove straight through to Memphis and I was in a meeting for three days with about 57 pastors with Adrian Rogers and just a wonderful time.

It was a reminder for me, I mean, there were moments in that meeting when God just showed me things that I still need to work on and things I still need to do and I took John and Jim with me and they had never seen Bellevue before and I had seen it a number of times and so I said, you're not ready for this, you're not ready, you're just not ready to walk on these grounds and to see this place and so I told somebody this morning, I said, you know, I feel like our buildings look good and our facilities look good and I feel like we're doing good and I said, then I go to Bellevue and I feel like a peanut hole.

I mean, I just, you know, I think, wow, because there's such an expectation of excellence in that place. I mean, from the people that work on the grounds to the pastor to everybody in between to everybody that greets you, there's such an expectation and a sense of excellence for the glory of God that it just permeates the place.

It almost comes out of the carpet and the walls in that place and that's one track. The other track is I realized when I was on my sabbatical that Sherwood was never going to get any better than it was if I didn't get better.

That I had in fact gone as far as I could go and done as much as I could do. That unless I took some significant strides in improving my walk and my life with God that the church wasn't going to get any better because the church will never rise above the level of leadership.

It just won't. That's just a basic principle of church life and so I had to do some things and I had to get right with some things and I had to look in the spiritual mirror and see things that maybe I didn't want to see but that God wanted me to see in my own life.

I came back from that and I even struggled with sharing it with anybody or telling anybody about it. Then in December I just said, you know, we got to put the brakes on. We got to stop some things and just quit doing things because we're doing them.

We cleared the calendar of about 25 of the stuff that was on it because I realized we were busy but we weren't busy doing the right things. We were active. I mean, you know, we were about as busy as a one-armed paper hanger in a windstorm but, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean we were doing the right things with our time and our energy.

And so we had to pull back some and wait and see. And beginning in January somebody sent me an email and said, you know, to what do you attribute, refresh, and I sent him an answer back but I want to tell you something folks.

In a real sense, refresh started with me on a sabbatical. That's where it started with me. And then it began to start among our staff around January with faith and we began to believe God and trust God and look at things and when we started getting focused on some things that we needed to be focused on, God began to do some things in us and with us.

And so I say all that as introduction to say the revived life doesn't start with the people who aren't here. It starts with me. It starts with you. Each of us individually going before God and seeing what it is that God wants to say and do in our lives and in our hearts.

D .M. Patton said, if every true pastor, evangelist, and missionary throughout the world would simultaneously turn unto God in utter self-humbling, in intercession, in seeking the face of God and in repentance, such an upheaval of holy prayer would shake the whole world.

God wants to get us in His presence. He wants to get us praying. He wants to get us before Him because when we get before Him, He puts on our hearts what's on His heart. He makes us burdened about the things that He is burdened about and Psalm 138 is a cry of revival and David is crying out and longing for God to move in a mighty way.

Psalm 138: Thanksgiving, Prayer, and Revival

Now, let's pick it up in verse 1 and if you'll notice in this Psalm, there are three I wills at the beginning and then at the end, there are three you will which is referring to God. I will give thanks with all my heart.

I will sing praises to you before the gods. I will bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth for you have magnified your word according to all your name.

On the day I called, you answered me. You made me bold with strength in my soul. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies and your right hand will save me.

The Lord will accomplish what concerns me. Your loving kindness, oh Lord, is everlasting. Do not forsake the works of your hands. Now, we're going to concentrate primarily on verses 3 and 7, but I want you to go back and look at verse 1.

I will give thanks with all my heart. I will sing praises to you before the gods. I will bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name. He says, I'm going to give thanks and I'm going to give praises.

Now I'm going to give you the first five minutes of staff meeting this week, okay? So now you can also, you've been to a staff meeting. I'm going to give you the first five minutes of staff meeting this week.

And I learned this this week from Adrian Rogers and I've been practicing it and you know what? It really does work. It's real simple. It's not original with me. It's original with him and he gets credit for sharing it.

I want you to write down four letters, P-A-C-E, P-A-C-E, pace. How do you pace yourself in a time when God wants to do something in your life? Four letters spells a word, it's an acrostic and it gives us four words.

Word number one is praise. When you get up in the morning, the first thing you do is you praise God for the fact that He loves you. Adrian says, even before I get to the restroom, I'm praising God for the fact that He loves me.

And so he said, what I do is I get up out of bed and I lift my hands to the Lord and say, Lord, I praise you that you love me. Okay? That's step one. Step two is accept. And then he says, what I do is I turn my hands like this, like I'm receiving a gift.

