Sermon For Revival

When God Comes Home: A Sermon For Revival

There is a prayer in Psalm 85 that sounds like it was written this morning. The people of God are sitting in a season that feels dry. They remember what God has done. They can recite the stories. But something has grown cold, something has grown distant, and they know it. So they cry out with honest, desperate, hopeful words: "Restore us, God of our salvation, and abandon your displeasure toward us." That is not a polished religious request. That is a people who want God back.

That is what revival is. Not a program. Not an event on a calendar. Revival is the return of the manifest presence of God to a people who have drifted, and the transformation that follows when He comes.

Let us open our hearts to two passages today. Psalm 85 gives us the cry for revival. Acts 2 gives us the fruit of it. Together they show us what God does when His people come back to Him with their whole hearts.

PART ONE: THE CRY FOR REVIVAL

Psalm 85:4-13

The psalm opens with a declaration of what God has already done. He has been favorable to the land. He has restored the fortunes of His people. He has forgiven iniquity and covered sin. The psalmist is not making this up. He is standing on real history, real mercy, real deliverance.

But then comes the honest confession of the present moment. Verse 4: "Restore us, God of our salvation, and abandon your displeasure toward us." The word translated "restore" here carries the idea of turning, of being brought back to a place you have left. The people are not asking God to do something He has never done. They are asking Him to do again what He has always been willing to do.

Notice what they are not doing. They are not pretending. They are not performing. They are not dressing up their spiritual condition and hoping God does not notice. They are naming the truth: we have drifted. Your anger is upon us. We need to be restored.

This is where revival begins. Not in the music. Not in the atmosphere. Not in the invitation. It begins in the honest acknowledgment that something has gone wrong and that only God can make it right.

Verse 6 is the heartbeat of the whole psalm: "Will you not revive us again so that your people may rejoice in you?" That word "revive" means to give life again, to breathe new breath into what has grown still. The psalmist is not asking for entertainment. He is asking for life. He is asking for the kind of joy that only comes when God Himself is near.

And then the psalmist does something remarkable. He begins to prophesy the answer before it arrives. Verses 10 through 13 paint a picture of what it looks like when God shows up in fullness. Faithful love and truth will meet. Righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Truth will spring up from the earth and righteousness will look down from heaven. The Lord will provide what is good and the land will yield its harvest.

This is not poetry for its own sake. This is the psalmist declaring that when God comes in revival, everything changes. Relationships are restored. Communities are transformed. The fruit of righteousness begins to grow where there was once only dry ground.

The central claim of this psalm is simple and it is urgent: God is willing to revive His people, and the path to revival begins with honest, humble, repentant prayer.

PART TWO: THE FRUIT OF REVIVAL

Acts 2:37-47

Now move with me to Acts 2. The Holy Spirit has just fallen on the gathered disciples. Peter has preached a bold, clear, Christ-centered message. He has declared that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they crucified, is both Lord and Messiah. And the crowd is cut to the heart.

Verse 37: "When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what should we do?'"

That phrase, pierced to the heart, is not a gentle metaphor. It describes a deep, sudden, undeniable conviction. The Holy Spirit had done what no human argument could do. He had reached past the intellect and touched the conscience. These people were not merely intellectually persuaded. They were spiritually awakened.

And Peter's answer in verse 38 is the same answer the church has proclaimed for two thousand years: "Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Repentance is not a punishment. It is a doorway. It is the turning of the whole person, mind and will and affection, away from sin and toward God. In the Pentecostal and charismatic tradition we sometimes speak of revival as a sovereign move of God, and it is. But Acts 2 makes clear that revival always calls for a response. God moves. We turn. That is the pattern.

Three thousand people responded that day. Three thousand. And what happened next is one of the most beautiful descriptions of Spirit-formed community in all of Scripture.

Verse 42: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer."

Four pillars. The Word of God. Genuine fellowship. The Lord's table. Prayer. These are not four programs. They are four expressions of a community that has been transformed by the Holy Spirit and is now living in the reality of that transformation.

They were devoted. That word means they were persistent, steadfast, continuing. This was not a one-time emotional experience that faded by the following week. The fire of Pentecost produced a people who kept showing up, kept learning, kept eating together, kept praying. Revival is not just a moment. It produces a way of life.

Verse 43 tells us that awe came over everyone. Signs and wonders were being done through the apostles. The presence of God was so real that people were afraid in the best possible sense. They were in the presence of something holy and they knew it.

Verse 44 and 45 describe a community where people were sharing with one another according to need. This is not a political statement. It is a testimony to what happens when the love of God genuinely fills a people. Generosity becomes natural. The needs of others become visible. The walls between us come down.

And verse 47 gives us the result: "Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved."

They were not running a growth strategy. They were living in the overflow of revival. The community was so alive, so full of love, so marked by the presence of God, that people were drawn in. Evangelism was not a program they had to force. It was the natural consequence of a people who had been genuinely revived.

Part Three: What This Means For Us Today

So what does this mean for us, gathered here in this moment?

First, it means that revival is possible. The same God who heard the cry of Psalm 85 is listening today. The same Spirit who fell in Acts 2 is present in this room. God has not changed. His willingness to revive His people has not diminished. If anything, the promise of the Spirit has been poured out more fully since Pentecost, and we are the heirs of that outpouring.

Second, it means that revival requires honesty. We cannot posture our way into the presence of God. The psalmist did not pretend. The crowd in Acts 2 did not deflect. They were pierced to the heart and they admitted it. If there is coldness in your heart toward God today, name it. If there is sin you have been carrying, bring it. If your love for Christ has grown distant, say so. God is not surprised by any of it, and He is not repelled by your honesty. He is drawn to it.

Third, it means that revival produces community. The Holy Spirit does not revive isolated individuals and leave them alone. He gathers them. He binds them together in the apostles' teaching, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread, in prayer. If you have been trying to sustain your spiritual life in isolation, the pattern of Acts 2 is an invitation to something more. Revival is not just personal. It is corporate.

Fourth, it means that revival sends us outward. The early church did not hoard what they had received. The Lord added to their number every day because they were living in such a way that the world could see the difference. Revival always has a mission. It is not an end in itself. It is the fuel for faithful witness.

A Prayerful Charge

As we close, I want to invite you to do what the psalmist did. Come honestly. Come humbly. Come expectantly.

If you are a believer whose fire has grown low, this is your moment to say, "Restore me, God of my salvation." Not because you have earned it. Not because you have been consistent enough. But because He is faithful and He is willing and He has promised to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

If you are a seeker or a guest and you have heard something today that has pierced your heart, that is the Holy Spirit at work. Peter's answer is still the answer: repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That door is open to you right now.

And to all of us together: let us be a people who do not settle for the memory of what God has done. Let us be a people who cry out for what He is willing to do again. Let us be devoted to the Word, to one another, to the table, and to prayer. Let us live in such a way that the Lord adds to our number those who are being saved.

The God of Psalm 85 is the God of Acts 2. He revives. He restores. He sends. And He is here.

Come, Lord. Revive us again.

Sources Consulted

Goldingay, John. Psalms, Volume 2: Psalms 42-89. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms. Baker Academic, 2007.

Keener, Craig S. Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Volume 1. Baker Academic, 2012.

Peterson, David G. The Acts of the Apostles. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 2009.

VanGemeren, Willem A. Psalms. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Revised Edition, Volume 5. Zondervan, 2008.

Witherington, Ben III. The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Eerdmans, 1998.