We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand.

Together we will spread the news that God is in our land.

They will know we are Christians by our love.
This is part of the song called by our love, and Id like to open with the story of
how and why this song was made.
Back in the 60s in Birmingham, there was a youth pastor in a church there that
wanted a song to encourage them to press forward, to press on.
Birmingham in the 60s was one of the worst places to live, the fighting that
ensued there was more than Ive ever experienced, and more than many of you
have.
The youth pastor there didnt know when the end was going to come, so he tried
to find a song or hymn that would be relevant and encouraging, yet with much
help he found no hymn or song.
So he made one, That is this song, By our Love.
and thats what well be talking about today.
Who believes God can use anyone in any situation in any way at any time?
If youve answered yes, then you are on the right track and believing the right
answer.
If you answered no, Im about to challenge your thinking.
and for some of you that have answered Yes, do you truly believe that?
Some of you may not truly believe that, some of you think he cant use you.
Why do you think he cant use you?
How could he not use you?
He uses us sometimes and we dont even realize!
God can use the blind to show people the way to life! He can use the mute to
shout his message! He can use the dead to bring people to life! He can use the
lame to lead his people!
Now the disbelief in God being able to use us most likely comes from fear.
so why do we fear being used by God?
There is no need to fear! Jesus commands against fear. Matthew 10:28
Heres a question, how can we fear man when the Great I Am lives in us?
He that is in you is greater than he who is in the world! 1 John 4:4

What do you really think? Do you really believe he can and will use you?
Are you lying to yourself by saying you do?
I have a horrible time if lie to myself, most of us lie to ourselves at least once.
We always want to confirm what we already believe, so we lie to ourselves all the
time.
Now let me say this
If you are blatantly not wanting to lead someone to christ, I could outright say
youre not a christian, but I wont make that claim, its not my duty to know your
heart, thats for you to figure out, and for God to show you.
Leading someone to Christ is called an awakening, now we usually use the word
awakening for something like spiritual awakening most of us think of that being
a large scale move of God, and only large scale. However it can be one person
coming to Jesus, that is an awakening, an awakening is when someone is first
saved.
Now a revival on the other hand is the reawakening of former believers Revival
means to bring BACK to life.
So when I refer to an Awakening I mean the first time leading to Christ, when I
refer to revival I mean the reviving of former christians who have fallen away.
So Im going to ask you this, Do you want to see revival in this city? Do you want
to see an awakening break out in this country? If you answered yes then you
need to know what you need.
First lets ask the question, if God can use us in any situation in any way at any
time, do we need anything to lead this awakening and revival?
Yes we do, we need four characteristics within ourselves to lead revival, and
spark an awakening in those around us.

The First Characteristic We Need Is Love

Answer me this now, Do you love the unsaved people out there?
If not, ask yourself, Do I love Jesus?
To lead revival we need to have love for those outside of our church, to love them

we have to have a love for God, because when we love God, we love those he
also loves, and he loves them.
John 3:16
if God weeps for unbelievers, are we? If we are to be like him in every way and
love those he loves and weep for those he weeps, why arent we weeping when
we see doom and destruction outside?
A lot of the time rather, I see people freaking out, thinking its going to be them
that is next, Im not saying anyone here acts that way, but I do see it, and its not
the right mentality to have.
So we need love for people, and love for God, but what is love?
1 Corinthians 13:1-7 and all of 1 Corinthians 13 really hits the nail on this one.
So this defines love, but we have to realize, this is not love being defined as in
loving a spouse and what not, this is to be looked at as selfless love.
In fact, we can even add the word selfless before the word love in this passage,
and it will make more sense to us.
Without love we are nothing, we have no reason to be here, we have no reason
to lead revival, if we dont love those outside our church, then we are nothing.
and without love, which in this chapter Paul is referring to selfless love, we are full
of ourselves, and have no reason to do any of this.
Jesus loves us with an everlasting love, Paul says in Romans that nothing can
separate us from his love.
Shouldnt we imitate that love?
If Christ loves the people outside this church, and if were truly christians, then we
should have a love for them too, right?
Everything will pass away, prophecy, tongues, healing will all pass away, were to
use those gifts to save and witness to these people.
How do we gain this love then?
We need to ask God to give us a love for people outside this church, if we dont
already have a love for people, which I would hope wed already have that, we
need to realize if we have a love for God still.
And if we have no love for God, who are we to call ourselves christians?

and that will lead us to the second thing we need.

