Will You Not Revive Us Again?

Sermons | Cities Church

Last week, we were doing some work on our basement bathroom, getting ready to host a family of seven. A couple days before the family flew in, we were putting some final touches on the paint and installing a nice vintage mirror Faye thrifted and a couple cute shelves when she noticed that the mat in front of our kitchen sink was unusually wet — like, not the 4-year-old-spilled-her-water-wet, but wetter than that. We hung the mat out to dry and put it down again that night and went to bed.

The next morning, the same thing. And we noticed that our flooring was beginning to swell and warp. We were dead tired from all the work downstairs, our seven guests were coming in 24 hours, and we now have water coming from we-know-not-where. Well, we now know where — some combination of a dysfunctional dishwasher and a badly configured drain pipe. They ultimately had to rip out the floor, and the sink and part of the wall, the pipe, the dishwasher, a number of our cabinets in the process.

So we’ve had some low moments this week (tired moments, discouraged moments, wrestling-with-God moments). To be clear, this kind of low is light and momentary compared with what some of you are suffering right now, but we’ve had our low moments, and I’m sharing about them with you because I was stumbling through them while I was preparing to preach these verses — and they ministered to me deeply. And as they ministered to me, I prayed for you — because we all have low moments of various kinds, and so we’re all regularly in need of reviving.

And while the low moment for Israel here was a severe judgment (likely exile), this really is a psalm and a prayer for all our low moments in the Lord. We’re going to look first at our need for revival, then at our hope for revival, and lastly at the fruit of revival.

Our Need for Revival

Like I mentioned, the central prayer of Psalm 85 is this prayer for revival, for restoration. Verses 4–6:

Restore us again, O God of our salvation,

and put away your indignation toward us!

Will you be angry with us forever?

Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

Will you not revive us again,

that your people may rejoice in you?

Israel experienced these cycles in the Old Covenant. God would show up with stunning mercy and rescue them from their enemies, like he did in Egypt and at the Red Sea (and then dozens of times after that). Then they would eventually grow comfortable and complacent and start chasing after idols again. Then God would judge them to humble them and lead them to repentance. That’s where we find them here, praying in another valley of judgment.

And, by God’s grace, they’ve woken up and come to their senses (at least these Sons of Korah have), and so they pray: Restore us again, O God. . . . Revive us. . . . And there’s remarkable faith and power in these prayers. They could have just prayed, “We know we’ve sinned against you, so forgive us,” or “Comfort us,” or “Let us back into the land,” but no they prayed revive us, restore us — literally turn and give us life. Do something inside of us that we can’t do in ourselves. Awaken our weak and wandering faith. Burn away whatever’s keeping us from you. Stir our hearts into flame again. Start a revival right here, between our lungs.

And they asked him to do something impossible like that because they knew he works those kinds of miracles in human hearts. He’s not just sovereign over forests, thunderstorms, and elections, but he’s sovereign over fears and feelings and faith. The apostle Paul knew this about God and had a painfully low moment, and so he says, 2 Corinthians 1:8–9:

“We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

The God over your low moments is a God who raises the dead. Of course he can get you through this. Of course he revive your dull and struggling heart. So pray bigger prayers, prayers like this one, Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Revive my sleepy heart. Revive my aching heart. Revive my wayward heart.

IS GOD ANGRY WITH ME?

Now, before I say more about this reviving God and our hope in him, the question I wrestled with more than any other this week was whether we should still pray verses like verses 4–5:

Restore us again, O God of our salvation,

Put away your indignation toward us!

Will you be angry with us forever?

Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

Will you not revive us again. . . .

Does God still get angry with us like this? When we go through low moments in faith, moments of serious trial or doubt or temptation, is God angry with us? Are we tasting indignation in those moments? And there’s three things I want to say to you.

First, if you believe in Jesus — if you’ve been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone — there is therefore now no condemnation for you. Your days of wrath are over. God has already put away his wrath and indignation, once for all, by crushing his Son in your place. We don’t have to wake up and wonder if we’re going to live under wrath today.

If we belong to Jesus and live in him by faith, we’re living all day, every day under the Father’s grace and mercy and love.

He’s not angry with you like that anymore — I hope you can believe that. He loves you like a father or mother loves a child — even more than good fathers love their children. In Christ, his love doesn’t waver, and his mercies are new every morning. They’re new today.

Now that’s not to say that our sin doesn’t displease him. It does. And this is the second thing to say here: even beloved, forgiven, no-condemnation children can grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). And so God still disciplines us, like any good Father would, and that discipline is often very painful. But that pain is never wrath. It’s fatherly love. It’s not punishment. It’s a keeping pain, a refining pain. Our low moments, in Christ, are all acts of love meant to lead us to more of him.

