Priscilla Shirer - Let Revival Begin with Me (12/28/2025)
Summary
Priscilla Shirer recounts the story of theology students visiting John Wesley’s home, where Billy Graham knelt in the worn knee marks by Wesley’s bed and prayed for God to spark revival again, leading to Graham’s powerful ministry. Drawing from John 11:54, where Jesus stops walking publicly among the people after religious leaders plot against Him, she challenges believers to seek God’s manifest presence through personal holiness and obedience, rather than settling for nominal Christianity. The call is for genuine revival—a tangible outpouring of the Holy Spirit—that begins when we stop diminishing His voice and live in a way that invites Him to move publicly in and through our lives.
Opening and Privilege
Good evening y’all. It’s a privilege to be with you and to have an opportunity to be a part of Legacy Nights. It was described to me via email by your pastor as a revival of sorts. He said, «We want an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.» I said, «I’m in, I’m in, I’m in.» So it is a privilege to be here with you. I always love being with your church and being able to share, in some capacity, the Word of God with you. I pray that tonight really is an inauguration, that it just sort of kicks off what it is that God wants to do in your heart, what He wants to do in your mind, how He wants to revolutionize your life, change that He wants to break off of your life spiritually, deliverance that He wants to bring, freedom and victory that He wants to speak over your life.
There are some trajectories that are going to be changed, some ambitions that are going to be refocused, some dreams and visions that are going to be planted in your heart. I believe that’s going to happen this week, and the fact that you’ve come out on a Monday night says y’all love it and are serious about this—that you didn’t come to play games. You braved the traffic, whatever it is you had to face to come out tonight because you want to see and hear the voice of God. Before I dive into just a short thought that I want to share with you that I believe will lead us, as it has led me, more closely into the presence of God, I can’t help but pause for a moment because I want you to hear what your pastor said to you a few moments ago. He said, «35 years ago I had a vision that the Lord gave me, and tonight I’m standing on this platform and seeing that outworking and the fruit of a vision from 35 years ago.»
Listen, some of us made New Year’s resolutions twenty-something days ago, and we’re already out. But 35 years ago, do you know what kind of faithfulness, what kind of diligence, what kind of prayer, what kind of integrity, what kind of character? Come on and help me celebrate Phillips and Holly Wagner! Thank you, thank you, thank you—we are the fruit of your diligence.
Prayer
Thank you, Lord, come and speak to us. Father, we have rolled out the red carpet for You in our praise and in our worship, and now we step out of the way because we need a word. Lord, I’m so grateful that each other is here, but we didn’t come to see each other. We came to see You. So, Father, rend the heavens, come down and speak. In Jesus' name, amen.
The Story of John Wesley and Billy Graham
It was the 1940s or so when there was a professor in England. His name was Professor Orr. He taught theology at a university there. He decided to take some of his theology students—this is the 1940s—on an excursion, a field trip, so to speak. He gathered up his students and said, «We’re going to visit some of the historical places here in England that have some sort of theological significance.» He took them to many religious sites, some that had been very strategic in building up the church and the Christian faith. One of the places they visited was the Epworth Rectory, which would have been the home, the living place, the study place of one of the great reformers of the church. His name was John Wesley. John Wesley put in place much of the theology upon which the church you attend and I attend—the foundation of much of that theology—was crafted by reformers like John Wesley.
So John Wesley would study, he would teach, he would preach, he would pray that revival would spread out not only in England but he prayed for it here in our country, that revival would break out. He and others like him assured in prayer some of the great revivals that swept through America in the early 1900s when people in mass were coming to know Jesus Christ as Lord, where the heavens seemed to be open in an unusual way, and revival broke out in a way that has made the history books, to which we still look back now and recognize the fire of God’s Spirit that spread during that time period. It’s because many of them, like John Wesley, were on their knees praying that God would move.
So these theology students went to visit this rectory, this house where he lived, and they went into the kitchen. Professor Orr showed them all where John Wesley would have eaten his lunches and dinners, where he would have cooked, where he would have lived his life. He took them into the study where John Wesley would have studied. These theology students were enamored, because of course some of the old books that John Wesley would have studied from, that he had written in, were preserved. They were still there on the desk and on the bookshelves, so the theology students were feeling the spines of those books, just enjoying the richness of this history.
