A Prayer for Personal Revival — Mack Tomlinson

Psalm 80 and the Prayer for Restoration

We want to pray now and pay attention to a subject that is always an issue among Christians, in my opinion. So let's turn to Psalm 80. Psalm 80. Give ye a prayer for regeneration or conversion. It's the idea of deliverance, present help.

God is a refuge for us, a very present cause to save us. ...and giving them to you... ...branches, it sent out its branches to the sea and it shoots. It's a picture of... When God's judgment would come and decline would set in, and things would become a desolation, the wild animals would inhabit places that used to be inhabited by people.

A sign of judgment and decline and decay. Alright. Verse 14. Turn again, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven and see. Have regard for this vine, the stalk that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.

They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down. May they perish at the rebuke of thy face. But let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself.

Then we shall not turn back from you. Give us life and we will call upon your name. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved. Father, as we read this psalm, we acknowledge that the Spirit of God authored it perfectly through the psalmist.

And it has been given to us for our admonition, our instruction, our correction, our edification. So, speak to us from it this morning we ask. We ask you, blessed Holy Spirit, to fill us and anoint us to speak and to receive your Word.

Grab our focus, our attention, and Lord, speak to each one of us as if we were the only one in the audience. We bless your name. In the name of our Savior, Amen. There's a 19th century hymn. Every stanza starts with these words.

The Christian’s Need for God’s Presence

I need thee every hour. Is that your experience? That you are mindful of that continually? The reality is, we need God's quickening presence and His help and the working of His power much more than we even consciously realize.

We feel it when we're in great need, discouragement, struggle, danger, pressure, sorrow. We feel it much more than I need God's grace. But when things are well, we don't feel it as much. But the Bible says we are kept by the power of God.

We're kept by the power of God. It's a wonderful reality to know and believe that as a Christian, your life is being carried, preserved, maintained, empowered, helped, encouraged, strengthened, mind renewed continually by the very power of the Lord Jesus Christ through the indwelling and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

I need thee every hour. Now let's just be honest. All believers become needy. It doesn't matter who it is. It doesn't matter how long they've been a believer. There's times of spiritual highs. There's seasons of making great progress and your sanctification is expedited.

And you're carried along and greatly encouraged. Your Bible reading is encouraging and consistent. You sense God's presence. There are such seasons. There are such times of great encouragement. There are times of steadiness.

There's times of steadiness, aren't there? Just steady as she goes. But there are times when we decline. You come off an encouragement or maybe after a conference you've greatly enjoyed, two weeks later, you're struggling.

Things aren't as real. You don't have hunger for the Bible like you did. You don't feel anything and you struggle with temptation. All kinds of things can be reeled in. Doubts. You wake up with anxiety.

You battle wrong thoughts. And the enemy comes in to nitpick you. He doesn't always come in like a flood as Isaiah says. Sometimes he comes to nitpick you. What about this? What about them? And you can go into a season of just struggling spiritually.

You're needy. Every Christian has times of need. And it's times like those that a number of things need to happen. Number one, we need to choose to double down on the church meetings, the prayer meetings, fellowship, and being strengthened by brothers.

Two are better than one. A three-fold cord is not easily broken. Jonathan came and strengthened David's hands in God. We need one another. So you double down on the means that God's already given you.

You make yourself read the Bible when you don't feel like it. When you don't feel inspired. When you didn't get much out of it the day before. Now, you know what I'm saying. You double down and you remain diligent.

Because your diligence doesn't depend on your inspiration. Your diligence does not depend on your emotions. Your diligence doesn't have to be dominated by how discouraged you feel. Play the man. Play the man.

Play the woman. Be mature. Be strong. Still do what you need to do. Double down on the means of grace. But then, there's other things that are important. Sometimes the Christian can feel so needy or dry, you fill in the blank.

Psalm 80 as Urgent Prayer for Spiritual Renewal

You kind of don't even know how to pray anymore. You don't know what to pray. Discouragement fills the room of your mind. And you don't feel like praying. And you sure don't have a long, eloquent one.