That being said, and this is the third thing, if you’re knowingly persisting in some sin right now, verses like this should make you tremble. Unrepentant sin makes him very angry. It fills him with righteous, violent wrath. Israel’s exile was an awful judgment against their unbelief — and it’s now, here in Psalm 85, a merciful warning to us about what happens when we won’t walk away from sin. Those who are his will never taste his wrath — never — but those who pretend to be his while living in sin have every reason to fear.

If that’s you, you should pray, “Put away your indignation toward me! Will you be angry with me forever?” Give me faith to finally believe and repent and walk in the light! Give me eyes to see Jesus for who he is — Lord, Savior, and Treasure, a Treasure far more valuable and satisfying than anything sin has ever done for me. And give me courage to finally put my sin to death by your Spirit.

The Hope of Revival

Okay, so we’ve felt Israel’s desperate need for revival here. They’re languishing in exile — spiritually, relationally, emotionally. They’re feeling the consequences of God’s anger, and they know he’s right to be angry. Their suffering isn’t injustice. So what can they appeal to? What can they possibly say to the God they’ve sinned against? They have nowhere to stand now — nowhere but mercy. Verses 7–8:

Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,

and grant us your salvation.

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints. . . .

We know how wicked we’ve been. We know we don’t deserve your forgiveness and comfort, but we’re asking for it anyway, because we know who you are. You’re the God of steadfast love. You’re the saving God. And so even while our lives are anything but peaceful — even while wars rage and our enemies make our lives miserable — we trust that you will speak peace to your people, your saints.

Where does that confidence come from? They can have this kind of confidence, despite how far they’ve strayed from God and how much they deserve his judgment, because this God has revealed himself to be a certain kind of God. At Mount Sinai, God passed by Moses and declared to his people, Exodus 34:6–7 (and we hear these verses all through Psalm 85):

“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. . . .”

He doesn’t have to be that way with sinners. He would have been totally just to just wipe us all out. But that’s not who he is. Even when he was obviously angry with Israel (and, again, he was right to be angry), the psalmists here knew he would speak mercy again (to those who were truly his). And they knew this, in part, because he had done it so many times before. This is verses 1–3:

Lord, you were favorable to your land;

you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

You forgave the iniquity of your people;

you covered all their sin. Selah

You withdrew all your wrath;

you turned from your hot anger.

You restored. You forgave. You covered. You withdrew your wrath. You turned away your anger. In other words, we’re not asking you to do something that you haven’t already done for us. And we’re not asking you to be anyone other than who you’ve always been. We’re asking you to be who you’ve been and do what you’ve done — again.

And when we look back, we have so much more to say than they did, don’t we? Our past is even better than their past, because we know Jesus. They could remember what God did in Egypt, and the wilderness, and Canaan, but we have Bethlehem and Calvary. We can pray:

“Jesus, you came into our world, born in a manger. For our sake, you were obedient to the point of death on a cross, you were pierced for our transgressions, you were crushed for our iniquities, you were wounded so that we might be healed, you were poor so that we could become rich. You suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. And three days later, you rose to conquer death and give us life.”

The Sons of Korah couldn’t say that yet, so they said: You restored. You forgave. You covered. They would have died to pray the kinds of prayers we get to pray, the prayers we pray every day — in Jesus’s name.

And yet you, some of you, you still doubt God’s mercy. You don’t want to doubt his mercy (and you might not even admit that you doubt it). You don’t want to feel all the guilt and shame you carry around with you. And yet — for a hundred different reasons (in your mind, and in your story, and in your family) — it’s so hard to believe he’s like this. I hope this prayer makes that kind of mercy feel possible again.

Israel had utterly rejected God for the millionth time, they knew they deserved what they were suffering — and they still knew God would be merciful to them. Even now, you will speak peace to your people. I hear God leaning in, through these verses, to say to some of you, Beloved, how much more do I have to do to prove my mercy? God loves to revive the undeserving, yes even you, because he loves to show mercy — it’s who he is.

The Fruit of Revival

We’ve looked now at the need for revival — then and now. We’ve looked at our hope for revival: the merciful God, who raises the dead. With the time we have left, I want to look briefly at three fruits of this kind of revival. When God works this spiritual life and resolve in a people, what happens next? I see at least three kinds of fruit here.

1. JOY

First, this kind of revival fuels our joy. This is a pretty wild way for sinners to pray, really. God, we’re suffering right now because you’re angry with us. And you’re right to be angry with us because we’ve rebelled against you — blatantly and persistently. But we’re asking you to forgive us anyway, and not just forgive us, but to make us really, really happy. “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”

How can they pray like that! How can they sin like they have and then turn around and ask for joy? Because they know that God wants them to be happy. That’s the only way to make sense of this verse: We believe you’ll be willing to revive us because we know you want us to rejoice in you. And he does! That’s the kind of God we have. It’s literally too good to be true, but the holy God of the universe is personally, sovereignly, and eternally invested in making you happy. Has anyone known a god like this? He doesn’t just want an obedient people — he’s not looking for slaves who will do what he says — no he wants his people to be as happy as humanly possible in him.