Then Professor Orr walked the students up to the second floor, where the most intimate quarters of John Wesley would have been—his bedroom. They walked into the bedroom, and the students began to file around the bed in that tiny space. As they filed into the room, one of them noticed, as they got around the far side of the bed, that there were two small, well-worn patches in the carpet fibers of the floor. They were right next to each other and beside the bed. He asked his professor about those patches worn right there beside the bed, and Professor Orr explained that it is said those two patches were the actual places where every single morning—not for a minute or two, but several hours on end—John Wesley would plant his knees beside his bed and pray so long and so hard for revival that his knees had actually imprinted themselves into the floor, that the carpet fibers were worn as he prayed for revival.
So the students stood in there for a moment and, after a few moments, they left the room, went downstairs, and all got on the bus to go to the next location. Professor Orr stood at the front of the bus, counted the students to make sure everybody was there, and realized one was missing. He walked back into the house, went into the kitchen to look for the student—nobody was there. He went into the study to look for the student—nobody was there. He walked up the stairs into the bedroom, and he could just see across the other side of the bed the head and shoulders of a student who had planted his knees down in those well-worn patches on the floor, and he could hear the student praying, «Do it again, Lord. Lord, would You do it again? Would You do it again with me?»
Professor Orr walked around the side of the bed, put his hand on the shoulder of the student, and said, «It’s time to go.» Rising from his knees, Billy Graham went and joined the rest of the students on the bus that day, and then God did it again. I just wonder what would happen if this week there were some people brave enough to say, «Lord, would You do it again? Would You not allow me to be a Christian in name only? Would You make it so that I’m so uncomfortable with being a nominal Christian who just comes to church and just reads the verse a day to keep the devil away? Who’s just a good person but isn’t a person who is completely sold out for the cause of Jesus Christ? Lord, would You make it so that I am different and unique and set apart and filled by the Holy Spirit of God? Lord, would You do it again, and would You let it start with me?»
Praying for Revival
I’m praying for revival; I’m talking about straight-up old-school flat-footed revival. I’m talking about where the Holy Spirit breaks out so clearly and so fully that there is not one person who walks the face of the earth that does not know there is a God somewhere and that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to redeem us from our sins, that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no man comes to the Father except through Him. «Lord, do it again, » and you might as well go ahead and start at Oasis in L.A. Revival is what we’re asking Him for. It is a unique outpouring of the presence of God. It is when His Spirit, the immaterial, in some way becomes material, tangible, where we see, hear, and can detect traces of God’s presence.
It’s when you look back over your history and you can see footprints where God was working stuff out in your favor, where He was putting the right people in the right place at the right time to guide your steps. It’s when you step away from just celebrating His omnipresence. I’m grateful for the omnipresence of God. Omnipresence means that He is everywhere at the same time. Omnipresence means when I fly back to Dallas, Texas, tomorrow, I’m not taking all of God with me and leaving Him here with you; that He is just as much in Los Angeles as He will be with me in Dallas, Texas, because our God is omnipresent.
But there should be a hunger in us, the people of God—for more than just His omnipresence. We should want His manifest presence. Manifest is revival. It’s His clear outpouring; it is the detecting of His fingerprints in our lives. It’s when we hear His voice by His Spirit whispering to us and speaking to us. This has always been the desire of God—to reveal Himself. That’s what revival is: it is a revelation, a revealing of a tangible experience with God. That’s what He’s always wanted. Even in Isaiah 65, way back in the Old Testament, He said, «Listen, even when people didn’t want me, I was still trying to reveal myself.» He said, «I permitted myself to be sought by those who didn’t even ask for me. I permitted myself to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, 'Here I am, here I am, ' to a people that did not even call on my name.» I wanted to bring revival even when people weren’t asking for it.
God’s Desire to Reveal Himself
All throughout the scriptures, from the Old Testament all the way into the New, we find a God who wanted to be found by His people. He wanted to reveal Himself. Do you know what great lengths He went to reveal Himself to you and to me? All of history really is a chronicling of God’s desire to be seen, experienced, and felt in a tangible, real way—to be in relationship with every single one of us. It started in the garden. You know Adam and Eve—He sent them down in a perfect environment so that they could have a perfect relationship with Him.
But you know we have a very real enemy that has always worked against revival, the revealing of God. Even then he slithered into that perfect environment and introduced sin. They bit the apple, and sin didn’t just enter that perfect environment, but the DNA of sin was passed down to all humanity for all time, and it seemed like all hope was lost. But our God, never to be out, stepped in and had another move, because Adam and Eve came together again and had a little baby boy named Seth, and then Seth gave birth to Enoch. In Genesis chapter 4, it says that when he was born, everybody began to worship God again.