The Second Characteristic We Need Is

True Worship
Let me ask you another question, are you worshiping entirely how God wants?
You may wonder what I mean by what God wants.
Ill explain what true worship is, True worship is sacrifice, we worship who or what
we love most, so if we love God the most, we worship him.
Abraham loved God so much that he was willing to sacrifice the son God gave
him, this is found in Genesis 22:2-8.
Wow, Abraham was faithful even when his only son was put on the line.
Are we that way? Do we worship with true sacrifice? or are we singing to make
ourselves feel better?
You may be unsure, so what Id ask is that you ask God to show you the sacrifice
he wants, he didnt leave Abraham in the dark on what he wanted, so hell tell you
too.
He wants you to be faithful no matter what.
True worship is sacrifice, and we have to sacrifice our lives for Christs mission,
just as he sacrificed himself for us.
From our sacrifice will come humility and dependency on God.
We will be dependent on him to bring the outcome of our situations.
and when we are dependent, this will bring revival.
BY our sacrifice, we are also showing the example of true worship to others.

The Third Characteristic We Need Is

Empowerment

Let me ask you this same question Paul asked the Ephesians, When you first
believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit?
That question can be found at the beginning of Acts 19.
Some of you may not even know what the Holy Spirit is, just as the Ephesians.
So let me start with explaining what spirit empowerment is and where it started.
Spirit empowerment actually started way back in the old testament, it was VERY
rare though, and given to a select few, the first that come to mind when I think of
people that were empowered in the old testament is Elijah and Elisha, However
not to many people actually know who those people are, so I will give you two
more famous examples, Moses and Jesus were both empowered.
So when did it become a power available for the church?
Well, Back in Acts 2 (and this is after Jesus left earth) the disciples were spirit
empowered, and throughout the book of Acts, the disciples were used to
empower other believers so that they could spread the gospel.
Jesus told the disciples before he left to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the power
of the Holy Spirit, so they stayed there and waited and prayed, they did what they
knew to do.
they didnt know when it was going to come, but one day it came, and Peter
preached to the city of Jerusalem, and 3,000 were added to the church that day,
so the church went from about 120 people, to 3,120. THAT COULD HAPPEN
HERE TODAY!
Now throughout 1 Corinthians Paul is talking about how were temples of the Holy
Spirit, and this is not the same thing as being spirit empowered.
When you become a christian, the Holy Spirit comes into you, youre inviting him
in.
Hes your conviction when you sin, and hes your life basically.
So what is spirit empowerment?
Well, first we have to ask the question why do we need to be spirit empowered?
Let me make this clear, You cannot bring a soul to Jesus without the power or
work of the Holy Spirit.
You need to be spirit empowered to save anyone, if were to bring revival and
spark an awakeing, we need to be empowered.

We have to be open, True worship opens us to the plans God has for us, and
ultimately, will open us up to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring souls to
Jesus.
So thats why we need to be spirit empowered, now let me explain what it is.
Spirit empowerment is when you accept everything God has for you basically, he
gives you his gift of power, which is his spirit, that ultimately gives you an ability
or more than one ability which will help you in bringing souls to Christ or
strengthening the church, and that ability can vary depending who you are, some
are to be healers, some are to be preachers, etc..
So how do we receive this gift?
Its simple, we have to have a desire for God to give us this gift, we have to ask
for it, and ultimately have a love for this world and a desire to save it.
You can be empowered by the spirit and have the gift of healing, but let me be
honest with you, I dont care what gift you have if youre not witnessing through
that.
No one who is a true christian will care about your healing or tongues, or
anything if you are not witnessing through it.
There is no point in wanting the power of the spirit if you are not going to witness
with it.
none of you are going to lead revival in this city and beyond if you are not
empowered, this is a fact.
Let me give you an example in my life of when the spirit was used through me,
recently in fact.
March 30th
At Heavens Gates and Hells Flames, the second night at the end of the
performance, they were having the altar call, I saw a teen, 17 years old, and I
saw this white glow around him, God told me right then to go speak to him and
say these words Hey, I can see your struggle with God, Are you saved? Do you
want to go down to the altar with me?
He made no hint that he wanted to go to the altar that night, nothing, this was
entirely a work of the spirit.
He jumped at the chance to go down to the altar when I asked, and he came
down with me.
This was no work of a human, I dont know exactly what God did through me, I