And he said, I accept your love for me. I accept the fact that you love me, that you died for me. I receive everything that you've got for me in Christ. So you praise and then you accept. C is control.

And there he just puts his hands up like surrender, you know. I yield to your control of my life today. I yield to your control of my life today. And then E is expectation. E is expectation. Lord, I expect today to be a great day.

And I am looking forward to what you're going to do in me, around me, and through me today as I yield control to you. So, now you think about you getting up every morning and starting that way. Lord, I praise you for dying for me, for loving me.

Lord, I accept the fact that you have died for me and loved me. That's not a profession of faith, that's just an acknowledgment of what you've already done. I acknowledge, I yield control of my life to you today.

Lord, you're in control, I'm not. You're Lord of my life today. I acknowledge it at the beginning of the day that you're Lord. And I expect today to be a great day. Now, some of us get up and quite honestly, we expect, we're always expecting the worst.

You know, it's Monday. It's got to be a bad day. Because it's Monday. We just expect the worst. Rather than saying, Lord, I expect this to be a great day. You know, if you've got the right up look, you've got the right out look, right?

I mean, if you've got your eyes on the right thing and the right person, you've got the right out look about how life goes and how we react to life as a choice. The psalmist says, I will give thanks. Now, isn't it amazing that David, we know more about the troubles and the adversities and the problems in David's life than anybody in all the Bible.

And yet the one thing we think about when we think about David is praise. He praised God in the midst of trouble. Right in the middle of hard times, he would praise God. And so, that's just a little freebie.

That's part one. There's a pacing through everything. And I've added a couple of them. So, we're going to do that in staff meeting this week and talk about it in ministry and other things. But I want you to look now.

Everybody got that? So, here's what you do. All right, this is just a thought. You see somebody that's a church member this week and they look like they're wearing a chip on their shoulder and they look like they're mad at the world or they look like they've been drinking lemon juice.

And all you got to do is walk up and say, well, I guess you didn't pace yourself today, did you? You see, that's all you got to say. Well, I guess you didn't pace yourself. So, at school this week, you know, if something goes bad at school this week and you see somebody in there just got a raunchy attitude, you just say, hey, you know, I guess you didn't pace yourself today.

You see, because we make a choice how we start a day and how we live a day. Now, let's go to the first point of the message. All that was free and introduction and making sure the Methodists have beat us through supper.

Prayer as Confession of Desperation

First of all, there's a confession of desperation and failure in verse 7. It's an admission of failure in prayer. It says, though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. Luke 18 .1 says, at all times we ought to pray and not lose heart.

The word lose heart in Luke 18 .1 means to faint or to cave in or to break down. Why do we need times of revival? Why do we need times of refreshing? Why do we need times at the altar? Because we have a tendency to cave in and to break down.

The key to living the life that God has for us is not working harder. It is praying harder so we know what work He wants us to do. And we don't get busy doing the things He doesn't want us to do. Verse 3, on the day I called, you answered me.

Now, any time there is a work of God in a church, in a family, wherever, any time there is a work of God, it's because somebody has been praying. Somebody has been getting before God. Somebody has been seeking the Lord.

Any time you see God do a mighty work, it has begun and been birthed in prayer. I agree with Ron Dunn. I don't believe anybody has ever been saved that hasn't been prayed for. Because in prayer, we initiate things in the eternal realm that causes God to act in certain ways.

God honors the prayers of His people. Now, don't ask me to explain all that. I just know that when I pray for people, sometimes God does something. Right? Is that the way He works? I mean, sometimes, you know, you're just worried about somebody and then you started really getting before God and praying for them and all of a sudden, God started working.

Why? Because He hears the prayers of His children. When I prayed, on the day I called, you answered me. By the way, God answered your prayer the minute you prayed it. He may not have told you what the answer is yet, but He's already answered it.

It may be yes, it may be no, it may be maybe, it may be you've got to be kidding. But He's already answered your prayer. On the day I called, you answered me. Revival and the work of God is not an alka-salter that you drop in water and get a fizz.

It is a long obedience in the right direction. It is moving with God. You remember in Acts chapter 12 when they were praying for Simon Peter and they prayed fervently, they prayed incessantly, they continued to go after God and to lay hold of God that Peter would be delivered.

It was intense intercession. This is the kind of praying that when God answers, it even amazes those who are praying. These lists that are here at the altar don't just need to be lists that sit here. They need to be lists that one name at a time, one page at a time are taken from prayer requests to praise.