The enemy wanted to try to stand against the revealing of God, the revelation of God, the relationship of God to humanity, and so he made it so that sin was introduced and perpetuated and proliferated throughout humanity. Things got so bad that the entire human race really needed to be wiped out, and it seemed like the enemy had the upper hand and was going to win. But our God, never to be out, went and found a man named Noah and said, «Noah, I want you to build me an ark.» Noah said, «Oh, what?» He said, «An ark.» Because one day, it is going to rain.
Noah said, «Eska, what?» He said, «It’s going to rain.» So he built an ark, not even knowing what it was for, rain. He had never seen it before. But in obedience to God, his ark became the carrier through which God would preserve all of humanity. And once again, our God always is on top, but the enemy caused sin to proliferate again, the attitudes of people to harden against the one true God. Things looked so dire, it seemed as if the enemy had won. But our God, never to be out, went to a little obscure town and found an obscure man named Abram.
He plucked him out of a town called Ur, set him on a brand-new path, changed his name, changed the GPS coordinates on his ambitions and the trajectory of his life. He said, «Through you, Abraham, I’m going to make a brand-new people called the children of Israel. They will be My people. I will mark them with My presence. I will make a covenant with them so that you can’t mess with them, no matter how hard it is that you drive.» So the children of Israel were crafted as an opportunity for God to maintain a relationship with humanity, no matter what the enemy would try.
But the enemy, of course, wanted to do everything he could to keep revival, to keep revelation, to keep the revealing of God from happening fully with humanity. So Israel was enslaved for 400 years. They were enslaved down in Egypt, and it looked like all hope was lost. But our God, never to be out, made it so that there was a little boy named Moses who was raised as the Prince of Egypt, and at just the right time, He said to Moses, «Mo, you go tell Pharaoh, 'Let My people go.'» Pharaoh’s heart was softened, and he released the children of Israel.
And after 40 years in the wilderness, 40 years of coming into intimate relationship with their God, they finally came into the Promised Land. It looked like the enemy had been beaten forever, but the enemy had another move up his sleeve, because he made it so that the idols of their new land looked as appealing as the one true God. So they began to worship idols. In the book of Judges, it says that when you get to the end of the book of Judges, the last line of the book of Judges says everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes. Kind of sounds like America in the year 2019, doesn’t it?
And it looked like the enemy was going to have the final say, but our God, never to be out, went and found a woman named Ruth. Ruth married Boaz, and she and Boaz had a baby named Obed, and Obed gave birth to Jesse, and Jesse gave birth to a little baby boy named David. That’s King David, the one through whom the prophets had prophesied that through that lineage there would be one born who would settle this matter once and for all. The people that were on the stage of the world in that moment did not even know they were already in place for a historical move for which the enemy would never have a response.
The Old Testament closed, 400 years of silence passed, and then the curtain opened, and Jesus Christ stepped on the scene. That is the response that the enemy has never been able to tackle. Jesus—God the Father revealed Himself in the Old Testament, and then Jesus came in the New Testament. Jesus was the physical embodiment of God the Father. He said, «If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.» Yahweh tried to make it so that He could have a relationship with people as boldly as He could in the Old Testament, and He came in the New Testament in the person of Jesus Christ.
In every dispensation, He tried to figure out the best way to make it so He could reveal Himself to humanity: God the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus the Son in the New Testament, and in every stage, people rejected the revelation that God gave them of Himself. One scholar said it this way: the great sin of the Old Testament is that they did not believe in God the Father; the great sin of the New Testament is that they did not believe in Jesus the Son; and the great sin of our generation is that we really don’t believe in the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Walking Among Us
But at every turn when Jesus, our God, seeks to reveal Himself, we always question the way He seeks to reveal Himself to us. Jesus came in the Old Testament, the Word made flesh, and He dwelt among them. Listen to how John described this beholding of Jesus. He said in John chapter 1, verse 14, «The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.» Listen to the awe in his voice as he says it. «And we beheld His glory.» I mean, John, I can’t believe it—the glory of God the Father! We saw Him with our own eyes; we got an up-close, personal, front-row seat chin on our hands, salivating experience because we got a front-row seat to see Jesus Christ, to hear the words come out of His mouth, to hear Him teach, to see Him heal, to prophesy, and tell people to repent because the kingdom of God was at hand. We got to see Him for ourselves.
