216 ~ THE REVIVED FAMILY

Hi and welcome to the We Are Zion Sermon podcast.

We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.

We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will

encourage, inspire and instill fresh faith in you.

We enter the season of Pentecost with great anticipation and

expectation of a revival. We believe that God is taking us

into a time of great harvest that will be brought about by

His reign of favour and abundance.

As you listen in today, we hope that you will experience revival

in your home, a revival that will impact generations to come.

Hi Church, it's my joy to bring God's word to you today.

As you know, we've started a new month, the month of May.

Like someone said, the word opportunity is in the name of

the month itself. Anything may happen, right?

The theme for this month, it's the month of Pentecost and we're

looking at a theme of revival. And specifically we believe we

hear God saying that's going to be a season where there's going

to be a revival rain. It's not going to be a revival

fire, It's going to be a revival rain for us.

And last week we had Jeremy and Ruth come here from Mumbai and

we had such a lovely time with them in person.

And couple of things that Jeremy left with us, he took looked at

recipes for revival, you know, individuals to be revived.

He gave us three recipes and the three were being extremely

committed, being extremely generous and being extremely

sacrificial. And that's what he left with us.

There was a lot to Mull over. And today we're going to be

looking at revival in our homes. Each of our families look

different. This past week we had VBS at

church and it was an amazing time.

We we had about 46 kids from different backgrounds, different

cultures come together. Just because everyone believed

in the name of Jesus. That was the common unifying

factor and we had such an amazing time.

We loved the time with the children and we we believed that

through this VBS kids were carrying Revival back into their

homes. And that's why we wanted to, you

know, share today about what revival would look like in each

of our homes, in each of our families.

None of our families are perfect.

There are so many things that plague us sometimes that disrupt

our homes and our unity. But we believe that the our God

is a God of families. He puts us in families for a

reason. And so today we're going to be

looking at how God is going to be bringing about a revival.

First we looked at how he brings it about in individuals, but

today we're going to be looking at how he brings it about in

homes. Psalm 68, verse nine.

And the Passion translation reads, You, O God, sent the

reviving rain upon your very inheritance showers of blessing.

To refresh it, this is what God does.

He sends his reviving rain. And that's the central theme for

this whole month is going to be just experiencing a season.

It's not going to be a year. It's not going to be a month.

It's going to be a season of God pouring out his spirit on us.

And if you're in Chennai, you know what the Indian summer is

like. We're having it bad here.

Our days are incredibly hot and it makes us very, very weary.

Our everyday challenges make us emotionally weary, and sometimes

we have these uphill battles and climes that make us spiritually

weary. So all of us know what it's like

to feel tired, exhausted and worn out.

And that's why this verse makes so much sense, because he pours

out his reviving rain on his weary inheritance.

And today, as we look at families, I specifically want to

look at a Psalm written by the Psalmist David.

It's Psalm 65. It's a beautiful Psalm.

And as we look at, we're going to look at it in two portions.

We're going to first look at the first half and then the next

half, we're going to look at what God really looks for in his

people, right. We're going to be reading from

Psalm 65 verses 1 to 8 from the NIV translation.

Psalms 65:1–8

This is what it says. Praise awaits you, O our God and

Zion. To you, our vows will be

fulfilled. You who answer prayer to you all

people will come. When we were overwhelmed by

sins, you forgave our transgressions.

Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your

courts. We are filled with the good

things of your house, of your holy temple.

You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds.

God, our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of

the Father, sees who formed the mountains by your power, having

armed yourself with strength, who still the roaring of the

Seas, the roaring of their waves, and the turmoil of the

nations. The whole earth is filled with

awe at your wonders. Where morning dawns, where

evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.

I love how the psalmist David brings to life who this God is.

He's no longer some distant reality, but he is the God of

the present, the God who creates and sustains and holds

everything together. And this whole Psalm really is

about God's amazing Providence, His forgiveness, his mighty acts

of power, and his tender care for each one of us.

So when you look at the first half, there are two distinct

themes that are coming out, two distinct themes that are very

clear. The Psalmist is talking about

how this God is worthy of all our praise.

So often we wonder why is God expecting us to praise Him?

And when you look around, when you look at the simplest things

all around you in nature, it should evoke praise because he

is worthy of our praise. And he lists a couple of reasons

as to why we have to worship and praise him.

It's not about whether I can or cannot.