A prayer for revival, like we find in Psalm 80, is very pertinent to spiritual progress when you struggle. When you come into a time and season where things are distraught, you don't feel spiritual, and it's hard plowing just to walk with God.

This psalm is a psalm of restoration, renewal, and health. H-E-A-L-T-H. Spiritual health. Because we're not always spiritually healthy, but we always need to seek the means that will bring us back into spiritual health.

We do it in the physical realm. You get a cold, you start taking something, or you should. This starts setting in, you double down on a bunch of vitamin C or whatever you do to prevent or deal with physically what's wrong with you.

We have to learn to be physicians to our own soul. We have to know ourselves. We need to know, I have this propensity to slackness. I have this propensity to isolating myself when I'm discouraged. I don't want to be around anybody.

Know yourself spiritually. You've got to recognize what's true about you. And then you've got to bring to bear on your spiritual renewing need what will get you renewed. And I promise you, it's not by just listening to a sermon a day on the Internet.

A lot more to it than that. That's an easy out, that's an easy go-to when ultimately that won't bring you spiritual renewal. A psalm of restoration, renewal, and spiritual health. This psalm in a way, well, not just in a way, in the midst of it, Israel shows, but for us it presupposes some things.

I at times am needy. I at times decline spiritually. At times I am lacking spiritual health. At times I struggle. This psalm presupposes those things. Because you wouldn't cry out, turn me again, or restore me, or revive me, unless you were in a state that needed that.

So, let's walk through this psalm and then we'll see some New Testament thoughts related to it, and see that we can have some application to our hearts. The beginning of the psalm, Give ye your own shepherd of Israel.

The psalmist, it's not by accident, that he addresses God here as the shepherd of Israel. Because when you're real needy, guess what you need? You don't need a lawgiver, you need a shepherd. And the psalmist calls us to view the Lord God Almighty here in the context of praying for renewal as our shepherd.

O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. The greatest need in the beginning of praying for personal renewal is your view of God. You're coming to Him as the one who is your shepherd and the one who's leading you.

Because you know, in that tender care, He wants to restore you. Psalm 23. He leads me beside what? He leads me into green pastures. The shepherd's psalm. Same thing here. It's a psalm confessing need.

It's a psalm for praying for renewal. And so, the shepherd of Israel is the one that's in our focus. I don't know about you, but when I have longings in my heart for immediate help from the Lord, I don't think about Him as the God who's thundering on Sinai.

He is that, right? But I don't go there for the encouragement. Moses said, I exceedingly feared and quaked. Well, if Moses would, when you need encouragement, you don't think about the God who's shaking Mount Sinai.

You need to think about your shepherd. He's both. But in the moment, you need to be shepherded back into spiritual health. So that's why we're invited here to come to our shepherd. The good shepherd of Psalm 23.

The good shepherd of John's Gospel. So give ear, O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. Who is that? What's he like? Well, he's a sovereign God. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, you're the shepherd who sovereignly reigns.

So the very first thing in praying for renewal is to lift your eyes to the heavens in prayer and pause a moment and realize, remind yourself, who it is you're praying to. Who it is in whose presence you are.

He is your shepherd who is the sovereign God of the universe. The psalmist's first petition is give ear. And the second is at the end of verse 1, two words, shine forth. Does anyone's translation translate that differently?

Than shine forth? What's being prayed for in those words? Shine forth. We know God dwells in unapproachable light. What is He praying for for the shepherd to shine forth? Sorry? Okay. Tom's getting at it.

What happens, what has to happen for God to enlighten your darkness? Or lift you out of the pit of unbelief? The presence of God. The presence. Now God's always with us, isn't He? But the psalmist is asking God to do something that didn't happen right then.