I love how Eugene Peterson puts that verse in The Message Bible. He says, «Jesus came and moved into the neighborhood of humanity.» That He came to make Himself present—to walk publicly among the people so that they could experience what it was like to be in the very presence of God. And so He performed miracles, and He taught so He could authenticate that He was who He said He was, and that He could do exactly what He said He could do. But everybody didn’t believe Him. They just weren’t quite convinced, just like they weren’t in the Old Testament. They weren’t convinced about Jesus in the New Testament. They weren’t sure about this Messiah business.
But what they did know was that wherever Jesus showed up, blind people could see. What they did know, even though they weren’t sure about the whole kingdom of God is at hand stuff, was that when this Jesus showed up, lame people could walk, and the deaf could hear, and the dead were being raised. Everywhere Jesus showed up, every time He spoke, His words were dripping with an awe and with an authority that they had never heard before. They’d heard the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious leaders, be nice, but they had never heard anything like this. And so wherever Jesus went, it says throngs of people crowded around Him because they wanted to get as close as they possibly could—you know, like the woman with the issue of blood who forced her way through a crowd because she wanted to get as close as she could so she could reach out and touch the hem of His garment because she knew if she could just touch Him, that power would leave Him and come to her, and heal her of all her diseases.
They weren’t sure about whether or not He was the Messiah, but they knew He was something, and God tried to reveal Himself once again—Jesus walking amongst the people. Which is why one of the scariest, most troubling one-liners in all of Scripture is John chapter 11, verse 54. I said all of that to get us to John chapter 11, verse 54. It says, «Therefore, Jesus no longer walked publicly among the Jews; He went away.» One of the most troubling portions of all of Scripture is that Jesus no longer went public. He was present; He was there. He just went into hiding.
He was around, but He chose to fade off into more quiet corners instead of walking publicly among the people. No more miracles, no more teaching out in public. People wouldn’t be privy to the revival—the revelation of Himself as He had come to give. No longer did He walk publicly among the people. Are we living in a time where He is no longer walking publicly among us? He’s present; He just isn’t public. Because the people of God have gotten so private and so quiet that we are Christians, we’re just not public with our Christianity.
That the Jesus that people are supposed to see in you, the Jesus they’re supposed to see in me, they are looking, but they just can’t find Him. He’s present; He’s just not public. This little portion of Scripture bothered me so much because I wanted to figure out what keeps Jesus from being revealed—that keeps the revival from happening. Why is it that Jesus would be present amongst the people but that He wouldn’t walk publicly among them? I was really bothered by this, especially since verse 55 says—and I’ll just read it to you from John chapter 11—it says that the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up to Jerusalem, that’s into the city, out of the country where they lived. They went out of the country into the city for this religious festival called Passover, and they were seeking for Jesus.
They were saying to each other, as they stood in the temple, «Do you think Jesus is going to come this year?» Listen, they went out of the country into the city, to Jerusalem for a religious event. They are standing in the temple, looking for Jesus, and He’s nowhere to be found. They are in the place where, if there’s any place that Jesus is gonna be, it’s gonna be in the temple, and they are looking for Him, and they cannot find Him. What an indictment against the Church of Jesus Christ! If when people come through these doors, if they come into this place, they can find programs, and they can find our plans, and they can find great teaching, they can find great singing, they can find lights and cameras and beautiful stages, they can find everything except the one who will actually change their lives.
And there are people who are coming into our churches, y’all, and they’re looking for Jesus. They might not even really know how to verbalize what they’re after. They just know that there is a void in their lives that needs to be filled. They need something that can quench them at the core of them, and they come in looking not for our plans, not for our programs. They are looking for the presence of God. The presence of God is what people are seeking; it’s what we all need. And these people are looking for Jesus, but Jesus is no longer walking publicly among them.
People Need to See Jesus
The presence of God—revival—is what people have always been after since the beginning of time. One of my favorite Bible study teachers and leaders in my life, her name was Elizabeth Elliot. She died a while back now, but she spent years and years in faithful service to God. I would read all her books and listen to her on the radio every now and then. She was the kind of speaker or teacher who was fairly bland. There were no jokes, she wasn’t gonna crack a smile, you know? She wasn’t going to try to entertain you; she didn’t really care if you liked what she was saying or not. She would just stand up there and literally, y’all, she would just talk just like this for a solid hour.
