Let's go back to 2 Chronicles chapter 7 and we're working our way through this, what I believe is a very important verse for us today. Sunday morning we saw the supposition of revival, if, then, a condition, a hypothesis. Last night we considered the subjects of revival, my people, which are called by my name. Tonight we come to the next phrase in the verse. And you have to ask yourself, if God is God, and He is, and if we are His people, and if we're saved, we are, then what is keeping God from fulfilling this promise? God hasn't changed. We saw that Sunday morning. And the God who gave revival in the past is the same God today. He has not changed. I don't think God desires revival any less today than He did in the Old Testament, New Testament, or in any century since. And certainly God's people are still God's people. And God desires that His people live in a state of revival. So if those things are true, if God is God and we are His people, then what is it that is the barrier from this promise being fulfilled in our lives today? I suppose if we get desperate enough, we would remove any obstacle. If we get to the place where we realize that we need revival, we would certainly do whatever is necessary to have that revival. But I think as we read this verse, as we think on this verse, it's very easy to overlook a very important part. Tonight we come to the stature of revival. If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves. The stature of revival. And there are three particulars when it comes to this stature that I believe are necessary for us to investigate tonight. Let's talk first about a damaging pride. Shall humble themselves. I think we can all be honest tonight that all of us struggle with pride in some form or another. Pride is one of those sins that seems to attack us in times of victory, that is success, as well as in times of failure. It seems like no matter what level of Christianity we're at, or what stage we're in, pride is always something that the devil uses against us. We need to understand that pride is sin. I know that perhaps we could use the word pride in an unsinful way. In other words, there wouldn't necessarily be pride in our heart if we said something like, I'm proud of our church. You know, a pastor might say tonight, I'm proud of our church family. They came out on a cold night, on a Monday night to revival. I'm proud of our church. And he can make that statement and not be sinning, I don't think, in making a statement like that. But we need to understand that pride in its form as God places it in the Bible is sin. And high look and a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked is sin. Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination unto the Lord. We talk about abominable lifestyles. We talk about certain lifestyles in our culture today being an abomination to the Lord. And rightly so. But the Bible says, These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him. A proud look. Now we wouldn't compare pride on our own to some of the sins that we often refer to as an abomination, but God does. Pride is a horrible sin. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father. It's of the world. And the world passeth away in the lust thereof. God hates pride. And the reason so is because pride is a root sin. When you think of where pride originated, you can see why God hates it so much. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into the heavens. I will exalt myself above the throne of God. I will rise above the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Lucifer in heaven, that archangel of heaven, lifted up his heart in pride against God. Pride is a root sin, and that root manifests itself in our sinful being. In Obadiah verse 3, the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee. Notice that root there, the pride of thine heart. Pride may manifest itself in different actions or different attitudes, but pride has that root in our heart. And this root manifests itself in oftentimes our lives as God's people. We saw in the church of Laodicea last night, because thou said, I'm rich and increased with goods, and in need of nothing. That was nothing more than pride. When God looked at them, they were wretched, they were miserable, they were poor, they were blind, and they were naked. But when they looked at themselves, they thought, hey, we got it all together. We're doing fine. Pride is a root sin, and pride is a ruinous sin. Therefore, pride compasses them about as a chain. The Bible says in Psalm 73, 16, when pride is a part of our life, it's like we are encompassed, we are chained to that sin, and we are bound, and we cannot serve God as we ought. Do you realize that every relational problem is a result of pride? When marriages are not right, when parent-child relationships are not right, when things aren't right at work between employer and employee, when things aren't right between citizen and government, all of those relational problems have their root in pride because Proverbs 13.10 says, only by pride cometh contention. When there's contention in a church, God says there's pride. When there's contention in a marriage, there's pride. When there's contention in a home, there's pride. When there's contention in the culture, there's pride. Only by pride cometh contention. Pride is a ruinous sin. When pride cometh, then cometh shame. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. And boy, does God ever illustrate this in the Scriptures vividly. We think of an Old Testament king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel speaks to his grandson in Daniel chapter 6 and he says, O thou king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and a majesty and glory and honor. All nations and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he slew. Whom he would, he kept alive. Whom he would, he set up. Whom he would, he put down. But when his heart was lifted up and his mind hardened in pride, he was disposed of his kingly throne. They took his glory from him. He was driven from the sons of men. They fed him with grass like oxen. His body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he knew that the Most High God ruled in the kingdom of men, and He appointeth over whomsoever He will. Here was Nebuchadnezzar, perhaps the most powerful king that's ever lived. When Nebuchadnezzar's name was heard, people trembled. They immediately were afraid. Why? Because this man's word was the law. But when that man's heart hardened in pride, The Bible says he ends up out in the fields with the cattle, eating the grass of the fields. His hair on his arms grew like