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Growing In God with Gary Hargrave


Aug 17, 2022

Growing In God Podcast

GIG #105 The Acts 2 Revival

I have a deep burden for the Body of Christ because we need to see the world touched right now. The world is in need. But the Church today is so divided and so devoid of the power that was released by the resurrection of Christ that we seem to have no ability to change anything. We must cry out to God for an Acts 2 revival that sees the Church truly manifested as the fullness of Him who fills all in all and change this earth by the power of His resurrection in us.

Show Notes: Read the second chapter of Acts and study the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that created the Church on the Day of Pentecost. Then ask yourself, is the Church today the same Church? Does the Church today have the same signs and wonders? Is the Church today speaking the Word of God with boldness and seeing thousands at a time being saved? If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then we must acknowledge that what we have of God, of Yeshua (Jesus), and of the Holy Spirit in our personal lives and in the Church falls very short of what the Scriptures promise us.

 

We have to look at revivals of the past such as the Azusa Street revival to see the Church operating with any power like the Church of Acts 2. Yet Ephesians tells us that the power of Christ’s resurrection is focused on us as believers and that the Body of Christ is the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The same power we see in Acts 2 and in the great revivals of the past is available to us today. So why are we satisfied with the limited measure we are walking in?

 

The disciples had been satisfied walking with Yeshua, but after His resurrection and ascension they were thrown into a crisis. They were thrown into seeking God together, overcoming the things that divided them, waiting on the Lord to be endued with power. And Acts 2 records the great revival that occurred. Are we not aware that the Church is in crisis today? The Body of Christ should be praying like never before, overcoming our divisions about the Scriptures by letting the Holy Spirit give us understanding and waiting on the Lord to be endued with power so that the world has the revival it needs. People need the signs and wonders. They need the voice of the Spirit of Truth. They need the power of Christ’s resurrection. Let us seek the Lord with all our hearts.

 

Key Verses:

 

  • Ephesians 1:18-23. “… what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.”
  • Ephesians 4:11-13. “He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.”
  • Acts 1:13-15. “They went up to the upper room … a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons.”
  • 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”
  • Luke 24:36-38. “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”
  • John 14:25-26. “The Holy Spirit … will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
  • John 17:22. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.”
  • John 3:34. “He gives the Spirit without measure.”
  • John 1:32-33. “He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining …”
  • Acts 2:14. “But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven …”
  • Isaiah 28:17. “Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies.”
  • Luke 6:12. “He spent the whole night in prayer to God.”
  • John 14:10-11. “Otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”
  • Acts 1:3. “He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs.”
  • Acts 4:31. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”
  • Acts 2:41. “That day there were added about three thousand souls.”
  • Matthew 7:7. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”
  • Hebrews 10:23. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

 

Quotes:

 

  • “It's going to take an outpouring of the Spirit of God into the world, into the Body of Christ, to fix what is terribly, terribly broken.”
  • “We as the Body of Christ right now need to learn to pray like we've never prayed before. We need a prayer life. We need an individual prayer life. We need a corporate prayer life that is going to be freighted with the power to change the world that we live in.”
  • “Let there be something in our hearts that begins to contend for another outpouring of the Spirit, as we see in the book of Acts, that is the nexus of what we are as the Church, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

 

Takeaways:

 

  1. We need to get out of this idea that it is fine for the Church to be powerless, that it is fine for us not to move as the prophets of God, as the apostles in the New Testament. We need to go back to the biblical outpost, back to the Acts 2 revival, back to the revivals of the past, and realize that it is for us as believers today.
  2. Until they received the Holy Spirit, the disciples did not really understand what Yeshua was teaching them. They were also divided. Today we have the Scriptures, but all the different understandings of the Scriptures have only led to division. We need an outpouring of the Spirit to give us the understanding and the oneness we are to have as His Body.
  3. By the Holy Spirit, the apostles stood up as a united force to speak the Word of God and that is what touched the hearts of people. We can no longer afford to be the divided powerless Church. The lie is overtaking everything, and the world needs to hear the Spirit of Truth from us. The world needs to witness the miraculous movings of God and believe in Him.