Shine forth. Lord, I need You right now. Come. Come to me. Draw near. Help me now. Give me from Your presence what I need. Shine forth onto my life and my situation. Because you know and I know as a Christian, at dark times, hard times, when God shines forth and He speaks a word, or He lifts your burden, or suddenly you're encouraged and the situation's changed, you know it was the presence of God.

It wasn't a Bible verse you remembered. It wasn't your brilliant theological understanding where you reasoned back to believing and doing better. No. God shined forth in your moment. When we are praying for personal spiritual renewal, we're asking God to shine forth in our lives, in our situation, in our heart, in our mind.

You know, when the presence of God draws near and suddenly He shines forth, immediately your mind is renewed. It is. Light comes. Clarity comes. And you're seeing things clearly. O Shepherd of Israel, shine forth.

He's praying for the presence of God. Now let's just apply that quickly. When you feel the most needy spiritually and you know you're struggling, you know you're declining or you're just needy. You don't have to go any further than verse 1.

Initially as far as how you pray. Pray in light of who He is. Shepherd. Sovereign God. He cares to give help. And He's sovereignly able because He's enthroned. What are you asking for initially? Lord, come to me again.

Meet with me. Shine forth on my life. Now, you don't have to know all that the Word means. You don't have to know what it means in the Hebrew. You know what it means in the English. You don't have to know all the implications of it.

I get tired about myself. You can apply this. Of us thinking we have to pray perfectly or pray eloquently or have all the words just right or it's not a good prayer. Lord, whatever your need you feel, I'm supposed to be teaching and I'm preaching.

Whatever need that you feel, sincerely in your neediness, if you say to your Shepherd, shine forth. He knows how to answer that for you. Right? He knows how to apply it. He knows where His presence is needed in your life.

A moment of temptation. A moral weakness. Anger, bitterness, struggle, doubt, unbelief. Spiritual coldness. The prayer, Lord, shine forth. You're asking for God's presence. You know He's with you, but you're asking for the real presence to be given.

Did you know many evangelicals, many in the professing evangelical world don't even believe in praying that way? In fact, theological professors will teach you you never need to ask for God's presence.

He's always with you. Well, the psalmist seems to disagree. And I disagree. I disagree with men about this dogmatically that are much smarter than I. But I'm right on this one. Shine forth. Well, let's move on.

Verse 3, 2, he says, so another way to say that he's asking for the presence of God, he's asking for the visitation of the Holy Spirit. He's asking for the Spirit to draw near. If the work of the Holy Spirit is always uniform and never changing, never relational, why are we told don't quench Him, don't grieve Him, don't resist Him, be always being filled?

We do not have all of the Holy Spirit. And we don't have all of Him we need. We have in earnest a sealing and indwelling of the Spirit, but we don't have all the power of the Spirit. Jesus had the Spirit without measure.

We have Him in measure. And there are more measures that we can pray for. And that's what the psalmist is praying for. Shine forth the presence for the Holy Spirit to visit us again to meet our present need.

Verse 2, the end of it, stir up your mind. What a picture that is. Asking God, Josh, do you ever pray, Lord stir up your mind and do this? Do you pray that way? I don't pray that enough. Stir up your mind.

God, bring your power to bear on this situation please that isn't yet applied to it. I know a guy in another country. He texts me once a week. He's having family problems. He texts me once a week and we pray over the phone for God to stir up the situation to bring family restoration.

And the only place we're at now in praying is Lord act. We're asking you again to act. Do what man cannot do. Do what counselors can't do. Stir up your might and act. Verse 3, the nature of the desire for God's might to be given is restoration or being turned again.

Turn us again, O God, and we will be turned. God grants repentance, but we're to repent. God must give spiritual life and give restoration, but we are to be restored and renewed. Restore us. Let your face shine.

There's the word again. Verse 1, verse 3. Let your face shine that I may be delivered. Pause a moment. You're in situations that maybe they're prolonged and they're hard and you don't know how to pray anymore.

You don't know how to pray with confidence. And so, you kind of just settle into a rut of Lord, I don't know what to pray or Thy will be done. It is always right to pray when you're needy, Lord, deliver me.