It's really being coming to this place and saying God, I can't

help but worship you. Why do I have to worship him?

Why do I have to praise him? Well, because he forgave all our

sins. That's what he says.

He forgave all our sins and iniquities.

Why do I have to praise him? Because he causes me.

He's chosen me and caused me to live in his courts close to him.

Why do I have to praise him? Because he has filled me with

good things. Why do I have to praise him?

Because he's formed the earth in all its complexity.

The mountains, the hills, the oceans, the forests and

everything in between. And he maintains it all.

And the beautiful thing is that the psalmist highlights how this

God who does all of these big things is also so personal that

he answers every prayer and every hearts cry.

Isn't that amazing? Every time I sometimes, you know

when I sit and dwell on who this God is, when I just spend some

time thinking of you know, I am so blessed that I get to call on

this God who is managing the whole world right now.

And yet, when I say Jesus help me, he tunes his ears to my

call. Isn't that amazing?

And that is why he's worthy of all our praise.

He's worthy of all the honour. And so I believe that primarily

the way of revival is going to touch our families is when our

families have two different components.

Our families need to be centered on praise.

Our families need to be having prayer as a pivotal part of

their lives. Appraising and a praying family

will experience revival. You can be running a family

which looks different. It may not look like the

traditional family. Whatever God has given you right

now. You may be a single parent with

your children. Yours may be a blended home.

I don't know what your situation looks like.

Maybe on the middle of a separation.

Maybe you're in a marriage, which is hard, but you're making

it work every single day. Whatever it looks like, maybe

you're grieving over the loss of a spouse to an ailment.

Maybe you've lost a child. Wherever you stand on the

spectrum, family is God's gift to you.

And what you are going to do with this family matters to him.

And interesting thing is that no matter what we do, revival comes

only from God. So if you're looking for a

revival today, you've come to the right place.

It is God who brings about this revival.

And so I want to ask you as a family, whatever your family

looks like, you could have multiple children.

You could have one child. Are you a family that praises

God before your miracle even happens?

Are you someone when you see those doors closed that you wait

in that hallway and praise God unashamedly?

Are you people who model praise in spite of hardship?

Because that is what your children will be observing, that

is, what is caught rather than taught.

You can't tell your children you know what you need to praise

God. They need to see you do it.

They need to see you model it. I want to ask you is prayer a

staple in your home as much as your rice and your Dal and your

water? Is prayer a staple?

Is prayer your first option or is it your last resort?

Because all of this sets the tone for revival.

If prayer is a distant, you know task, if it's something that you

look at as a drudgery, if praise doesn't even feature in your

lives, how can God revive you? There has to be a point of

connection, that connection between heaven and earth and

praise and prayer do that. It's also interesting that

praise and prayer don't have to be so complicated.

It's so important that we live in this place of constant

relationship with God, where these just come as an overflow

of that. Have you modeled conversation

style prayer often times at home when the kids are going through

hardship or when they're having a bad dream of sorts, when

they're talking about something that's heavy on their heart.

I made it a habit to immediately, as they're speaking

to me, to direct the conversation and say dear Lord,

please help us, we're confused about this.

Help us so that the children know he's that close.

He's also listening to this conversation and we can invite

him into the situation right now.

Have you modeled that his prayer staple?

I love this verse, especially if it says blessed are those you

choose and bring near to live in your courts.

We are filled with the good things of your house, of your

holy temple. You answered us with awesome and

righteous deeds. Last week Jeremy and Ruth were

sharing of how their family has a small prayer book in which

they write the things that are, you know, on all their hearts

needs for the family and how God meets them.

And as soon as they left, that's what I started doing.

I wanted my children to see that God hears the smallest prayers,

the smallest desires that God comes through.

He may not answer it the way we want, but he still hears us.

It's so important that we bring our children into a place of

close relationship with God. And that happens not by

lecturing them, not by actually pounding them with the Bible,

but actually living it out. And I love that in Jesus we are

brought near to the holy courts, we're brought near into the

inner court. We have direct access.

And it is in that place of dwelling with God that I begin

to experience his goodness. It's there when I begin to see

his mighty works. If I don't dwell, I will not

experience God in all of his greatness.

So many of us are so busy doing. We're doing for God, we're doing

for the church. We're doing so many things.

But I want to ask, do you dwell as much as you do?

Because when you dwell you can do more?

You do exactly what's in line with God's heart.