dont know if my words pierced him or what, or if hed already been struggling,
but this was entirely a work of the spirit.
I dont know if thatll happen to any of you, I sure hope it does, with two people,
three people, one million people, I dont know what you guys are going to do
exactly, but whether you simply give money to a poor widow or save the country
by a single word, those will both be equally great.
How do we know if were empowered?
There are many ways, like with what happened to me, having a boldness to go to
a 17 year old without hesitation.
Another way is if God heals someone on the streets at some time through you,
he did that with Peter. For all I know, You can be flown somewhere like Philip
was!
You will likely know, all you need is to be open and have a true desire.
You have to open yourself up by true worship, which is sacrificial worship.

The Fourth Characteristic We Need Is

Unity
I repeat it again, We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand.
Together we will spread the news that God is in our land.
They will know we are Christians by our love..

That is speaking of unity, is it not?

now I can sit here all day and say you need to be unified, but Im not going to do
that.
Its not my job to resolve all of your problems and struggles with other people,
thats Gods job to show you whats dividing you, and its your job to mend that,
unless only God could.
So what I am going to say is this, we need unity, and these are the examples of
what division can do to us.
Division is also what the enemy wants in us, 1 Corinthians was written by Paul to
the church of Corinth because of their division.
Now Id also like to explain what was going on in the church of Corinth at the time
of Pauls letter to them.

They were thinking other leaders and people and ministries for example were
better than others, it was basically and issue of Pride and it was destroying them.
So think of it this way, as if this church were the church of Corinth at that time.
Think of Take Two thinking it was greater than every other ministry and split off of
the church, now imagine Mosaic thought the same with Take Two and split off
from that, and now think of Encounter doing the same thing, and splitting off of
the church, now think the same for awanas or womens ministry, etc..
Now even worse, which will never happen as long as I live, is if the cafe split off, I
WANT TO KEEP OUR DONUTS.
So we need unity.
We need to be hand in hand.
Now Paul gave an example of how division hurts the church, He said the church
was the body of Christ.
This body has to have ears or it cant hear, and if an eye says i dont need you
to an ear, how is it to hear? or vise versa, how is the body supposed to see?
He also goes on to say how if one part of the body suffers, all of them do.
Paul explains in 1 Corinthians that when one part is in sin, when one part of the
body isnt living for God, all the parts suffer.
Boy is this truth.. I found that out during two weeks after my ear surgery, some of
you may not have known about that.
So let me tell you a little bit about it and youll understand the example Im about
to give you on the church being a body.
Now the reason I had that surgery is because I had a growth called a
cholesteatoma in my right ear.
now that growth was TINY, yet it was effecting so much.
now let me go back a little bit, this growth had been in my same ear when I was
11, and I had it taken out right before my 12th birthday
so it came back recently, and we had to take it out again, and then we made
precautions for it to not come back.
And let me tell you, I had to have an incision on the back of my ear, and if you
know anything about anatomy, your ear muscles are connected to your neck, so
you slightly move them when you move your neck.

