I. Monday Morning Always Comes 00:00
…it’s a beautiful day that you have given us. We thank you for the air we breathe. We thank you that we can come together and encounter you. Lord, I pray that you would impress upon our hearts the love that you have for us as we hear your words today. In Jesus’ name, amen.
So we’ve had an eventful couple of weeks. I always like coming back from all the fun things that we get to do here at Saint Michael’s. And I mean, if you were there, you know 3SI was amazing: Three Streams Ignited, our young adult conference. And then we ordained Father Phillip Johnson. Love that guy. I think I’m going to just start every sermon reminding us, and we can clap for him, because I know how much he hates it. But either way, we had a great time at the ordination there. And then we had the Patriarch visiting with us last Sunday, sharing his heart and a word for us. And then we had the Patriarch’s Council the next few days, so we had bishops from around the world gathering to hear from the Lord about his will for our international denomination. So it’s been a lot, and it’s been amazing.
However, no matter how many days you string together, Monday morning always comes. And so maybe you were on a high during that time, really just enjoying yourself, feeling like, “Man, God’s really encountering me.” And I know all of us have had those moments, these moments where it feels like it’s harvest time, it’s party time, it’s awesome, and everything is good. And then you turn around, and maybe you start to feel a little bit faded, a little bit “What’s going on now? Okay, now I’m back to ordinary life.”
Well, my question today is: how do we live in what I’m calling sustainable revival? Now, here’s the thing. I am a product of California, so sustainability is very important to me. You hear that word everywhere. It’s actually a wonderful concept: the idea of something that can subsist and live on its own power. Sustainability. And the great thing about revival is, it’s not about your power. It’s about his. So how do we live sustained by the power of God? How do we live constantly, truly revived, in the life that the Spirit brings to us every day?
II. Belonging and Becoming 02:36
Yes, we have these wonderful moments where it feels like you have this exceptional encounter, and you have this feeling and this energy and this joy. But how do we bring that to our Monday mornings? How do we bring that with us everywhere we go? Well, the first thing I want to say is that true revival is about belonging and becoming. The becoming comes out of our belonging. We are chosen. And you heard that in our Old Testament lesson today, as it says:
1 “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! 2 Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. Isa 44.1–2
I love that. He has to repeat it. He has to remind them: not only are you my servant, but you’re the one I have chosen. And in the order of operations in these sentences, “the person whom I have chosen” is more important than the fact that you’re the servant. Let’s just say that. It comes out of the fact that he chose them to be his people. And just like that, he has chosen every one of you. In fact, what did he do? He formed you from the womb. So if you think that God’s choosing of you relies on you, I don’t know what you brought to the table as a clump of cells. I don’t know what you brought to the table as a fetus. But God formed you from then. He chose you even then. Part of the reason we’re so pro-life is because of verses like this. God is choosing people to be birthed into this world in the womb, not after. He chooses them then.
So when you look at this, I’m reminded of VeggieTales: “God made you special, and he loves you very much.” That was my childhood, and it stuck. And trust me when I say there was something powerful about that, because everywhere I go, I feel very special and very loved. In fact, some people are like, “Man, he thinks a lot of himself.” Okay, don’t. God thinks a lot of me; that’s what matters. Hopefully it’s not just me. And so you have to get this deep down in you, and your belonging will inform and cause your becoming. That’s where revival comes from: that belonging.
And then it says God will help us. We could not have imagined… I mean, this is Isaiah. This is hundreds of years before Jesus Christ. He says he will help them. They could not have imagined what he meant by that. And yet he came in the form of a servant, died on the cross, and now lives his life through us. That’s the type of help I want, to be sustainably revived.
III. Hunger and Thirst Draw the Provision of God 05:19
And so what does he say? He says:
3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. 4 They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. Isa 44.3–4
Now, if you know 3SI, Three Streams Ignited, the theme was the river. And so you’ll see a lot of that in here, and a lot of that language in the prophetic language of the Old Testament. God has poured out his Spirit on you. If you’re a baptized believer, you’ve entered the river. You’re already there. And so why do we walk around feeling so dry, so parched, so empty? My argument today is that the problem is we get hungry for the wrong things. We get thirsty for the wrong things. We try to quench our thirst with that which does not satisfy.