For you, it's so important that we dwell, and it's very

interesting. You know, a family that praises

and praise is a family that's automatically at a place of

complete surrender because both praise and prayer have a similar

posture. They both have submission and

surrender as their posture. You know, if you praise, if

you're even mildly motive, you would put your hands up like

this. We generally don't praise like

this, right? We praise like this or we praise

like this. When we pray, hands come

together. Even if you don't hold your

hands, you're just having a conversation.

There's a tendency to actually breathe out and to surrender

things to God, And it's so beautiful because it isn't that

posture or surrender or submission that God is actually

activated. His power is activated because

it's when my scheming and my working stops, when my striving

sees that God gets to work. He can't do all that he has

longed to do for me if I'm also grinding along with Him, and so

important that families need to come to a place of submission,

of surrender. So when you have those moments

of praise as a family, when you have those moments of prayer, it

is avidly encouraging your children, avidly encouraging

other members of the family to get into a posture of submission

to God and what is surrender and submission actively look like It

means that God, I can't bring revival.

I know we need reviving in this home, but I can't do it.

It's admitting to God that I am Yuri, but I cannot revive

myself. My marriage is on the brink of

disaster, but I cannot revive it.

My health needs reviving. My body is so exhausted and in

pain. But God, me nor the doctors can

do what is needed. You can.

It's saying my career is is lagging behind and God, my

plans, my goals. None of that is helping.

Will you revive it? It's admitting that my children

need a reviving beyond my parenting hacks in my books and

all my rules. My children need a reviving from

God himself. That is what submission and

surrender looks like. That is what it means when we as

a family praise and pray. We're telling him.

God, I am out of ideas. I need your help.

What have you been clinging to so tightly that you've been

unable to praise with abandoned? What have you been holding on so

tightly? What baggage and burdens have

you been clinging on to that your prayer life has just become

non existent? God's asking you today will you

come back? Will you once more lift your

hands and praise? Will you once more lift up holy

hands in prayer? This past week, two of our

church friends had gone to the beach at Basanaga where they

were doing the turtle walk. You know, these really turtles

that have hatched on the beach of Best not a, the Elliott's

beach, were being led to go back into the ocean where after 15

years, the grown turtles would return to lay their eggs at the

very same spot they were hatched from.

And so one of my friends was showing me the video of this and

she was explaining this thing to me, which which blew my mind,

but it also made this make sense.

So she was saying that a bunch of them were asking the

scientists who were there, why can't we just carry these little

turtles that have just hatched and directly go and put them in

the ocean? It would make it easier for

them. Why do they have to walk those

15 or 20 feet from the place of hatching right to the, you know,

where the water's edge is? Why do we, why do we have to

allow them to walk? And so he explained this thing

to them. He said what we're doing is

allowing the sand and the beach to imprint on the turtle.

So for that 15 feet that they are walking, they, you know,

walking so slowly, their newborns, their newborns, they

are just toddling. They take these cute little

tracks and they head into the water.

And he said what we are doing is we are imprinting it on their

memory. They are imprinting where they

walked and then once they find the ocean, they dive in and they

go into the ocean. 1520 years later, they returned to the very

same spot they went in from. They lay their eggs again.

There it is in order that they know where to come back.

And parents, grandparents, our job is huge.

Our job is to imprint on them. What are you imprinting today?

Have you been imprinting And impatience in your weight?

A grumbling in your weight? Have you been imprinting?

All that has happened maybe in the past, in the church, all of

your church. What have you been spilling that

out on your child so that what is imprinted on them is only

malice and slander and gossip? But, or have you chosen to

praise in every storm? Have you chosen to pray through

every trial and stand strong till your breakthrough came?

Because what you have imprinted is what they will return to?

There may be years when they wander away, There may be years

when they don't believe in anything.

But what we imprint in these years, the formative years, is

what they come back to. We cannot underestimate our role

in our families. Each of us play a role in

leaving a lasting legacy. So I ask you again, is your

family ready for revival? If you are, you need to step

into a place where praise and prayer become your arsenal.

They have to become your weapon systems.

The second thing, the second-half of the Psalm is so

poetic. And as I was reading it, I was

reading it in different translations, and I wanted to

read it to you from the amplified version because it is

so beautifully drawn out. Because this part of the Psalm

is actually talking about a revival of the land.

It is talking about God visiting his earth and blessing it.