Another thing is that your neck is connected to basically all of your muscles, so
when you sit, you use your neck, you use your neck to balance, etc..
I basically couldnt move my neck or stand up on my own in the first few days.
and for the next two weeks, it was pretty hard to do much, I couldnt bend over to
pick something up, I couldnt lift above ten pounds
So the point here is
Something so small, can cause you to suffer so much, even if its unseen.
if you are sinning and think its just small, your whole self is going to suffer, in the
same way if one part of the church is in sin, all of it is suffering.
If this Body is divided in some way, even if it seems small, its suffering.
It needs perfect unity, and thats only achieved by dependency, only if all of us
are dependent on Jesus.
We cant achieve this dependency without sacrifice in worship, and we cant
achieve that without love for God, which is love for people.
So lets put this all together
Love = Love for God and his lost sheep.
True Worship = Sacrifice to God, should be your entire life.
Dependency and Humility = Perfect Unity with God and others.
Spirit Empowerment = Dependency on Gods power to save others.
Unity = Perfect harmony of the body.
We have to have love to gain true worship, and we have to have true worship to
gain dependency and humility, and we have to have dependency and humility to
gain empowerment and unity.
Love to True Worship to Dependency and Humility to Empowerment and Unity.
Now lastly I want to explain one more thing.
You will not be at dependency on God if you are living in sin, and if you are living
in sin you are not in unity or true worship.
Sin is separation from God, and we need to understand this last thing.
Dependency = Unity with God.
Sin = Separation from God.

So I want to close with telling you a personal story

Its the story of how I was empowered, why I wanted to be, how I came to that
desire, and why I needed it.
when I was empowered, it was December 10th 2014, I had heard nothing about
spirit empowerment at this point, I was at our Encounter service and that night
was a VERY different night, although no night is the same.
We had communion that night, and we had the trays at different tables around
the fellowship hall, I was sitting at a table with my mom and brother and some
others, I cant remember who exactly
But Pastor said to take communion and if you wanted someone to pray with you,
theyd be standing at the communion tables.
So I pondered for a few minutes what Pastor had said and then prayed this, I
dont know what to do, but I want that power that you promised.
I then went to the closest communion table to me, and my dad was the one
standing there, so I took elements for communion and my dad asked if I wanted
prayer for anything, I replied, I want the power that Pastor was talking about..
So my dad prayed over me, but I didnt feel anything yet.
After encounter my dad asked me if I felt empowered and if I wanted my mentors
to pray over me again, I agreed and they did, and it was then that I felt it.
I didnt speak in tongues, I didnt heal anyone, I simply saw God say one word,
and that word was Boldness, so I assumed I had received boldness.
now I want to explain my prayer, why I said, I dont know what to do, what I
meant by that was I dont know how to lead revival or save anyone, and I dont
know how to become empowered.
I was asking God to show me where to go.
I had already had Love for people and for God, around this time as well I had
started actually singing during worship and not just standing there, I dont
remember the exact date, but it was in December the first time I had sang during
worship. So I had only really needed empowerment at this point, I didnt realize it,
but God knew, and he showed me what to do.
You may be at a point like that now.
You may not know what to do, You may still think you cant be used, You may

have fear, well let me tell you, I also didnt, but I asked God to empower me, and
he gave me boldness that I couldve never achieved by listening to worship music
every Sunday.
You have a few ways to respond to this message, the first is if youve lost your
love, If youve lost your love for people, then you may have lost your love also for
Jesus.
Which.. I dread that for anyone..
if you want to regain that love, You can come and pray with someone or come to
the altar and pray for God to give you a broken heart towards the lost.
Another response is if you arent seeing the effects of true worship, which are
humility and dependency, you may need to ask yourself if youre sacrificing
everything for God.
Once you identify your sacrifice, you can come to the altar and give that sacrifice.
If you want to be empowered, then someone who is empowered will pray with
you to be empowered, I will personally as well.
and when they do, dont expect anything to happen, but be open to everything.
and lastly you can respond by making sure you are entirely unified, If youve
sinned against someone or someone has sinned against you, or you maybe just
dont enjoy someone being around for something they said, you need to resolve
that. You dont have to do it now, but you need to resolve that as soon as
possible.
And when we do that, when were all ready to lead revival and spark an
awakening, God will move among us, we have to be prepared for that.
There may also be some that wont respond in any way Ive mentioned so far, so
what Id ask of those that didnt, that they would pray for those who are going to
respond, pray for them to understand where they need to be, and when to be
there.
so I will lastly ask once more, do you want to lead a revival? Do you want to spark
an awakening?
Dont let this message fly right over your head, ponder it until you decide your
answer, and when you decide your answer, stick with it.
God awaits your answer, Will you walk with each other? Will you work side by

side? Will you be the ones God uses and lead this city, state, and country back to
God?
So as the song said we would be
Will they know we are Christians by our love? - - -