That's why there need to be people here at the altars as we begin services because there are names here. We don't need to get quiet before God about 2011 names that have been given to us of people with needs.

There has to be an admission and a confession. Prayer is our weapon. James Stewart said, true prayer is an aggressive, unseen, closet ministry in cooperation with the Holy Spirit for the purpose of dislodging the powers of darkness from the strategic position which they occupy in the church and in the world.

In prayer, we dislodge the powers of darkness. Do we all understand we're in a spiritual warfare? The devil has everybody on these pieces of paper either blinded or deceived to their spiritual condition.

And we are fighting a battle not against flesh but against the enemy who tries to blind the eyes and lie and deceive to these people and somebody's got to wrestle in the realm of prayer so that they can be set free to see where they really are and what they need to see.

Only a movement of God can get us to that kind of prayer because, you see, norm is not where we were. Norm is where we're headed. Normal is where we're headed. For that to become acceptable, not that occasionally the baptismal waters are stirred, not that occasionally there are people at the altar, but every time we meet and every time we gather, there's a sense of expectation that God is doing something in our midst and we want Him to continue to do something in our midst.

Let me ask you, have you ever met anybody that prayed too much? I've met people that talk too much, but I've never met anybody that prayed too much. I've never met anybody in over 30 years of ministry, I've never met anybody that said, you know what, you just need to stop praying.

You're just praying too much. Never, ever. I found a great little statement in one of my illustration books. It says, we need prayer that is God-moving, hell-defeating, devil-routing, sin-saving, God-glorifying, believer-sanctifying, Christ-exalting, servant-producing, money-finding, and love-binding.

That's good, isn't it? I can't repeat it, but that's good. That's biblical praying. Daniel prayed and the kingdom of Babylon was shaken. Nehemiah prayed and the money and the materials and the men came in to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Paul prayed for the church that way. Colossians says that Paul says, I struggle for you, I wrestle for you, I agonize for you. Paul wrestled in prayer. He was chained in a prison, but Paul was wrestling in prayer for the soul and the heart and the life of the church.

That kind of praying begins with God. He puts that kind of burden in us and we can't get over it. I don't want to get over the burdens that God's put in my life. I want them to stay burdens in my life.

Biblical Examples of Persistent Intercession

Psalm 44 and verse 5, though you will push back our adversaries, through your name we will trample down those who rise up against us. Matthew 16, 19, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. James 5, 17, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Then he prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit. Now here's a man that God puts in the Bible and says, listen, you get before me in prayer and I can control the environment.

Now the devil is the prince of the air. That's why hurricanes and tornadoes and, you know, damage comes and thunderstorms and lightning, all that kind of, because this is a fallen world. But I want to tell you something, a people who are set to praying, God can intervene at times when we can't explain it.

Ephesians 6, 12, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers in heavenly places. And then he says in Ephesians 6, 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

You want to know why we put the names on the back of the chairs and ask people to come in here and pray for them? Because that's what the Bible says we're supposed to do. We're to be making petitions for all the saints that they persevere.

Why? Because when a Christian stumbles and blows it, it's just not that Christian and their family that gets affected by it. It's their church, and it's the Christian community as a whole. Because then lost people look around and say, I see, I, Christianity, I knew it wasn't the real thing.

I mean, they'll point fingers. And so that's why we are to pray and intercede. I love this story about William Burns, who was a man of prayer, and one morning he got up and he was burdened after an all-night prayer meeting, and he said, God, give me Scotland today.

And within a matter of months, revival had broken out in Scotland. Now, here's a story just to let you know, men, why we call you to the altar and why we're asking you to raise the level of our prayer ministry.

In Newport, Wales, a group of men started praying for God to move. They began to pray that the Spirit of God would pour out His blessings. Now, listen, they prayed for 30 years. And in that group of prayer warriors that started, for 30 years, not one of them died.

Now, you imagine the odds of a group of people that get together for something and start praying, and in 30 years, not one of them died. Not one of these men died, and on the first night... Now, don't you think prayer doesn't work?

On the first night that they began to pray in Newport, Wales, they had a burden about a young man that they had heard about who was 19 years old and pastoring his first church. And they prayed that God would anoint and empower Charles Haddon Spurgeon to be a man of God and have unction and an anointing of God when he stood in the pulpit.

And from the day he began preaching until the day Spurgeon died, and even today, his sermons have life in them because a group of men prayed for the power of God to fall on Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He was uneducated by the world's standards, but he was a man available to God, and God's power fell on him.