And every part of this, this half speaks of the supernatural.

It talks about how only God could do all of this.

There is no scope for me to actually put my hand in this

and, you know, try to help. It is purely God.

Revival in our lives is from God.

It is off God. It is not of me.

I cannot, you know, conjure it. I cannot manufacture it.

It is from God. And so I want us to read this

versus 9 to 13 of Psalm 65. We're going to read it.

And as I read it, I want you to just allow your imagination to

run. While it says.

You visit the earth unsaturated with water, you greatly enrich

it. The river of God is full of

water. You provide them with grain.

When you have so prepared the earth.

You water the fields furrows abundantly.

You settle the ridges of it. You make the soil soft with

showers blessing the sprouting of its vegetation.

You crown the year with your bounty and goodness, and the

tracks of your chariot wheels drip with fatness.

The luxuriant pastures in the uncultivated country drip with

moisture, and the hills guard themselves with joy.

The meadows are clothed with flocks.

The valleys also are covered with grain.

They shout for joy and sing together.

Such a poetic description of who our God is and what our God

does. This is what he does.

In the Passion. It talks about that first verse,

verse nine, it says your visitations of glory, bless the

earth. And I want to ask you this.

Wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't you want every area of

your life to be saturated with God's glory?

What does that look like? God's presence, God's touch on

everything you do. Your business, your investments,

your home, your plans, your house, your car, your children,

every single thing. The work of your hands, your

passion projects, the dreams that you have.

Imagine if God's glory touches that it changes everything, it

saturates it. But I want to look at the next

part which says the river of God is full of water.

You provide them with grain when you have so prepared the earth.

It's so vital. The river of God.

Why in the middle of what looks like a seemingly the physical

description of you know, rain falling on the earth, why would

he interject the river of God? The river of God is mentioned

repeatedly in in the prophetic books.

It's it's also talked about in Revelation chapter 22.

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

It is this river that comes from the throne room of God, right?

And it is represented by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit brings into each of our lives the anointing of

God, and that is what changes our life.

That is what brings life to us. And here he says the river of

God is full of water. Isn't that amazing?

As I was reading this, you know, there was this incredible set of

thoughts that started coming in because so often I am trying to

flood my life with the water sources that I pick, I would

prefer. To have, like, just an injection

of the Holy Spirit just for that creative, you know, infusion for

that one project. Sometimes I maybe have a mug of

the Holy Spirit's inspiration just to refresh me, you know,

after a heavy day just to kind of splash water on my face.

I want just that much of the Holy Spirit.

Or sometimes it's just a tablespoon because you know too

much of him. I don't want to appear foolish

talking too much about him or being too dependent on him, but

rather be independent. And so I feel like so often we

have shut the Holy Spirit out of our lives because we are afraid

to misunderstand him, or we have heard things about him that make

us a bit afraid or or cautious of him.

But here so beautifully he says the river of God is full of

water, and you provide them with grain in the passion.

It says the rivers of God overflow and enrich it.

You paint the wheat fields golden as you provide rich

harvests. In the last month, as we were

having our prayer times as a church, this was the word that

kept coming back to a lot of us, where God was saying, I'm

bringing about a rich harvest. And so this was reiterated that,

but the one that would bring the rich harvest was the river of

God, was the spirit of God. And so I want to dwell here for

a bit. We're going to look at what this

river of God actually does. What does it entail for me to

involve the river of God in the garden of my life, In the

orchard of my life? Ezekiel, chapter 47, verses 8 to

Ezekiel 47:8–12

12? I'm reading from the message

version. It says this, he told me This

water flows E descends to the Aruba and then into the sea, the

sea of stagnant waters. Where it empties into those

waters, the sea will become fresh.

Wherever the river flows, life will flourish.

Great schools of fish, because the river is turning the salt

sea into fresh water. Where the river flows, life

abounds. Fishermen will stand shoulder to

shoulder along the shore from Engedi all the way N to end a

glim, casting their Nets. The sea will teem with fish of

all kinds, like the fish of the great Mediterranean.

The swamps and marshes won't become fresh.

They'll stay salty. But the river itself, on both

banks, will grow fruit trees of all kinds.

Their leaves won't wither. The fruit won't fail.

Every month they'll bet fresh fruit because the river from the

Sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will be for food and

their leaves for healing. If you remember some chapter

One, it says, the one who meditates on the law of God,

Dear night, will be like a tree planted by rivers of water which

eels it's fruit in season. And this almost mirrors that the

river of God. It says here the river of God on

both banks will itself grow trees.