You literally have the living water of life inside of you. Actually, I use the word “literally” (people use it wrong all the time): I’m saying really, truly, and literally, the water of life is inside you. He really is. And you have that to draw upon. And yet we go to so many things to try and fill our needs, except for him.
And so the thing I want to mention about Three Streams Ignited is that the first thing I noticed on that first day was the hunger and the thirst, the expectation. They came expecting to encounter God and to be changed by him. And hunger and thirst for God and for the things of God draw the provision of God. Our thirst draws the provision of our Father.
It’s like yesterday (and I love talking about my kids, so I’m bringing them up again). So Rhys, my son, who is 5 years old, lost his water bottle for the third time yesterday. And he’d been playing, he’d been hot and sweaty (it was hot yesterday), and I was just like, “Oh my goodness, how can you lose your water bottle again?” He goes, “Dad, I’m thirsty.” Now, here’s the thing. It never crossed my mind to just not give him water. I just wanted him to have his water bottle. And so when we couldn’t find the water bottle, I was getting him water in a different cup for, like, the seventeen millionth time. And so you think about all these things that happened: ultimately, his thirst drew the provision. How much more so our heavenly Father? When we’re hungry, when we’re thirsty, when we’re dry and parched in a barren land, how much more does he want to bring life? It’s truly who he is and what he does. He will meet you there.
And so we need to actually cultivate our hunger and thirst for God. I don’t know if you know this, but the companies that advertise to us, the streaming companies, the social media companies, basically any company you engage with online, have studies of how to generate hunger and thirst in you for them. “How do we advertise? How do we signal? How do we buzz just at the right moment? How do we send just the right thing? How do we overwhelm their natural desires and reprogram them towards us?” They are cultivating your hunger for them. And so we have to actually resist that in our life. It’s active. You are constantly fed a million things that you need. Instead, we have to cultivate a hunger and an intimacy and a desire for Jesus. He will fill you up.
Okay, next verse. “This one will say…” This is what happens when the water is poured out, when people are baptized in the river:
5 This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.” Isa 44.5
That’s the belonging I’m talking about. You will declare, “I am the Lord’s.” And if you’re the Lord’s, guess what? You’re not your own. That one’s a little harder. It’s like, “Oh, how cool, I get to be a part of God’s…” But then you have to remember, you don’t get to be in charge. There’s not a person in here in charge. God is in charge. Now, God loves to raise up leaders to lead his purposes on earth, in companies and churches and your family. But ultimately, every leader gets his authority by submitting to God. And anybody who practices authority outside of that, it’s temporary. It’s very temporary, because all authority is his.
That’s the line from Moby-Dick which says, “Sometimes to obey God is to disobey yourself.” And I would argue most of the time to obey God is to disobey yourself. At least, it takes a lot of training before you start loving what God wants you to do. It’s a reprogramming that he does in our heart. This belonging then leads to the becoming. That’s where it mentions the grass shooting up and the willows growing by the streams. We’re becoming something new in this belonging, when we’re rooted in the river.
IV. The Seed Along the Path 10:35
So how do we maintain this? Well, I want to bring up the parable of the sower that we talked about last Sunday. We read it in our Gospel lesson. And I want to just jump straight; we’re going to cut through a lot. You’re probably familiar with this. We’re going straight to when the disciples go, “Jesus, what the heck does this mean?” We’re going to go straight to that part. So Jesus is going to tell us. You remember, a farmer’s throwing seeds, and it falls on different types of ground. Well, this here is the seed thrown along the path:
19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. Matt 13.19
Now let’s just stop for a second. This understanding is not about book smarts. If it were, the smartest people you knew about Jesus would be the best people you knew. And I know that’s not true. There are people I know who know more about Jesus than I do, and yet I wouldn’t want to trade places with them in a thousand years. It goes back to that part where it says even the demons know that Jesus is Lord. You can know a lot and reject everything. In fact, you can know a lot and not understand anything. We will talk about what this understanding actually means later, but the point here is like what we see in 1 Corinthians 1:18, where it says, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1.18).