And, notice, they pray specifically for a joy in God. “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” In other words, this isn’t the kind of rejoicing we did when the plumber fixed our leak this week. Don’t get me wrong, we were all kinds of happy that the floor was dry, and we were thankful for dear William and the good work he did, but this is different. Yes, God promises to provide relief and establish peace for his people, but they don’t only rejoice in him for what he does. He is their exceeding joy. We heard this last week, in Psalm 84, didn’t we?

How lovely is your dwelling place,

O LORD of hosts!

My soul longs, yes, faints

for the courts of the LORD;

my heart and flesh sing for joy

to the living God. . . .

A day in your courts is better

than a thousand elsewhere.

Find the best circumstances, in the most beautiful place on earth, with the very best people, and they’d a thousand times rather be with God. Happiness, as Pastor Jonathan told us, is getting to be with Jesus. Jesus himself says, John 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” In other words, I want you to be as happy as humanly possible — joy to the full — like I am.

So, as we pray for God to revive us, we’re looking for more than relief from suffering, or reconciliation in a relationship, or freedom from temptation. We want greater, fuller joy in him. God wants you to be as happy as you can possibly be, and you’ll only find that much joy in him.

2. FAITHFULNESS

Joy isn’t the only fruit of this God-wrought revival, though. There’s a second fruit, and it’s hiding in verse 8:

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints,

but let them not turn back to folly.

Restore us, O Lord, and then don’t let us to turn away from you again. The root Hebrew word for turn back is actually used several times in this psalm: You restored the fortunes (verse 1). You turned from anger (verse 3). Restore us again (verse 4). Will you not revive us again? (verse 6). And then verse 8 (the Hebrew listeners would have heard this word repeated), “but let them not turn back to folly.” You’ve turned and restored us in the past, Lord. We want you to turn back and give us life — and then don’t let us turn back to our sin. Our faithfulness to God is a second fruit of this revival.

Again, this is how far his mercy reaches. He not only forgives us and satisfies us, in Christ, but he also preserves our faith in him and works obedience in us. He has plenty of power to keep us from turning. And so when he gives new faith, or when he revives weak or wandering faith, that faith always produces new life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Where, in your life, are you being lured back into folly? What besetting sins tempt you to turn away from this mercy? Ask God for a revival with resolve — a resolve to reject all the temptations of folly and embrace how he’s called us to spend our short lives here before glory.

3. GLORY

And that leads us to our third fruit: glory. When God revives us like this, we experience greater joy in him and we turn away from sin and temptation (to greater faithfulness) — and so glory fills the land. These are three great fruits of revival: our joy, our faithfulness, and his glory. This last one may be the most encouraging thing I saw all week. Verses 8–9 again,

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints;

but let them not turn back to folly.

Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,

that glory may dwell in our land.

What does that mean? If God gives this kind of revival, and unleashes this kind of joy in us, how would his glory “dwell in the land”? What are the Sons of Korah imagining here? There’s no indication here (that I can see, anyway) that they’re looking for pillars of fire or mountains of smoke. No, I think they’re mainly imagining God’s glory in and among his people. They’re thinking of all the evidences of his presence and power in their relationships, their families, their neighborhoods and workplaces. God will be glorified when his people live out their faith in obedience with joy. “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you . . . and that glory may dwell in our land?” Because when your people are satisfied in all that you are for us, you look great — you get the glory.

And this is what we want to happen in these Cities. We want this to happen all over the world. We want this glory to fill the whole earth as the waters cover the sea (a sensitive picture for us after our water issues the last couple weeks). But that’s what we want — we want glory streaming down and swelling up to fill everything we see and know, and that happens through our faith-filled rejoicing in God.

The Kiss at the Table

When the Sons of Korah kneeled down to ask for mercy, they sang one of the most beautiful pictures in all of Scripture, verse 10,

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;

righteousness and peace kiss each other.

It’s beautiful because it’s scandalous. When it comes to sinners, how can righteousness and peace ever meet, much less kiss? God is perfectly righteous — he never does wrong, excuses wrong, or overlooks wrong — holy, holy, holy. And we’ve all sinned, even this week, even this morning. And any sin, even one, against a holy God deserves the fullness of his wrath in hell. It would be evil for God to simply speak peace over our wickedness. And this brings us to the table.

Righteousness and peace meet in Jesus. They come together, like two massive beams, at the cross. And they don’t just meet — they don’t just reluctantly agree to work together for a couple years — no, they kiss. There’s no tension or distance between these two, not when they meet in this God, in this gospel. They kiss, for all who believe, beneath the broken body and poured out blood of Jesus. Because of Jesus, God’s not angry with you anymore. He stands ready to forgive you, to revive you, and to fill your hearts to bursting with joy, all for his glory.