And if you and I can liken ourselves to a tree, to an oak,

a sturdy oak that the Lord Himself is planting, my question

to you is, are you planted by the river of God, or are you

planted by a little rivulet that you have cordoned off for

yourself? Is your source a contained

bucket of the Spirit of God, or is it the river of God Himself?

Have you been content with the tablespoon tasting of the Holy

Spirit, spirit, or the syringe which you just needed in times

of help? Or have you stayed planted by

the river of God? It's so important to come to

this place of saying Lord, I really don't know that much but

the Holy Spirit has all been hearsay.

Some of it has been scary because people have scared me

and said, oh you know what, too much of that makes you appear a

bit kooky. But today God is calling us back

and saying will you come to the river of God because it is

running full, it never runs dry. Jesus when he stood on the last

day of the the festival in the temple said anyone is thirsty.

Come to me, for out of me flows rivers of living water.

And when you have it, you will never run dry.

You will never thirst again. We were meant to drink from the

river of God. We were meant to be planted by

the river of God, which never runs dry.

And when we are planted there, our life is so different.

I love this verse where it says everywhere that the waters went,

life abounds. I wonder if we have those dead

areas in our life, but still, even after knowing Jesus, just

because we're not planted close enough to the river of God, you

know, so many, so many times, logistically, we plan our lives.

You know, there was a season when we had to move to another

city and we were looking for a house there.

And then we found that there was someone we knew in the city.

So we decided to go and live very close to them, just so that

there was moral support because it was a new city.

We didn't know anyone there. We're so careful and crafted in

the way we plan our lives. But what if we were to take the

Holy Spirit's leading and stay planted where he plants us?

Because the truth is this. No matter what we plan, no

matter what we decide and do, it's where we are planted and

who we are planted next to that matters.

If I'm planted near the river of God, where the Spirit of God is

just moving and active and leading me, everything looks

different. Even the most dead parts of our

life will come, come to life. Dead dreams long gone, ambitions

will come back to life. Just because the river of God

has got access to my life. I want to ask you, have you been

in the process of, you know, lugging around bits and pieces

of the Holy Spirit as you need? As an added bonus, you know I

just need this add on. Or have you gone to the river of

God and just plunked down and said, Lord, I'm here, plant me,

I'm here. I want to be beside the river of

God. I want to drink of it.

I want to come to life. Parts of me are drying up.

Parts of me are withering. I'm not a source of healing to

others. I'm a source of damage to

others. Help me heal me.

Or have we moved away from the source and gone far away?

We have our own devices. We have our own bucket.

We have our mug. We have our syringe.

We have our tablespoon. We sorted because this is the

truth. Where he leads, he will provide.

Where he leads, he will bring fruit out of my life.

Where he leads, I will be a channel of blessing and healing

to others. Where he leads, I will be so

fruitful and so prosperous, emotionally, spiritually,

physically, that I will be a source of shade and healing too

many. You may ask me, is that even

possible? Well, this is what Jesus talked

about in Matthew chapter 13 verses 31 to 32.

Matthew 13:31–32

This is what Jesus says. He's told them another parable.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took

and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all

seeds, yet when it grows it is the largest of garden plants and

becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its

branches. You may have started out very

small, but you have been planted by the river of God.

Will you put your roots down deep?

Will you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you?

Because revival is only mediated by the Holy Spirit, we cannot

attempt to revive anything in our own strength.

Our willpower will not do it. Our holiness will not do it.

Our righteousness will not do it.

It is the Holy Spirit who brings revival.

If I'm not planted beside the river of God, if he is not my

sole source, if God is not my source, I can come back to him.

There is hope. If you say I have thrived in

every season, that's why I can honestly say it is because of

the Holy Spirit. Praise God for that.

I thank God for you. I pray that you will continue to

thrive right where you're at. And it's so important that when

we understand this, when I'm planted beside the river of God,

he looks after every need. And can I also tell you this,

just because you're planted near the river of God does not mean

you will not encounter the wilderness seasons.

It does not mean you will have those seasons of drought.

It does not mean that storms won't hit you.

It only means this that in every season of the soul, he will be a

source. He will keep you nourished.

You will bear fruit in the season of harshest illness.