The word of God is power in your life. They say knowledge is power, and they’re almost right. But actually it’s only the knowledge of the Lord that is power. All power, all authority is his. And the knowledge of the cross is power to us, but those on the path who don’t understand, it’s folly to them.
Now, when you think about this imagery of those people on the path, these are the people who are just passing through. They don’t stop and learn the mystery at the heart of the burning bush. You think about Moses. He’s out there, and he’s shepherding; he’s doing his thing. And shepherding can be simultaneously extremely boring, because the sheep are just there, and extremely dangerous, like David talks about, fighting off lions and bears. And so you have to balance your attention. You have to know where the sheep are, and all these things, and you have to know where the danger is. But something catches his eye: a burning bush that is not consumed. And he allows the wonder of his attention to be fixed on the right thing. He comes in, and sure enough, it’s God himself, to meet with him.
And in like ways, there are many people who are along the path, and they go, “Wow, that’s cool,” and then just keep walking. In fact, a lot of the time I think this can be us. We’re walking along, or maybe we even attend a conference, and we’re like, “That was amazing,” and then we just keep on the path. We don’t stop and look. We don’t attend. We don’t ask. I’ve mentioned this a thousand times before, but your attention is the most valuable resource you have. That which you pay attention to, you will spend your time on. You will give your resources to. You will give your effort to. So let’s make sure our attention is proper. If the seed is sown along the path, get off the path. Stop for a moment and see what God is doing. Allow that to take root.
Instead, they just continue on the path, and that just becomes another thing they saw once upon a time. “I remember this burning bush happened one time, and then I just kept walking, and that was it.” And Moses is not Moses. It could be as simple as that. Stop and pay attention.
V. The Seed on Rocky Ground 13:58
Okay, let’s look at the seed sown on rocky ground:
20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. Matt 13.20–21
This one is maybe the scariest of all, because I tend to be the person who loves to receive the word with joy. I’m excited in the moment. But am I going to follow through? Am I going to allow that word to change me? Because the word requires a response. It demands something of us. Joy is a great first response, but it’s only the first response. It requires something of us.
In fact, in the Psalms it talks about Joseph. You guys remember that guy? He’s got these brothers. His dad’s like, “Joseph’s the best. He’s better than all of you.” They get mad at him. They beat him up. They throw him in the pit. They sell him into slavery. He’s doing good in slavery; the master’s like, “Joseph’s the best.” And then he gets falsely accused, thrown in prison. Then he’s in prison; the leader of the prison says, “Joseph’s the best.” And then he interprets some dreams, and they’re like, “You’re the best.” And then they forget him. It’s terrible. And he’s languishing in prison for who knows how long. He was always the best. It didn’t matter. What does the psalm tell us? It says, “The word of the Lord tested him” (Ps 105.19). It wasn’t his brothers who were testing him, or his father, or the slave owner, or the person who put him in prison, or the head of the prison. Nobody there had the power to evaluate who Joseph was. No, the word of the Lord would evaluate who Joseph was, and when he was ready.
Because then we find out every step along the path brought him to exactly the promise. He was not a man with rocky ground for a heart. He allowed God to deal with him all along the way, so that when the moment came, he still said, “It’s not me; it’s God who’s giving you this, Pharaoh.” His humility! And then when his brothers came, and he had every right to just take it out on them, he instead welcomed them into his family, provided for them, healed them. And then when his dad died, and his brothers were like, “Surely now Joseph’s going to take the opportunity to kick our butts,” he goes, “Don’t you understand? Everything that you did for evil, God meant for good” (Gen 50.20).
That’s somebody who allowed the rocks in his heart to be taken out over the years. And I’ll argue that those rocks are anger, resentment, unforgiveness, jealousy, bitterness, selfishness. All of these things are the rocks in our heart that are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. Those are the things that, if you allow them to take their place in your heart, while you may come to the conference, while you may get the word, while you may respond with joy, because you haven’t dealt with what God wants to deal with, you have no roots in you.