And every time Spurgeon preached... Spurgeon never preached to an empty seat. Never. 10 ,000 people every week never preached to an empty seat. People would stand in lines. They would print his sermons out, and he would have stenographers.

I have a page of one of his manuscripts in my office that one of his stenographers wrote out, and Spurgeon always wrote in purple ink to make the corrections. And on Monday morning on the newsstands by the London papers, Spurgeon's sermons would be sold along with the newspapers.

Everywhere you'd sell a newspaper, you could buy Spurgeon's sermon. And you look at it and you read it, and you realize that God used this man in an incredible way. Every word he ever wrote is still in print, and he died in the 1890s.

Now, there are books written five years ago that are not in print, but here's a man who had an unction of God, and I go back and when I look at the life of Charles Spurgeon, I realize that one of the reasons he was used of God is not just because he had a great mind, not just because he was a great theologian, but because there were men who gathered and prayed for 30 years, and they started with him, for unctioning him.

By the way, in the time that Spurgeon preached was the time when it was the greatest season of preachers in the history of England. England now, you can't find hardly anybody that'll preach the Gospel.

But it was a season when there was Joseph Parker, and Alexander McLaren, and Charles Spurgeon, that you could go to any church and hear one of the great men of God, and almost all of these men, their books are still in print.

Why? I go back to a group of men who prayed for 30 years for unction and for power to fall on the pulpits, and that God would use these men, and churches were filled, and thousands were saved because of prayer.

Not because they had great systems. Not because they were cute or witty. There's nothing impressive about Spurgeon. He was a huge man. You know, he was so ugly you'd want to slap his mother. I mean, there's nothing about Spurgeon that was impressive except when he stood up, the power of God was on him.

Persevering in Faith Until Revival Comes

There is a confession here. There is a profession that cannot be denied. You will revive me, verse 7. You will revive me. Galatians 6 and 9 says, Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

You see, we can lose a harvest. We can lose a blessing if we live with a fear of man, or if we live with doubt that God really wants to do something in our lives. I mean, it's maybe for somebody else, but not for me.

Maybe for him, but not for me. You see, one of the reasons that I believe this so much is because I know what God's done with me. Because I wasn't the guy that was going to get chosen. You know, I just wasn't.

And I know that I waited, and the Lord heard, and He listened to my cries, and He heard my heart. Even as a teenager, He heard my heart, and He saw what I wanted to do, and the longing of my heart. And it was all about getting before God in prayer, and saying, God, I don't want to just be a typical person.

I don't want to be average. If you're average, you're as close to the top as you are to the bottom. I don't want to be average. I want to be used of you in a supernatural way. I want my life to count.

I want it to have meaning and purpose. I want to make a difference with the life that you've given me. And He says, you revive me. There's a great song from the 1860s in Great Britain. I don't think we even have the tune anymore, but it was called, Even Me, and I want you to listen to the words.

Lord, I hear of showers of blessings. Thou art scattering, full and free. Showers the thirsty soul refreshing. Let some drops now fall on me, even me. How I long in sin been sleeping. Long been slighting, grieving thee.

Has the world my heart been keeping? O forgive and rescue me, even me. Love of God so pure and changeless. Love of Christ so rich and free. Grace of God so strong and boundless. Magnify it all in me, even me.

Revival Strengthens Believers for Spiritual Battle

Pass me not, Almighty Spirit. Draw this lifeless heart to thee. Impute to me the Savior's merits. Blessing others, O bless me, even me. Thirdly, there's a power that cannot be invalidated. Verse 7, you will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand will save me.

Some folks think that the revived life means we don't have any more trouble, or we don't have any more opposition, when in fact it intensifies. Salvation and sanctification are not without battles. There are blessings abundant, but walking in victory implies that you're in a battle.

Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 3 says, For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.

Now remember I said in Luke 18, 1 that the word lose heart means to faint or to cave in. Now there's this word lose heart, but it's a different word. This word means to relax. Don't lose heart, so that you will not grow weary and relax, or a good paraphrase is, or to let go of the rope.

Don't let go of the rope. Now here's what he's saying, there's a power that cannot be invalidated. First of all, trouble can't stop it. You stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand will save me.

Remember what Jesus said, John 16, 33? In this world you could possibly one day, but not for too long, have tribulation. Is that what he said? He said in this world you will have tribulation. Listen, the Christian that's not being bothered by the devil is not bothering the devil.

If you're going down the same road with him, he's not going to bother you. But the minute you begin to storm the gates of hell, the minute you begin to stand up in who you are in Christ, and the minute you begin to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, I tell you, the devil is not going to be happy, and he's not going to sit quietly.