You will be able to bring healing to others.

Even when you are hurting purely because of the source.

It won't be because of you. You cannot get the glory.

It's the source. When we read the rest of the

Psalm Psalm 65 verses 10 to 13, it explains it better.

Psalms 65:10–13

It says you drench. It's talking about God.

It's talking about the river of God.

It's talking about the rain that comes from heaven that God

brings about. It says you drench it's furrows

and level it's ridges. You soften it with showers and

bless bless its crops. You crown the year with your

bounty and your carts overflow with abundance.

The grasslands of the wilderness overflow.

The hills are clothed with gladness, the meadows are

covered with flocks, and the valleys are mantled with grain.

They shout for joy and sing. When you read this, you need to

look at it a little closer. It talks about the furrows and

ridges. What is this?

When a plow is dragged through soil, you have the ridges and

the furrows. You know where they deposit the

seed. Our lives have its ups and

downs. Seasons of incredible times of

pouring in, of of sowing the seed, the seasons which are

hard. It talks about how you crown the

year with your bounty. The carts, overflow carts

represent what you do for a living.

It counts what accounts for the things that you do because you

love doing it, the things that you do for others.

And he says in all of this you will experience abundance.

And you need to note your abundance is not an abundance of

wealth alone. It's talking about an abundance

of your soul. It's talking about the abundance

of peace you will enjoy in every season, The amount amount of joy

you will experience. It talks about the grasslands of

the wilderness overflowing. Because it's true.

Every one of us will walk that wilderness season.

Every one of us will have those valley episodes.

And in spite of that, when the river of God is our source, when

God himself is the one who's bringing revival, every single

area of our lives will thrive. And we won't just thrive, we

will thrive in such a way to be visible to others, it says.

The meadows are covered with flocks.

No longer is there, Baroness, no longer is there lack, no longer

is there insufficiency. God will pour out his blessings

because revival is his thing. It is what he loves to do to his

inheritance. So I want to encourage you that

even the hard parts you have walked Revival rain will fall on

that. Even the wilderness season you

have come through, Revival rain will fall on that, the bad and

seasons of the soul. When nothing was working, you

tried everything. He promises that his rain falls

on all of that there is going to be a harvest.

Will the warfare stop? No.

Will the hardship stop? No.

Will setbacks not happen? Not at all.

All of that will continue because we live in a world which

is touched by brokenness. But in spite of all of that, he

promises to bring about a rich harvest mediated by the river of

God. And so I want to ask you this.

Have you been so desperately trying to revive your own life?

Maybe you've been taking more multivitamins.

Maybe you've been protecting yourself in the sun.

Maybe you've been protecting yourself in relationships.

Maybe you've been putting up walls to keep certain people or

things out. But ultimately, the reviving

that we need, only God can provide it.

The psalmist keeps talking of the hard parts, the wilderness,

the valleys, all of it will be touched by the reviving green,

not just the parts that you know are already good.

He's going to touch every part of our lives.

But it will come down to this. Will you praise, will you pray

in the weight? Because if you want to see your

family changed, if you want to see things change in your life,

there has to be surrender. There has to be submission.

I also believe that this revival rain, when it soaks to the

ground, seeds that were planted long time back, things that you

may be invested in, things that may be people that you invested

in, Kingdom initiatives that you started years back, which maybe

you haven't seen. The fruit God is going to bring

fruit because the way nature works, when you look at just,

you know what a farmer does this, you know, lay the seed

down. They wait for the rains.

And when the rains come again, nothing really happens

immediately. Nothing happens overnight.

After a season of wait, those seeds start to sprout and

beautiful new growth begins to come out.

And it's God who tends these seeds that we have sown, that

have been sown into us. So I want to encourage you if

you've been in a wait for a prolonged period of time, don't

give up, don't give up. Keep raising, keep praying, keep

pushing through. Because the Revival rain is

coming. It's already begun in our lives.

As I close, I want to just leave this with you.

When you read the history textbooks, you know we've heard

of how civilizations, entire civilizations have been built

around rivers. The Indus Valley Civilization in

India was entirely built around the Indus River.

When you look at the Chinese civilization entirely built

around rivers there, it's no different world over.

Why? Because the river was a place

where economy was built, transport was available,

resources were brought from other places, hydroelectric

plants were set up. It's no different with the river

of God. God is raising up a remnant, and

this remnant needs to build their family culture, their

their lives, culture Around the river of God.