Now, how do you deal with the rocks? Well, where is the rocky soil in a field? It’s on the outskirts. The farmer digs up the rocks in the cultivated rows, but on the outskirts there may be the rocky soil. My argument here, the picture here, is that the people who have the rocky soil are those who isolate themselves, who don’t become planted in the garden. That’s a picture: the church is the garden, the walled garden, the place where the fruit comes, that is protected. And like Father Jim was preaching at Tri-C: he’s been here for 53 years, planted here. And that has allowed God, through his brothers, to work the rocks out of his heart. Through the things he’s experienced here in community with us, he has become a fruitful tree himself.
And so you think about that. Where’s the rocky ground? The people who separate themselves, who don’t allow God to get after that. You can’t live in unforgiveness when you’re with people. You start running into each other. You start having to… “I’ve got to have a conversation now. I’ve got to deal with this thing.” That’s what being in community can do for us, especially as we allow God to knit our hearts together in love.
VI. The Seed Among Thorns 18:11
Okay, let’s look at the seed among the thorns. Just a couple more here:
22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. Matt 13.22
Let’s look at the cares of this world first. I think there are kind of three categories that are the cares of this world. One of them is: you don’t have enough. One of them is: you are not enough. And the last one is the unknown. These are the things we worry about.
The first one, you don’t have enough. You might think that mountain is too big. “I have no money. I have no time to fix this problem, this mountain. There’s not enough of me. I have no effort. I have no skills. I just don’t have what I need.” That’s a care of this world. You know what the opposite of that is? Standing on the word, the seed, the word that’s been planted. That’s the opposite of the thorns. It’s truly polar opposite. You stand on the word and say, “My God owns the cattle on a thousand hills” (Ps 50.10). I was just praying that this morning while we were worshiping. I was like, “God, you own the cattle on a thousand hills.” And I was just bringing my stuff to him: “God, I’m worried about this, worried about that.” But then I started remembering and reminding myself, “No, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.” That’s just a symbol that God has everything he could ever need and everything you could ever need. And so I remind myself, “God, you love me. You won’t let me die.” Well, you might let me die, but then raise me from the dead. Either way, I have hope. In the end, God will provide. You can just rest in that. You can rest in that promise, in that provision.
How much more does your Father know what you need than even your earthly parents can demonstrate? We had that great collect this morning, where it talks about, “You know our needs even before we ask, and our ignorance in asking.” I love that phrase. We ask because we’re like, “God, don’t you see? Can’t you see that this bill is due? Can’t you see that I need to buy shoes for my children? Can’t you see that I need to do these things?” And he’s like, “I know what you need.” And he will provide. You can stand on the word. That’s the opposite of giving in to the thorns.
Or maybe you feel like you are not enough. That’s what you’re worried about. “Well, God couldn’t provide for me, because I messed it up.” “Well, God couldn’t use me, because I’m too wicked, broken, sinful. Something’s wrong with me. All those other people have got it figured out.” That’s part of this thing. We start thinking everybody else is just coasting and skating. “Look at how easy it is for them. Look at how great they are. Look at how God’s blessing them.” Don’t play that game. God loves you. That’s what matters. Stand on that.
In fact, I encouraged somebody recently. We were having a conversation, and I said, “You know, I think you just need to spend some time sitting in the fact that God loves you.” Maybe you just do a quick Google search, or one of those ChatGPT things, and you say, “What are all the scriptures that talk about how much God loves me?” First of all, it’s going to take you a while to get through all those. Second of all, maybe just start reading those for 5 minutes every day before you start: what does God think of me? And maybe that becomes your inner dialogue. Maybe you replace the critic in your head, the one who won’t let you get away with nothing, with the Spirit of God, who speaks only life.
That’s the difference between the devil and the Holy Spirit. The devil’s the accuser. He holds up all your faults before God all the time, and in your head, and he says, “Look, this is everything he did wrong.” But then Jesus came, conquered the devil, and now, instead of the devil holding up your faults to God, it’s Jesus holding up his advocacy of you: “I made him one of us. I welcomed him into the family. I adopted him. This is my brother. This is my sister. These are the people who are in me.” That’s the language in our head that needs to be replaced.