One time I was in a smaller group with her, and she was taking questions. Someone asked her, «Why is it that in your teaching style, I’ve noticed that you don’t feel the need for a whole lot of anecdotes or jokes or something like that? You don’t seem to need to warm up the crowd.» I remember Miss Elizabeth, probably in her late 70s by then, looking back at the woman who asked the question with a little smile on her face and saying, «Well, why would I do that? The people didn’t come to see me; they came to see Jesus.»
I said, «Wow!» The reality is they don’t need to see you; they need to see Jesus. They don’t need to see me; they need Jesus. He’s the one that changes lives, y’all. He literally sets people free. He gives people victory. He breaks chains in people’s lives. He opens up blinded eyes; He opens up deaf ears. He can change the trajectory of your entire family line. Listen to me, I’m in a family line that has been completely changed—the trajectory of our lives completely transformed—because Jesus stepped in and saved my grandfather, saved my father, saved us, changed the trajectory of our lives.
There’s no telling where I’d be if it were not for the King of kings and the Lord of lords. So I stand on this platform today not because I’m a preacher, but because I’m a satisfied customer of the grace and goodness of God. He’s changed my life; He’s changed my life. So the people were looking for Jesus, and they couldn’t find Him. I wanted to know why He wasn’t there. It turns out this happens in John chapter 11 right on the heels of Him raising Lazarus from the dead. You know the story—He walks in four days after Lazarus has already been dead. Mary and Martha are like, «Where have You been, seriously?» And Jesus says, «Don’t worry about it; I am the resurrection and the life. I’ll take care of this.»
He calls Lazarus out of the tomb and says, «Loose that man and let him go.» Lazarus comes forth in the sight of many, many people who were gathered that day. Some believed in Him; some were a little critical of Him, because you know people always are when Jesus reveals Himself. So they go to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and they have a little word to say about what Jesus is doing out here, performing miracles and stuff. It says that the Sadducees and the Pharisees convene a council to scrutinize the work of Jesus. Theologian A.W. Tozer says that when Jesus moves—when God moves—when He does stuff that’s outside of the box of our comfort zone, there is always one of two responses.
The unbelieving person will squat down to their knees only to get a better look, so they can be critical of and scrutinize that which God has done. But the believing person might also drop to their knees, but they will do so only to turn their attention upward with their hands raised and say, «Thank You.» The Pharisees and the Sadducees drop to their knees to get a closer look to scrutinize, and in their pride and arrogance they say, «Jesus is doing too much! We can’t let Him!» As if they could control Him. «We can’t let Him go on this way, because if we do, He will ruin our plans.»
And so they set out, it says in John 11:53, to make a decision to kill Him. They decided, «He needs to be silenced; He needs to be muted; He needs to be squelched; His moves need to be suffocated, exsanguinated, so they can get a handle on Him and make Him less, diminish Him.» They want to do whatever they can to kill the work of God, and so they silenced Him any way they could. It says that as a result of their decision, Jesus no longer walked publicly among them.
Don’t Diminish God’s Work
So I want to ask you—is there any way, any part of your life where you know you are silencing, diminishing, minimizing, extinguishing the moves of God in your own personal experience? I’m talking about where you’ve heard the voice of God. You know it’s the conviction of the Holy Spirit saying, «Apologize to that person or give to that person, or go there, or don’t go here, participate in that, don’t participate in this, » and you just keep silencing it? You just keep walking away from it, ignoring it, going the other direction from it, doing everything you can to minimize what you know is the work of God around you?
When we decide and choose individually to kill His work, to smother His work in our life, the scripture says His response is to no longer walk publicly among you. He’s present; He’s just not public. He will never leave you nor forsake you. You can’t be unsaved once you’ve already placed faith in Jesus Christ; you are eternally secure for heaven, and you don’t have to worry about that. But just because He’s present doesn’t mean He’s public. And He came to be more than just the King of kings and the Lord of lords that lives in you. He wants you to experience Him on the outside of you, in the way you think, in the choices you make, in the decisions that you choose, in the paths of your life.
He wants you to see Him working publicly around you—I mean, in the different experiences of your life. If you, like me, want to experience more than just His omnipresence, if you want His manifest presence—the thing that He came for—then we have to be careful that we’re not squelching, diminishing the moves of God in our life. Because in any place in our life where we have determined to kill Him, we will see that He no longer walks publicly among us.