Always. Whatever the application is. And then you leave it with God to deliver you how and when He wants to. But you never settle in. Don't settle for spiritual mediocrity. Don't settle for second best.

Don't settle for a stone when your Father will give you bread. Stir up your might. Let your face shine that we may be delivered. On down to verse 7. Same thing. So the first 7 verses are prayer of a needy one for restoration.

Now, next week I could take those 7 verses if I'm feeling dry. Discouraged. I just camp out on those. Pray them. Keep praying them from my heart and wait on the Lord. And what the old school guys used to say, pray through.

You know what I mean by that? If you're younger than 40, maybe you probably don't. Keep praying till you get some relief. Keep praying till some joy comes. Keep praying until the clouds split and there's sunshine in your soul.

Yesterday I was in East Texas and it rained the night before. Yesterday morning, dark clouds. And I don't know what time it was, but suddenly I saw the sun was coming out. The clouds were gone and it was a bright sunshine.

Spiritually, that needs to happen in our lives at times. We can never control the clouds of gloom or discouragement. You can't blow them away. You can't snap your finger or perform better to make spiritual dryness or discouragement.

Leave. But you can say to your shepherd, Lord, it's cloudy in my soul. Part the clouds. Send the sunshine. Shine forth. And you keep praying. You might have 30 minutes and you've got to work. You might come back in 30 minutes.

You keep praying until you have a breakthrough. Because this psalm encourages us. God told us here to pray for restoration, didn't He? He's the one who says, call unto Me and ask Me to make My presence shine forth.

From Corporate Decline to Personal Revival

So, moving on here. From verses 8 through 13, it's a picture of national or corporate decline, ravaging of Israel, God's judgment. You know how they were. Doing well? Decline. Revival, reformation? Decline.

They were like this all the way through. And so, here's a picture of the walls being broken down, the fruits that were meant for Israel being plucked, the animals engaging. So, you come down to verse 14 and you have a prayer for revival all over again.

Neediness 1 -7, praying for restoration, shine forth. And then, 8 -13, in the context of great need. The nation's in great need. And my soul, right now, is in great need. So, He turns again in prayer in verse 14 to engage God.

Engaging God Through His Promises

Engaging God. The old Puritans and others used the word, we should sue Him. That sound weird? Suing God? What did that mean, Michael? The way they were using it. Exactly. You take the promises of God and you go to the court of heaven, the throne of grace, and you use them.

You plead them. You claim them before Him. Lord, You said You'd do this. I'm here for You to give me the possession of this. And when someone rightfully sues for something, they're laying a legal, official claim on what's theirs.

You do that with the promises of God. And that's what the psalmist is doing here. It's a plea. Lord, turn again, O God of hosts. Now, when a nation turns against God, God will turn away from them, won't He?

And He gives the nation over to sin. So there's a turning of God away in judgment when God hides His face. But when you're personally needy, don't fall into the trap if you're discouraged or under depression to think, I wonder if God has abandoned me.

I wonder if He's turned on me. I wonder if He's punishing me. There's a right place to have self-examination because sin, unrepented of, can hinder the presence of God and will hinder staying spiritually healthy.

But when we have an honest heart with the Lord and we're wanting Him, we know from this psalm and the Word of God He is our shepherd. He's not turned against us. He may be hiding His face, but His love is toward us.

If God is for us, who can be against us? So we know that He is for us. And so the psalmist says in verse 14, Lord, engage Yourself. Turn again to me, O God of hosts. First of all, that phrase, turn again, is asking God to engage Himself to do something in your situation.

Do we need His attention? Do we not have His attention? We have His attention. Why would He say, turn again, O God? Because God wants His people asking Him to respond. He wants us to. Engagement. Verse 14.

Turn again. The next phrase, look down from heaven. That's what you might call observation. Lord, please look. Oftentimes, the prophets or others in Israel, when the enemies were coming, they would say, Lord, behold Your enemies.

