GRASSROOTS REVOLUTION

****Here are the notes for my sermon this Sunday. Longer than normal I realize. God is stirring our church family. I encourage you to be a part of the REVOLUTION!

Text: John 6:26-27

Intro: -Because our Father loves us so much I believe that from time to time within the
heart of every believer and every church comes those moments, some fleeting
others lingering longer, where the God’s Spirit pulls back the veil from our eyes
to let us clearly see our spiritual condition
*It is in those moments or seasons of life that often a state of discomfort is
aroused…for some it feels like anger, for others frustration, for others fear
BUT yet there is also most often an undeniable, sometimes faint or times more defined, excitement of the possibility that there is an invitation to a place where one has not yet journeyed.
-I also believe it is at those moments that, like all forks in the road, we are forced
to choose the path in which we will travel
*The first is to ignore the dilemma within and simply settle or remain in a
state of spiritual apathy – allow ones senses to numb, close ones eye’s,
and deafen one’s ears until in the words of Jesus
Luke 7:31-32
31 "To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other :"'We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.'
NIV
-where the song of the redeemed looses its beautiful melody and the dance
seems silly and the tears of the broken hearted seems antiquated and the
words of the Psalmist are forgotten “My tears have been my food day &
night”
-it is to simply settle into a spiritual comatose contented with the loaves
only sufficient enough to feed ourselves

I.. Or, we can in the words of Robert Frost…
“I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference”
-we can embrace the awakening of our souls and allow it to move us towards a
Revolution
*the throwing off of the old and the creation of something new
-Gandhi said “be the change you want the world to be”
*trace backwards any revolution and you will find that it had its beginning
not in a group, nor a committee, but within ONE
*ONE person catching a vision, willingly separating themselves from the status quo and living out their new found passion
-the exponential possibility of one person’s revolution spreading
into the lives of others can literally be used by God to change the
direction of a family, a church, the body of Christ

Martin Luther-
*frustrated with corruption of the Roman Catholic church as well as the
inadequacy of his own works theology Martin Luther turned in desperation to the
Word of God…there in the book of Romans Martin Luther discovered a truth that changed his life…”the just shall live by Faith”
-from this experience rang a battle cry that could be heard around the
world “Sola Fida”
*On Oct. 31, 1517 Luther nailed his 95 Thesis on the door of Castle Church in
Whittenburg challenging the corrupt church to a debate on the truths of God’s
Word thus begin the Protestant Reformation in which we are still apart
*One Man

Agnes Ozman-
*a young female student attending a small Holiness Bible college named Bethel
Bible College in Kansas housed in an old Topeka mansion known as “Stone
Folly”
*Agnes, along with a handful of students, was challenged by their college
president, Charles Parham, to study diligently what the Bible said about the evidence of receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit
*on the first day of 1901, Agnes Ozman, became the first to receive the baptism at
Topeka…here is her story:
The presence of the Lord was with us in a marked way, stilling hearts to wait upon Him for greater things. The spirit of prayer was upon us in the evening. It was nearly elevn o’clock when it came into my heart to ask that hands might be laid upon me that I might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. As hands were laid upon my hear, the Holy Spirit fell upon me, and I began to speak in tongues, glorifying God…It was as though rivers of living water were proceeding from my innermost being”
*Other students present jumped to their feet and began singing simultaneously
“The Comforter has come, the Comforter has come”
*revival swept through that student body and beyond and the begins of Pentecost
in American had begun
-by 1906 Pentecost has spread from one girl to estimated 13,000 and in
1914 300 Pentecostal workers and preachers gathered from 17 states in
Hot Springs, AR to form the General Council of the Assemblies of God with the distinct purpose of becoming the “total evangelization of the world”
*Today from 1 to 300 to nearly 60 million world wide…one soul every 10
seconds, one church every 20 minutes
*One Woman

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu-
*for twenty years worked as a simple geography teacher in Calcutta, India each
morning making her way to St Mary’s High School to inspire young minds
*her route to work took her right by men and women who were homeless,
destitute, and incapacitated by disease. Gut wrenching poverty assaulted her
senses and wrecked her soul day in and day out. Every day something in her
spirit would cry out “That’s all I can stand, I just can’t stand this anymore.”
*One day Agnes decided to take action and the legacy of Mother Theresa began.
*Mother Theresa quit her job rallied some students around her to help and began
taking in the dying and those lying in the open sewers
*dubbed the “Saint of the Gutters” in 1950 Mother Theresa founded Missionaries
of Charity…today four thousand nuns strong who are all working diligently to ensure that refugees, alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, the homeless, the blind, the disabled, the deaf, the poor and the destitute are being cared for
*One Woman

Martin Luther King, Jr.-
-a pastor by occupation
-a black man living in the racial oppression of the 1950s and 60s – the “White
Only” signs on drinking fountains and bathrooms and doors to restaurants; blacks
by law pushed to the back of the bus or forced to give up their seats to white
patrons
-Tired of the reality that his people were always found at the end of the receiving
line for educational, employment and housing opportunities
-King wanted the lynching of black people to stop and segregation banished so that his kids could grow up in a different world than the one he was living in!
-A day finally came when enough was enough and King began a civil rights movement – characterized by nonviolence, freedom and justice.
-Although gunned down outside his hotel one evening in April 1968 it was to late to stop the revolution that had already begun
-listen to the words of King spoken at the acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize
“I refuse to accept the idea that the “is-ness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “ought-ness” that forever confronts him”
-One Man

II. Every revolution begins with ONE…why not you? Why not me?
-the power of ONE to change a family, change a church, change a community…
-someone who throws off mediocrity, rejects Sunday Christianity
*someone who will not hide beneath religion, refuse to be satisfied with
ritual and beg God to break them out of routine
-To embrace the cry of the Psalmist
Ps 42:1-2
42 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
NIV
-not as eloquent literature but a soul stirring challenge
Ps 42:4
4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.
NIV

-To hear the cry of Jesus that to be a sincere follower of Him means to:

Count the Cost-
Luke 14:26-33
27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
31 "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
NIV

Matt 13:23
23 But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."
NIV

Take the Road Less Traveled-
Luke 6:46-49
46 "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? 47 I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.
NIV

2 Cor 12:7-10
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
NIV

Volunteer to Be the Change God Desires-
Isa 6:1-8
6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
NIV

John 6:65-69
65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." 66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
NIV

Dare to Sing to the Darkness-
Ezek 37:1-10
37 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"I said, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know." 4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.'" 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.'" 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army.
NIV

2 Kings 6:16-17
16 "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." 17 And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
NIV

III. Will you be ONE? Will you be part of a Grassroots Revolution?
-What God could do in us and through us if we dared to take Him seriously,
actually act upon what we know and truly believe in what we amen
-Scripture records the promise of Jesus
*He is returning with His reward
Rev 22:12-15
12 "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.
NIV
*As His follower I will have a place with Him
John 14:1-4
14 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
NIV

-Where do you want to be when Christ returns?
John 4:34-37
34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
NIV
*I want to be on the far side of the field…sickle in hand…”one more
minute God, just a few more swings…”
*Where do you want to be?

PRAYER
Rev 3:14-22
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
21 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
NIV

-Jesus stands at the door of the lukewarm American church and knocks
today…asking…will you join my revolution???
*one by one the door knob is turning…believers are being awakened and
inviting Christ in…the Grassroot Revolution is beginning…will you be
ONE?