So you think you don’t have enough? You think you aren’t enough? I like the symmetry here. Not having enough is basically “This mountain’s too big; I don’t have enough.” Not being enough is “This giant is too big; I’m not strong enough. I’m not good enough. This thing in my heart is coming after me, and I can’t do it.” Well, the good news today is you don’t have to. He will do it through you. In Christ, he will make you like himself.
And then we’re afraid of the unknown. And this has an infinite regression, because you could just talk forever about all the things you don’t know. There are a lot of them. And so you might say something like, “What if I get robbed? Or in a car accident? Or cancer?” That’s scary. And our imagination for the bad can become so vivid and real to us. I know I struggle with claustrophobia in my life. Not proud of it, but I do not like closed spaces. And when I’m in those closed spaces, my brain is a maestro of painting vivid images of my eventual suffocation and death. It is unbelievable how skilled… if I was a writer, I would just stand in an elevator, write that down, win some prize. I mean, it’s amazing. Every detail of how terrible it’s going to be starts to weigh on me.
Well, the invitation this morning is to use that wonderful imagination God has given you to imagine all the good things God can give you. Just flip it upside down. You can imagine all the terrible things that can happen. And guess what? Terrible things do happen. And so it’s hard, because you’re like, “Well, this could…” But I promise you, you’re not Nostradamus. You’re not some prophet. You’re not going to be able to predict the exact set of terrible things that are going to happen to you. A different set of terrible things will happen. So why waste your time?
In fact, what’s even more guaranteed than that terrible things will happen is that all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. That’s the hope of the resurrection: that it doesn’t matter how terrible it is, you will never be away from God. We just prayed that in our song: “If I make my bed in hell, you are there” (Ps 139.8). You just can’t hide from the goodness of God. That will find you. The evil of the world will be conquered. It has an end date. The goodness of God will go on for eternity.
So let’s start using that vivid imagination to imagine the amazing things God can do in your life. “Someday I will be a best-selling fantasy author.” No, that’s a dream of mine, but, you know, I’m not super concerned about that one. I think about that one probably an ordinary amount. But you think about all the things you could imagine happening to you: “I’m going to get home from work, and my wife is going to greet me with a smile, and she’s going to have dinner on the table, and my kids are all going to say, ‘Dad, how can I serve you?’” I mean, you can go big with these imaginations. Everything up until the kids serving could happen. The kids serving part, I’ve got faith; someday that will be their response. But let’s remind ourselves, we’re invited to live in the goodness of God, the kingdom of God. There’s nothing he can’t do. In fact, we’re told, again by VeggieTales, “God is bigger than the boogeyman.” So the invitation today is: magnify God, not the problem.
VII. The Deceitfulness of Riches 25:59
Okay: the deceitfulness of riches, and then we’re on to how to be in the good soil. We struggle with the deceitfulness of riches in Orange County, because there’s just so much. The cares of this world, and then the deceitfulness of riches. You could go to the greatest conference, and then the next week you’re at this concert, and you forget everything God ever said, because, wow, Justin Bieber was amazing. I don’t know who’s cool or important anymore.
And it’s not actually bad to do the concerts. It’s not bad to go to the festival. It’s not bad to try that new wine or to go to that new place. That’s not what I’m saying. The problem is we start to worship the thing. We start to worship the gift and forget about the giver. All of those things can be ordered all right if you just receive them as a gift from God: “Thank God for this thing that I get to do.” If you’re going to a thing, and it would feel weird to stop and say, “God, thank you for this thing,” then you need to stop and say, “God, thank you for this thing.” Or don’t do it, because it’s not from God.
That’s just a little game that you can play. “Okay, I’m going to this thing. Does it feel weird to stop and thank God for that thing?” Maybe there’s something disordered in your heart. Maybe there’s a way that you could enjoy this thing with God and not apart from God. We like to kind of carve out our little territory: “This is my little thing that I get to go do, and I don’t have to think about all that other stuff. I get to escape, or unplug.” This is not a critical word. This is an invitation: God’s life for you is better than anything you can grasp or imagine. And so if you’re running after stuff that’s taking you away (the deceitfulness of riches), taking you away from what God has in the center, then you’re not experiencing the best you can. It’s a lie if it’s apart from God.
