What Is Revival? The Parable of the Lost Sheep, Luke 15: 1-7

¹ Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. ² And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

³ So he told them this parable: ⁴ “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? ⁵ And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Was there ever a time in your life when you needed someone to drag you out of bed because you had a hard time waking up by yourself?

A husband and wife were giving each other the silent treatment. After a week of no talking, the man realized he needed his early-rising wife to wake him for a pre-dawn fishing trip with his friends. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence, he wrote on a piece of paper, “Please wake me up at 4:30 a.m.” He placed it on her pillow before going to bed. The next morning the man arose, to discover it was 8:30 a.m. He’d missed his trip. Furious, he was about to berate his wife when he noticed a piece of paper on his pillow.  It read: “It’s 4:30. Wake up!”

Some people need a wakeup call. Is your faith life asleep? Do you feel a bit disconnected from God or out of touch? Do you think you need God to revive you?  What exactly is revival and what does it look like? I think we may have had a fleeting glimpse of it after 9/11, when the country seemed to come together. There was a sense of being united, of repenting for evil in the world and any part we may have had in it, and of desiring a better world. On the Friday after 9/11 we gathered in our churches across America to pray. I lead a service in Brownsville where we confessed our sins, acknowledged that the world was less than what God wanted, and prayed for those who died and those who were hurting. We even prayed for our enemies.

I thought, “this is where God wants us: on our knees in prayer, asking for his mercy, asking for hope, asking for forgiveness, asking for his love, asking for his leadership into a better future.” What was missing from that occasion, however, was a sense of joy. Revival must look something like that post-9/11 Friday, except the staggering horror would have been replaced by overwhelming joy. The joy that Luke describes in heaven over one sinner who repents.