Why Revival Tarries - Part 1 — Henry Blackaby

The Heart of God and Why Revival Tarries

This scripture gives us an incredible insight into the heart of God. And you see it expressed in the life of the Lord Jesus. And I am sensing in the time I have with you to share with you why I believe revival tarries.

And this morning I want to introduce to you the heart of our Lord and therefore the heart of the Father who sent him. And I want you to listen as the Spirit of God takes the word of God and lets you hear an awful lot more than I am saying.

He will take the word and impact your heart with his word. To that end, let us take a moment to pray and ask that we would have ears to hear as he has granted them to us. Father, it is astounding to us as sinners that you have indicated through your Son that it has been given to us to know the mysteries of your kingdom.

You have given us eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to understand. Forgive us when we have not seen or fail to hear or let our hearts grow hard so that we have missed what you were doing. Thank you for your presence to enable us to see ourselves as you see us, but more than that to see you as you intended for us to see you.

So may the spiritual eyes which you have given us and the ears which you have granted us be fully alert and responsive to embrace and to incorporate into our own lives that which you would say to us. And we ask it in your name.

Amen. I am going to give you several scriptures from the life of the Lord Jesus. The first of these is John 1 .11. He came to his own. If that's all you heard and the Holy Spirit helped you, it would rearrange your life.

He didn't come to the lost. He came to his own. And you'll see that even more clearly. And of his own, as many as received him, to them gave he the right or the authority to become children of God, to those who believe in his name who were born of God.

Jesus' Prayer for His Disciples in John 17

Now hear carefully the prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17. It is fascinating. At the beginning of his coming, he said he came to his own. And at the end of his life, he said, Father, I have finished the work you gave me to do.

And the rest of that 17th of John is a description of how Jesus related to God's people. And he said, Father, these were yours and you gave them to me. You told me what to tell them and I have told them and they have believed.

That was God's strategy to touch a world. God's strategy is his own. And beginning at verse 9, you have an amazing sequence of truths. I pray for them. Who's them? Hear it carefully. The disciples. He said, I pray for them.

Following God's Pattern Rather Than Religious Culture

I do not pray for the world. If Jesus didn't pray for the world, should we? You see, we have taken our cue for our activity from the religious culture in which we live, not from the scripture. And somehow I believe revival tarries because we do not follow the pattern of God in his word.

And I want to share with you in this time that revival tarries because we fail to give attention to God's people. Hear what he says after that. He says, I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours and all mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them.

Christ Glorified Through the Transformation of Believers

Hear that. How is Christ glorified? What the lost do or what the believers do? In your relationship to the people of God, is there such a transformation taking place that Christ is glorified in God's people who have been entrusted to your care?

He said, Father, I am glorified in these, your disciples. Then he goes on to say, now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world and I come to you, Holy Father, keep through your name those whom you have given me that they may be one, how?

Keeping God's People in Relationship With the Father and Son

Not one with each other, but one in them, in the Father and in the Son and you're going to see that in a moment because he prays, Father, may they be one in us. And the implication of that is incredible.

So he goes on to say, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Let me ask you, if you're a pastor, could you say that of all that God has entrusted to you, you have lost none, but that you have kept every one of them because they were his and you have kept them in relationship to all that God is?

The Pastor's Responsibility to Lose None

When I, you've heard me say before that when I began my ministry in California, I read from John 6, this is the will of him that sent me, that of all that he has given me, I should lose none. And that truth became an absolute for me.

As a pastor, God adds to the body as it pleases him. Is that not true? According to the scripture, God composes the body called the Lord.