We are called to settle down as those trees beside the river of

God. He wants us in close connection

with His spirit, so that we'll be so sensitive to what he's

doing, so that we'll be so obedient to what he's nudging us

to do. The farther away we go from the

river, the culture that we establish at home, our

lifestyles, our choices get determined by other things.

The closer you are to the river, the closer you are to the heart

of God. The heart of the Father.

What he has for your family, what he has for your children.

If you're in tune with that, things change.

The way your parent changes, the way you run your marriage is

different. The way you host people, the way

you love on people, everything changes.

It depends on how close you are to the river of God.

So I want you this week to identify your hang ups.

What are your hang ups to the Holy Spirit?

You've been hearing about it. Maybe from the time you were a

child, maybe you've seen things. Maybe you've heard things.

Maybe you have these preconceived notions.

Would you come to God this week and say, Lord, Heavenly Father,

I need the Holy Spirit. I come to you with a blank

slate. I have no expectations except

for you to show up and help me, and I want to encourage you for

my life. I came from a background where

we didn't talk much about the Holy Spirit, But as I understood

him, I realized that he is truly the paraclete, the one who comes

alongside me. I cannot do the journey that is

marked out for me without the Holy Spirit.

He comes alongside. He's not like you know, a brain

controlling, you know, a zombie, a fiend.

He doesn't just come behind me and say I'm going to control

your mind, I'm going to control your actions.

Not at all. He comes alongside me, he leads

me, he guides me. He tells me when to speak, He

tells me when not to. He corrects me when I'm wrong.

You and I need to come to a place of surrendering and

submitting to God and saying I need your Holy Spirit Lord.

I need to be near the river of God.

I can't do it without him because the river of God is

abundant. He doesn't run dry.

When you're running dry, He's not running dry, and when you're

running dry, you're ready to receive from him.

He's the one who enables you to pray when you have no words.

The Apostle Paul writes of how he intercedes on our behalf with

groans even when we don't have words.

He's the one who enables you to praise God for all that he is

because he knows the will of God.

He understands things that we can never understand.

So he gives language to our praise.

He gives language to our prayer. We need him.

So I want to ask you if you've been someone who hasn't been

imprinting the things of God and your children.

It's not too late. It's not too late.

Ask the Holy Spirit how can I better imprint on them so that

when the days get long and hard, they will come back to the faith

of their fathers. They will come back to the God

who is unfailing. If you want a revival at home,

you need to begin praising. You need need to begin praying.

If you want a revival, you need to be planted by the river of

God. Can I pray for you, Father in

heaven? I thank you.

I thank you, for you are so mindful of us.

I thank you that from the sound we see that you are so mindful

of us. Lord, I thank you that you care

for your weary inheritance, and that you have promised to pour

out your reviving rain upon us. And right now we receive that

rain. We pray that it will fall on

every part of our lives, the barren parts, the fruitful

parts, the hurting parts. That God, your rain, will

refresh us. We pray that you will strengthen

us. We pray, oh God, that each of us

will be like a tree that is planted by streams of water,

that we will not run dry. We thank you for your promise

that we will bear fruit in every season, that our leaves will be

for healing of Father. I pray that many will take shade

with us because they will see Christ in US.

I pray, oh God, that you would help us, that you would

strengthen us for those of us who have been so marred and

broken by fellow people in the body of Christ.

Lord, I pray that we will release them, that we will

forgive them, and that God we will once more step back into

the spaces you are calling us. That God, we will step back in

courage into the purposes that you have for us.

I pray that Lord, we will allow the Holy Spirit to come

alongside us, to assist us, to lead us, to guide us, and to

take us into the places you are calling us to, to the

inheritance that you have for us.

I pray that you would continue to help us, continue to

strengthen us. We believe, oh God, that we are

going to sing songs of joy for the way your reign of reviving

is going to fall on us. And so we thank you for that.

We praise you for that even before it happens.

We love you, We honor you, We thank you.

In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Amen. So remember, your homework for

the week is to revisit what you know of the Holy Spirit and ask

God to give you a fresh experience and that you would

walk every single day with the knowledge that he is beside you,

the paraclete helping you, assisting you.

Because he's the river of God. He brings you the fullness of

God. We need him.

We cannot do this life without him.

That you would experience revival not just as yourself,

but as a family. Your home would experience

revival. God bless you.

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