Behold their forces. Lord, look at this situation. Now, we can learn to pray this way. Lord, please turn Your attention fully again to this situation. Because when you do that, what you're doing is you're becoming really serious about wanting God's help.

You know, if I said to Nathan, we're having a casual visit, and I said, Nathan, listen to me about this. This is so cool. I'm capturing his attention, right? And he's going to take that seriously. He's more serious about listening to what I'm going to say than if I don't do that.

So when we say to the Lord, Lord, look down here. Can I have Your attention? Lord, hear me. You're invoking God's what He wants you to do because you're more engaged. You're more serious about wanting help.

We often don't get the help we could get and the time we could have it because we're not serious enough about getting it. Spiritual mediocrity or struggles are not conquered by spiritual lack of seriousness about wanting victory over them.

All through the Bible, desperate people got help. So, turn again. Look down. And then he says, have regard for this vine. Have regard. The psalmist is calling for evaluation. Lord, search me and know me.

Lord, have regard to my soul. You see things I may not be aware of. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Fix what ails me, though I don't know it ails me. Search me. Lord, I want a spiritual, physical exam.

You're the physician. You're my shepherd. So examine me and show me what I need to see. What I see not, show me. Have regard for this vine. Verse 17. So, verse 14, you've got engagement. Turn again. Observation.

Look down. Evaluation. Have regard. And in verse 17, you've got petition. Let your hand. And Acts 4. I think it was Acts 4 when persecution comes. Stretch forth your hand to heal. Signs and wonders may be done in the name of your holy child, Jesus.

Petitioning God for Spiritual Life and Strength

Petition. When you're ever spiritually needy, what do you want from God? You ought to know. You ought to be able to evaluate right then, what do I need from the Lord? You evaluate when you tell Him to evaluate your soul.

And then, start asking for those things. You need joy? Pray for joy. You need peace? You need strengthening in your heart? You need the clouds to part? Petition God. If you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things?

The Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Petition. Petition. Be asking. Let your hand be on the man of your right hand. Verse 18. Then, we shall not turn back from you. Give us life. Verse 18. That's what we're praying for.

Spiritual life. Renewed spiritual life. Give me quickening. Fill me afresh. Pour your Holy Spirit out on me. I need more. God says, open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. And the psalmist says, I will be anointed with fresh oil.

Petition God to give you what your soul needs. But the reality is, many of us may be uncomfortable being this free, this creative, this... give me another word. Bold? How about another one? Uninhibited.

Exactly right. Some of us are too inhibited in how we pray. Get free to ask your shepherd for what you need. Petition. Give us life. And we'll call on your name. Verse 19. Or 18. Is supplication. Then we will not turn back from you.

Give us life. We'll call on your name. Supplication before the Lord. Verse 19. Restoration and visitation. Restore us, O Lord. How do you need to pray to have fresh restoration? Are you where you need to be spiritually?

What needs revival? What needs strengthening? What needs for God's face to shine upon it? What needs restoration and visitation? Pray for that in the midst of your need. Now, let's turn quickly to the New Testament.

Urgent-Care Praying and Long-Term Spiritual Maintenance

Two places. Ephesians 1 and then we'll go to Colossians 1. There's two different ways of praying for yourself. One is Psalm 80 is what you might call urgent care praying. ER praying. You've got to run to the ER because there's immediate help.

There's ER praying, urgent care praying. Simple prayers. Lord, I need you. Help me, O God. Restore me. Search me, O God. Meet with me. Come to me. How would you pray when you're in the ER and you need to pray urgent care prayers?

Do you? Or do you just say, well, I just need to keep reading my Bible and I know the truth. No. For spiritual renewal at times, we often need some urgent care praying. Psalm 80 shows us that. But what about the more long-term type of praying?

For spiritual health and renewal, when you are on a steady course, you're encouraged, you keep praying. You may not feel the need for the ER prayers. They're good to pray anyway. Lord, help me today in this situation.