Jesus no longer walks publicly among them because there are leaders—and, by the way, if I can just open up a parenthesis here—we have to be on our knees praying for the leadership of our churches, every single church, the place where they are entrusted with the responsibility of shepherding our souls. We have to ask the Lord to give them wisdom to make margin for the Holy Spirit like these leaders have in this church. For this week, y’all, is just devoted to letting Jesus do what Jesus wants to do in giving Him margin to move freely among us to be public among us. We need to be praying for integrity and character in our leadership; we need to be praying that there are people who are leading us who are watching over us who are faithful to do it the way that would most honor a great move and revival of God in the house of God.
The Holy Spirit Today
In the Old Testament, He came as God the Father; in the New Testament, Jesus the Son. Just like He wanted to move publicly in the Old Testament and move publicly in the New Testament through Jesus Christ, when Jesus finally ascended into heaven, He said to the disciples, «It is to your advantage that I go, because when I go, I’m going to leave with you another Helper.» In the original language, «another Helper» is a word that actually means «another of the exact same kind, » meaning I am not leaving with you a lesser version of Myself. Everything you had in Me, all of the authority, all of the grandeur, and all of the greatness of God the Father that is in Me is now in the person of the Holy Spirit, and I am leaving the Holy Spirit of God with you in 2019.
So that just as God wanted to reveal Himself in the Old Testament and just as Jesus the Son wanted to walk publicly in the New Testament, you now have every right and privilege as a daughter or son in this dispensation—in which He has left the Holy Spirit—to experience the full presence of God among you in the person of the Holy Spirit. Did you know that when you place faith in Jesus Christ, you should speedily receive the Holy Spirit of God? I’m asking you, did you know it?
Listen, the Holy Spirit is not a ghost or a wind or a fire or a dove. He’s often symbolized by those things, but y’all, He is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity—not third because He is least in value, just third because He’s the last to be revealed to us in the pages of Scripture. But all of the fullness, all of the power, all of the glory, all of the grandeur of God the Father is in the person of the Holy Spirit. That means when you place faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you, that means that all of the grandeur, all of the goodness, all of the authority of God the Father now lives on the inside of you, and He doesn’t just want to be present; He wants to be public.
That’s why you get His fruit, because that means that when your patience has run out with that person—you’ve got no more patience—He gives you the fruit of the Spirit so you can have patience that goes beyond your natural capacity to have patience. It means when you do not have any self-discipline, the fruit of God’s Spirit means that you are able to restrain yourself within your flesh. Not only do you have the fruit of the Spirit that’s public, you also have the gifts of the Spirit so that you can operate in a way that publicly analyzes the body of Christ and builds people up, encourages them, and stirs them on. It’s God’s public activity in your life.
It’s called the manifest presence of God. The person of the Holy Spirit enables us, as the body of Christ, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling by which we have been called. It’s the presence of God on our life. It marks us. He is the one that makes it so that God is not just in us; He is on us, where people can see a public demonstration of the power of God just because we walked into the room. On our jobs, in your university, walking down the corridor of your high school campus, in that organization you’re involved with, and in that endeavor in which you’re sewing all of your gifts, your talents, and your creative abilities, you’ve given it everything you have. The Holy Spirit is the one that, when His presence is upon your life, makes it so that when you walk into the room, people get a public demonstration of Jesus Christ because of the words you say, because of the choices that you make, because of the integrity with which you stand, because of the character with which you walk, because of the way you were able to bring Christ’s love to bear with every person—even the difficult person—that you are able to love and give generously and sow yourself into every good deed to which God calls you, not by your own power and not by your own light, but by the Spirit of God who operates not only in your life but upon your life.
It’s called favor. Favor is God’s presence on your life. Favor is what opens up doors that no man can shut. Favor is what puts you in positions that nobody really thinks you’re qualified for. Favor is what enables you to do things that you know are beyond your capacity, but God has positioned you and placed you and prepared a way for you. That’s favor on your life.
And if you have the Holy Spirit of God, you have favor. I want to tell you this before I close: if there is one thing that invites the favor of God on your life—of course, if you’ve received Christ as Savior, He is in you—but I’m talking about where He’s on you visible, public. People can sense the presence of God because you have peace that passes understanding, like ‘cause they know what you’re going through in your life, and they can’t figure out how you still have sanity with what you’ve got going on in your life.