You will have tribulation. You can be revived out of trouble. God can deliver you out of trouble, and he's done that. But you can also be revived in the midst of trouble. You can be right in the middle of trouble, and God revive your heart.

It doesn't matter whether you're in the valley or you're on the mountain, God can revive your heart. He can work in your heart. Trouble can't stop it. Opposition can't stop it. Matthew 5, 11 says, Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad. Well, that's not the way we respond when people are saying things about us. Rejoice and be glad. I don't want to rejoice and be glad. I want to fight back. Lord, just give me one minute, just slap them around, and then I'll ask you to forgive me.

Just one minute, I'd just like to take them out one time. Just let me do that. He says you rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in heaven. Why? Because you're rejoicing that you're being persecuted.

Blessed are you when men do these things to you, when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you. Listen, if you're doing anything for God, somebody's going to tell a lie about you.

Just count on it. Just count on it. You know, there was a day when the hair on the back of my neck would stand up if anybody wrote anything about me in the paper. I just laugh now. I mean, I read the squat box, you know, over that weekend.

I said, well, if that's all you've got time to do is to write the squat box, bless God, I'm glad you've got time to do it. But I've got a world to reach. We've got a community to change. I just laugh.

Somebody says, did you read that? I just laugh. You know why? They haven't put me on a cross yet, and so until they do that, if it's just the squat box, I hadn't had to die on a cross. I hadn't been beaten beyond recognition.

You know, so for me to whine about two sentences in a newspaper, who cares? I mean, really, who cares? It's no big deal. Now, my flesh wants to respond. Trust me. My flesh would really like to respond.

I'd like to share my wisdom with a few folks. You know, I don't know who they are. But why waste the time? Listen, folks, here's something that you and I need to understand and take to the bank. If you're living for Jesus, no matter what you say, your enemies are not going to believe you, and your friends don't need the explanation.

Now, you need to write that down somewhere. If you're living for Jesus, it doesn't matter what you say, it doesn't matter how much you defend yourself, it doesn't matter what you do, how you respond, your enemies are not going to believe you, and your friends don't need it.

So just do what you're supposed to do. Another little thought here. The truth doesn't need defending. Ultimately, the truth comes out. There have been many times in my life and in my ministry when I've wanted to stand up and defend myself.

When I've wanted to set the record straight or tell the other side. But I had to learn that the unity of the church is a lot more important than me being proven to be right. And over time, the truth will come out.

And if it does not come out in this lifetime, it will come out at the throne of glory. And then I'll know and you'll know and everybody else will know what the truth is. But until then, don't get so uptight.

It should not surprise us when people insult us and persecute us and falsely say all kinds of evil against us. But let's make sure that phrase in there because of me not because you acted dumb not because you were in your flesh but he says, blessed are you if they do these kind of things because of me, because they see Jesus in you then if they do that, then you're blessed.

If they do it because you're dumb, then admit you're dumb. Go ahead and confess it. You'll feel a lot better and it'll make life easier for everybody. So there's a power here that gives us the ability to bless and to rejoice and to be glad.

I mean, I think about Paul and I think about David and their great days were their days when they were in trouble. David writing those Psalms when he's being pursued by Saul he's done nothing to offend Saul.

Not one thing. And yet he blesses the Lord. David when his son rebels against him wishes he could die instead of his son. He's done nothing to cause his son to rebel and to do what he's done. But he blesses the Lord and he comes before the presence of God.

God Fights for His People

Now look at what he says in verse 7. You will stretch forth your hand. You see, what God's trying to get us to do is to get us in a position where we quit leaning on our gimmicks and leaning on our flesh and leaning on our own understanding and realize that it is God stretching forth His hand that sustains us.

It's not me sustaining myself. It's not me propping myself up. It is God who sustains us. It is God who delivers us. It is God who empowers us. John Bunyan said, Search and see, look in the book and read.

Was there any who did trust in Him that was put to shame? I want you to take a little walk with me through Scripture very quickly. Exodus chapter 14. You see, the life of pressing on and the life of revival is a life that has as its verse we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Not, I can't handle this. No, you can't. That's exactly right. And God's trying to get you in a position where you call out to Him so He can deliver you in the day of trouble. Exodus chapter 14 in verse 13 Moses said to the people, Do not fear.

Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today you will never see them again. The Lord will fight for you while you write letters and fill out petitions and tell everybody you know and get a phone call going to everybody you know and tell everybody at the beauty parlor and tell everybody at school and whine and complain.