But Ephesians 1. We're going to read these two passages and then we'll pause for any questions. Ephesians 1. I want us to examine briefly Paul's prayer here for the Ephesians and then the Colossians in chapter 1.

Paul’s Prayer for Wisdom, Revelation, and Power

Ephesians 1 verse 16. Think of what Paul is praying for the Ephesians. These prayers you can pray for the believers you love. But these prayers are for you to pray for yourself as well. I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

Now that's just a striking phrase. Remembering you in my prayers. He's praying for the Ephesians. He's not with them. But they're in his mind. They're in his heart. In the moment, he's remembering. This morning, I remembered the team in Nepal.

Tim Conway and the team. I remembered Allen Pop in Portland, Maine. Remembering you in my prayers. Remembering them before God. We need to learn to remember ourselves and our need before the Lord in prayer.

Remembering you in my prayers. What? What's the prayer? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Shepherd, that He would do what? Well, that He would shine forth in some of these ways. That He may give you a spirit of wisdom.

Are you a candidate for more of that? Spiritual pride causes some people to feel like they've got it together and they don't feel a conscious need for God to give them a spirit of wisdom continually. And so you pray for a spirit of wisdom for yourself.

And a revelation in the knowledge of Christ. A revelation, the working of the Spirit to make Christ more real and precious to you. To know Him in His person, in His work, in His dealings by the Holy Spirit.

That God may give you a spirit of wisdom and a revelation in the knowledge of Christ. Verse 18. Having the eyes of your heart enlightened. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see You.

When the clouds are there and the Holy Spirit parts and the sun shines through and there's relief and freshness, the eyes of your heart are enlightened to see things clearly. That you may know what is the hope to which He's called you, that is assurance of your purpose in the midst of your walk, and what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.

Verse 19. This gets into more experiential language. He's praying about the power of God here. What do you and I know, personally, experientially, about the power of the Holy Spirit? Is this a foreign thing to you?

Or do you know the presence of the Holy Spirit in an abiding way, in a cultivated way of real communion with Him where you sense His presence, you welcome Him, you pray to Him, and you cultivate fellowship with the Holy Spirit?

What is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His great mind? The power of the Holy Spirit is always at work in the life of the believer. But experientially, there can be a lot more.

You invite the Holy Spirit on your morning Bible reading and you say, Be my Teacher, Spirit of God, my Teacher be, showing the things of Christ to me. You ask Him, you invoke Him, you sue Him to come and make His Word real.

You need the Holy Spirit's presence in reading, in prayer, in witness. Don't neglect Him. I wish Paul had used that phrase. Don't neglect Him. He taught that, didn't he? Well, let me hurry on. Praying Paul's prayers for spiritual maintenance as well as the urgent care prayers of Psalm 80.

Praying Colossians 1 for a Worthy Walk

How many prayers in the Psalms are urgent care? Praying. A bunch of them. Colossians 1, 9 -11. And so from the day we heard we have not ceased to pray for you asking, asking what? What should you ask for yourself?

That you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Same idea. The knowledge of His will in spiritual wisdom and understanding. So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

Sometimes it's wonderful just to pray, Lord, in every way, in every way, shape me, mold me, conform me where I will be walking in a manner worthy of You. That pleases You in all ways. To saturate our whole life with, Lord, make me have a worthy walk.

At every level. And He can. It's what we're to pray for. Fully pleasing to Him. Verse 10. Fully pleasing to Him. Bearing fruit. And increasing in the knowledge of God. What a prayer! I don't pray those two prayers of Paul every week.

I just don't. I pray those kind of things, but I should. So, we will always have times that we're needy. Learn to pray when you're in urgent care, go to your chief shepherd. He's sovereignly willing to shine forth.

And ask Him. Petition. And keep praying through till you get help. And then, when you're doing well spiritually, always pray for spiritual well-being. Lord, I want my life to be pleasing to You. Keith Green sang it and he prayed it.

Make my life a prayer to You. I want to do what You want me to.