There is one thing that invites the presence of God on you like that; you ready? Here it is: holiness. You’ve got to live holy. You’ve got to decide to lay aside every sin and the weight which so easily entangles you, so you can run with endurance the race that has been set before you. You can be in your war room praying against the schemes of the devil, but I’ll tell you, if you leave your prayer closet and still live a raggedy wayward lifestyle, then the enemy you just prayed against will still make himself at home in your life. You’ve got to live holy!
I’m talking about integrity. I’m talking about being the same in the dark as you are in the light. I’m talking about character, where we don’t just come in here on a Monday night, and then Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday night, and have such a great time hearing about the promises of God and the truths of God, and then we walk out of these doors and nobody aligns their life in a way that is actually congruent with everything that we listen—we’re getting ready to get it this week. Every single night this week, God is going to pour something into your life. He’s going to give you clear direction. You’re going to sense a pain, a conviction of the Holy Spirit in regards to something that one of these teachers that the Lord has entrusted to you, you to them, this week. There’s going to be something that the Lord is going to give to your life, and you’re going to have to decide up front whether or not you are willing, whether or not I’m willing to align my life with the truth that God gives us this week.
To the extent that we’re willing to say «Yes» and bring ourselves into alignment—that’s holiness—that’s the extent to which we will see Him go public in our lives. And I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of just having private Jesus. I mean, I’m so grateful that He’s present, but I want Him public! I want what I get on the pew to come to the pavement of my experience, that when I walk down the road of life, I walk with Him; I see Him move; I experience Him.
I want that holy anticipation that comes because I’m eager to see what God’s gonna do today. I want to wake up with holy expectation that today I’m gonna see a move of God. Today I have the expectation that He is coming to do something that is far beyond anything that I can ask for—things. Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond, to Him be the glory in this church now and forevermore. In Jesus' name, everybody said, «Amen.» Amen, amen, amen.
Closing Prayer
As you are standing to your feet, I want to pray for you. If you are in a stage in your life where you know Jesus is present with you, He’s just not been public, there might be some reason in your life where you recognize, «Man, I’ve been, in some way, diminishing His voice or ignoring Him or trying to kill His work in my life.» Because of my own disobedience or my own pride or arrogance, man, He’s not been as public as I want Him to be. I want Him to walk publicly among me. I want that to change tonight.
If you’d bow your heads with me and close your eyes—if anybody knows He’s present but He has not been public, and you just want prayer in regards to that tonight, would you just raise your hand and let me pray for you?
So, Lord, I pray for every hand that has been raised, every woman, every man who is asking, Father, that You would make Yourself apparent in their lives. Lord, I pray right now in Jesus' name that You would do something this week that would let them know You saw their hand tonight. Father, would You show up in some tangible, public way that reminds them that You will never leave them nor forsake them?
Father, I pray for a little wink from heaven, God, a little nod from heaven that demonstrates to them that You are with them, Father, and that You will never leave them. And, Lord, I pray that whatever it is that might be in their life or mine, Father, that is keeping You from moving as freely and as fully as You would like to among us, Father, I pray in Jesus' name that You would show us what it is. Thank You that Your Word says that when You do, we can bring it to You in all confidence because You are faithful and just to forgive us from all sin and to remove it from us.
And so, Father, I pray grace and peace to those who have raised their hands. I thank You for how You’re getting ready to move publicly and so remarkably. I pray and thank You, Father, for how revival is on the way. And when You reveal Yourself, Father, we will be careful to give You all the praise and all the glory and all the honor. In Jesus' name, everybody agreed and said, «Amen.»
Father, I pray for a little wink from heaven, God, a little nod from heaven that demonstrates to them that You are with them, Father, and that You will never leave them. And, Lord, I pray that whatever it is that might be in their life or mine, Father, that is keeping You from moving as freely and as fully as You would like to among us, Father, I pray in Jesus' name that You would show us what it is. Thank You that Your Word says that when You do, we can bring it to You in all confidence because You are faithful and just to forgive us from all sin and to remove it from us.
And so, Father, I pray grace and peace to those who have raised their hands. I thank You for how You’re getting ready to move publicly and so remarkably. I pray and thank You, Father, for how revival is on the way. And when You reveal Yourself, Father, we will be careful to give You all the praise and all the glory and all the honor. In Jesus' name, everybody agreed and said, «Amen.»