The Power of Christ Crucified - A Church Revived

Exceprts from a sermon preached on October 8, 2009 at Cedar Park Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA by Rev. Frederick A Hanna.

You know as we open this 1st night of revival, I must confess that I have been thinking about this whole revival thing… I’ve been thinking about the meaning of the word “revival”, literally "to put life back into," and I’ve come to the conclusion that for one to say that one is having a revival is really a peculiar thing for a church to do…

Why? You ask… Well… looking back at the history of the Protestant church movement in America, you will certainly see the phenomena of revival… and history will tell you that a revival…
Was often held in a tent or during a camp meeting…
often involved a series of meetings over the course of days or nights and it
often involved preaching that was inspired… and was…
often held for the purpose of inspiring current church members to go out and seek new converts to the faith…

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a good idea to me because...
We ought to always be doing whatever we can to win people for Christ…
We ought to always be doing whatever we can to see that souls get saved…
We ought to always be doing whatever we can to gain converts and to expand the Kingdom of God…

BUT… There is an interesting dilemma when we talk about REVIVAL… AND what REVIVAL means in a spiritual sense… AND The dilemma is that we will never truly have revival in our churches…
no matter how many wonderful preachers we invite…
no matter how many wonderful songs we sing…
no matter how many people we can pack into the sanctuary…
…unless God by the power of the Holy Spirit decides to show up, to meet us, and to revive us… We need the PRESENCE and the POWER of God if we are ever going to truly have revival…

AND today we need revival like never before…


....................................................................................


You see if we are ever going to be able to take the city for God, then we have to get out of a church mentality… We have got to expand our thinking until it explodes into a Kingdom mentality… we have got to begin to focus on the cross of Christ, and the cross of Christ is not about us as individuals… For the Son of God was not sent for JUST us… but the Son of God was sent that through Him, the world might be saved…

.....................................................................................


BUT If we’re not careful… AND FAIL to rely on the Spirit… …we’ll become the church that…
…specializes in how to do church, but has no relevance in the community…
…talks loud but is silent when we need to be heard…
…occupies a corner on the street, but is irrelevant to the people on the street…

If we really want to see revival, we have got to remember the cross of Christ… and the power of the Holy Spirit tear down strongholds… and break the yoke of bondage… and set the captives free… we have got to remember what it means to be the church…


.....................................................................................

We as the church have ONE SINGLE concern… and that is that the gospel be proclaimed through the weakness of human beings like us, such that the power of the Spirit begins to change lives… to change individuals… to change relationships… to change families… to change communities… to change cities… to alter the very fabric of civilization through an encounter with Jesus the Christ…

Our faith -- yours and mine, must never rest in the wisdom of a man, but in the power of God -- the power of the Holy Spirit… the power of Cross…

Written by Frederick A Hanna