Once again, you could have two people going to the same concert or the same experience, and one of them could be escaping, or running from God, or not having things in order, or worshiping that thing, and the other one can enjoy it with God, as a gift that they receive with joy and gladness. The thing itself is not the sin. It’s the position of your heart, and where God’s leading you. Okay, I think we get it. But I think it’s one of these things where you just want to remind yourself all the time that the thing, the goodness, the air conditioning, the whatever it is that you’re loving, is not the thing. God is the thing. God is the person. God is the gift-giver. Receive it as a gift.
VIII. The Good Soil 28:47
Okay, we’re going to go through the good soil real quick, and we’ll get out of here.
23 As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. Matt 13.23
So I’m going to give you the secret. This is it. It’s actually very simple. I’m going to focus on this word. You’re hearing the word and understand it. I promise I’ll talk about that word, understands. Understand here means to come into agreement with, to accept something and follow it, and to understand like understanding a new language. These are kind of three ways this particular word has been understood.
So first of all, to come into agreement with. Well, if you’re on the path and you just heard something and walked away, you’re not doing any of that. It’s passing by. You’re not understanding. Or if you’re in the rocky soil, maybe you love the word, you’re excited about the word, but you don’t change. It doesn’t have an effect on you. Or maybe, like the thorns we were just talking about, you understand it, you come into agreement with it, and then you fall out of agreement with it as your circumstances change. I’m sure there were many times when Joseph wanted to come out of agreement with the word. I’m sure there were many times when he wanted to just discard the word, pack away the word: “Doesn’t exist anymore.” But instead he went deeper. He kept responding to the word of God and lived his life centered on that.
And it’s like understanding a new language, which is fascinating, because you can memorize words in a new language. I’ve done that with Spanish. It helps me some. But that’s very different than understanding the words, than understanding the language. And so when we talk about understanding the word of God, your job is to come into alignment with the word, agreement with the word, and respond to the word. God will bring the fruit. Look at this: “He bears fruit and yields a hundred-, sixty-, thirtyfold.” That comes when you accept the word into your heart and follow the word. When you respond to what God is doing and follow him, he will bring the fruit.
Even the understanding doesn’t have to rely on you. He is doing this work. You hear the word, and you come into alignment with it, you bring yourself to it, you allow the word to change you, and it will. And then you’ll understand it. And then you’ll be fruitful. This has been brought up many times, but trees are not out there thinking, “Fruit! Fruit!” It just comes from being a tree. You are the trees of God. You’re grafted onto Jesus, who’s the vine, and the fruit of the Spirit just comes when you stay connected with him, when you abide in him (John 15.4–5).
So you’ve heard the word this morning; you’ve heard the word in your life. The question is: are you abiding in that word? Are you aligning with that word? Are you bringing yourself into agreement with that word? And that just requires some simple time and attention. Pay attention. Write down things that you learn in church, at 3SI, and then sit there with your Bible and ask God to help you understand. “I don’t get this, God. What does this mean?” Or, “Bring me into alignment. I’m rebelling against this,” or whatever it is. Just spend some time with him in the word, and let him work in your life.
This is what it means to live in revival. It’s not hokey, overly emotional. It’s the way of a disciple who is watching the Master and coming to become like him: hearing, doing, then understanding. That’s the pattern. It’s not hearing, understanding, then doing. That’s not really how it works for us. We have to hear the word, do the word, respond to the word, and then often that’s when the understanding can come. I don’t think Joseph understood the word until he was surrounded by his brothers and his father and everybody had come into peace. Then he looked back and thought, “Oh yeah, that’s the word.” It took a lot of doing before he got there.
Out of this we learn that we belong, which continually causes us to become. Be with Jesus, become like him, and do as he did. This has been our mantra for what it means to be a disciple. Be with Jesus. Who is Jesus? The Word, the seed, the thing that brings life in your life. Become like him. Do as he did. Allow him to change you, and do as he did. This is where we get our daily bread. This is how we steward our hunger and thirst, and this is what changes the world. That’s simple, sustained revival: coming to the word, allowing it to change you, and then coming in to become like Jesus. Amen.