feathers. His fingernails grew like eagle's claws. He was a man that went from sitting on the most powerful throne in the world to living like an animal. Why? Because of pride. The New Testament has a similar illustration of another king. In Acts chapter 12 and verse 21, on a set day, Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon a throne and made an oration. He gave a speech. And the people gave a shout. They said, it's the voice of a God and not a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him because he gave not God the glory. And he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. By the way, notice the order there. Most people die and then the worms of corruption destroy the flesh. Not Herod. He was eaten of worms and then he died. Why? He didn't give God the glory. I wonder if anything happened in our life today where we didn't give God the glory. I wonder if something in this service could happen tonight and we would forget to give God the glory. By the way, Herod is in Acts chapter 12. That's New Testament. That's the same age we're in today. You say, well, God doesn't deal. God dealt with Herod that way. Same time period we're in. Pride is a ruinous sin. And you know, pride is really a ridiculous sin. Think about it. We don't breathe tonight without God's permission. If God says, we die, we die. Our life is completely in the hand of God tonight. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why didst thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? If you have a job tonight, do you know why you have a job? Because of God. You say, well, no, I went to college and I got an education and I had to work hard, I had to put out a lot of... No, no. You have a job tonight because God gave you a job. If you have any measure of health, and certainly anybody in this room has enough health to at least be here tonight, our health is a gift from God. Everything we have... John said in John 3 and verse 27, a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. We have nothing that God hasn't given us. Whether it's a talent, whether it's a personality, whether it's an opportunity, everything that we have comes from God. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. He didn't say, without me you can do a little bit. He said, without me, you can do nothing. Paul said, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. And so pride, a damaging pride. But notice, secondly, a dishonored position. What does it mean to humble ourselves? The Bible says here this stature of revival is for us to humble ourselves. Well, what does that mean? We understand that pride is a sin and that all of us are susceptible to that temptation to become proud or glory in ourselves rather than in God. But what does it mean to humble ourselves? Well, it is a dishonored position. It is a position of no reputation. If you're looking for an example of humility in the Bible, I don't think you'll really find a human example. I know there are certain people, even today, that we would say that that person is a humble person, that person is a very gracious person, a very humble person, and we would use that to describe certain people, and I think there are people who are certainly more humble than others, but when you look in the Bible, you see some wonderful men and women who live for God, but really you can't look at anybody in the Bible who was truly humble. If you're going to find an example of humility, you're going to have to go to Christ himself. And when you look at Christ, you see that humility is a position of no reputation. Philippians 2 and verse 5, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. When Jesus Christ came to this earth and declared himself to be God, people picked up rocks to stone him because that was blasphemy to claim to be God. But as the Bible points out, it was not robbery for Jesus Christ to call himself God, for he was God. So he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but notice this, he made himself of no reputation. True humility is a position of no reputation. And he made himself of that no reputation. And that is so contrary to the culture we live in today. I mean, we lie on our resumes to pad them. Young people cheat to get good grades in school. We are constantly working on our reputation. How we're perceived, how people see us. We constantly are trying to make ourselves always look better than we know we really are. But Jesus Christ worked at making Himself of no reputation. I went through the Gospels one time and I just wanted to see what Jesus' response was when people would ask Him about Himself. Sometimes they'd ask him about the future kingdom, or they would say, when you set up the kingdom, and they would ask him a question. And every time that question was posed to Jesus, he would either change the subject or disappear out of their presence. He literally made himself of no reputation. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is not thinking of yourself at all. It is a position of no reputation. It is also a position of no resources. Again, in thinking about what is humility, they came to Jesus in Matthew chapter 18, and they said, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And many were always interested in that, who's going to sit on your right hand, and who's the greatest, and those kinds of questions came often to the Lord. And it's interesting, in response to that, Jesus called a little child and set him in the midst of them. And he said, whosoever shall humble themselves as this little child shall be greatest in the kingdom of God. Now think about that. They said, who's the greatest? He calls this little kid, puts him in the middle, and he says, if you'll humble yourself like this little child. I don't know about you, but I've been around some little kids that are pretty proud. I mean, you put a little child in front of a bunch of people and sometimes they'll be big time show off. I mean, I've got grandkids. I've got kids. And boy, sometimes you go to somebody's house and boy, all of a sudden they realize they're the star attraction and boy, they'll run with that. I've seen some kids that weren't very humble. What was Jesus pointing to when he takes this little child and puts them in the midst and says, if you humble yourself as this little child, and I believe the principle that Jesus was teaching there is that this child has no resources. He is completely dependent upon others for his existence. Someone must provide for him. Someone must care for him. He is without resource. And I was thinking about that in relationship to King Solomon, who in the beginning of his reign, he says to God in 1 Kings 3 and verse 7, he says, And now, O LORD my God, Thou hast made Thy servant king instead of David my father, and I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or to come in. The reason that God trusted Solomon with the kingdom in the beginning was because Solomon was as a little child. Solomon recognized, God, you've put me on the throne. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to come in, go out. And Solomon, when given an opportunity to ask for anything, asked for God's wisdom because he said, I'm but a little child. To humble ourselves is a position of no reputation. It's a position of no resources. And thirdly, it's a position of no rights. This is the age of rights. But again, back to Philippians chapter two in verse seven, he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant. and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Humbled himself and became obedient unto death. What rights does a dead man have? We may think he has some rights, but he doesn't care. We may think, well, this person deserves a decent burial, this person deserves a decent funeral, this person deserves this or that, but the person who's dead doesn't care. He has no rights. And Paul said, I'm crucified with Christ. I die daily. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, for Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, for ye are dead. And your life is hid with Christ in God. In reality, those of us that are saved are dead to self, dead to our will, dead to our agenda. And a dead person has no rights. Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present yourselves a living sacrifice. I dare say when the Romans first heard Paul say that, or when they first read that in that letter, they must have thought, Paul, what are you talking about? A living sacrifice. I mean, everything up to that time that had been sacrificed had to die in order to be a sacrifice. Whether it was an animal or whether it was a plant or whatever it was that God required to be sacrificed, it had to die to meet the requirement. And now Paul is saying, I want you to be a living sacrifice. And people must have thought, how can I be a living sacrifice? But that is exactly what God wants. He wants us to be alive so we can serve Him, but at the same time dead to the old flesh, dead to the old man, dead to the old agendas and wills. And as someone has said, the problem with a living sacrifice is it keeps wanting to crawl off the altar. And we may present ourselves to God at times in our life, maybe a revival meeting or a camp service or maybe some kind of a time when God speaks to us and we say, all right, Lord, I'm going to give that to you. I'm going to die to myself and I'm going to live for you. And we give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. But the problem is we oftentimes crawl off that altar and say, well, Lord, I'll take over again. I'll run it from here. But true humility is a dishonored position. So we see a damaging pride. We see the dishonored position. But I want you to see also tonight that this matter of humbling ourselves is a do-it-yourself project. He says, if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves. God has the ability to humble. Probably most of us have had some experience where God has humbled us. Some of those stories may now be a little bit humorous to us when we think about how God had to humble us. Several years ago, we were trying to figure out what we were going to do on Thanksgiving. And two of our kids were married and our oldest son, John, was at the time an assistant pastor up in Fresno, California, about 200 miles north of us. Our daughter was married to a young man who was an assistant pastor down in Rancho Cucamonga, California, which was about an hour and a half south of us. And so we were trying to decide, our other two boys were still at home, and we were trying to decide, you know, are we going to have Thanksgiving here? Are we going to, you know, go somewhere else? And you know how that is, if your family has gotten a little bit fractured like ours, you try to figure out, okay, where are we going to have Thanksgiving? And so as we were discussing this several months before, my daughter-in-law, married to my oldest son, she said, you know, why don't you guys all come up to Fresno? And my family would love to have everybody at our house. Now they have nine children. And I'm thinking, really? Nine kids? She's the oldest, and so all the other kids are still at home. And I thought, I don't know about that. She said, no, no, we always have big gatherings at Thanksgiving. We'll probably have some church people over, and the more the merrier. I thought, well, boy. And so we talked to Ben and Melinda and they said, yeah, we could come up, you know, and drive up there. Well, Thanksgiving's on Thursday. And I don't know about you, but Thanksgiving to me is about three things. Being thankful, watching football, and eating a lot of good food. And I'm not even sure if they're in that order. But anyway, I mean, you've got to have those three ingredients, you know. And on the West Coast, football starts at nine o'clock. I mean, you guys here, I mean, you can sleep in when there's games on, but not us. I mean, college basketball out there starts at 8 o'clock Saturday morning. I mean, you know, it's amazing. And so, you know, 9 o'clock in the morning, we've got football. And so I said, you know, if we're going to go up there, we have to leave early. And I told Ben and Melinda, you're going to have to come up Wednesday night after church. You're going to have to get up here. You're going to have to drive that hour and a half because we've got to leave at 6. I mean, we've got to be there for kickoff. You watch football, you're going to see all of it. You're going to see the starting lineups. So we made all these arrangements. We're going to leave at six. And so Ben and Melinda, they drove up Wednesday after church, got in there about one in the morning. And I was getting everybody to bed. Let's go. We've got to get some sleep now. And boy, 4.30, I'm playing revelry. I'm getting everybody up. Come on, let's go. We've got to get going. Everybody get dressed. Everybody's mad at me. But it's okay, because I'm going to watch football. We got two cars, and we're packing those cars. We're taking some food with us and stuff that we decided to bring. So we packed the cars, and then I'm rushing everybody out of the house. Everybody's still half asleep, but I got everybody in the car. We took off right at 6 a.m. I thought, this is great. We're going to make it. So we started up the 14 up toward Mojave and traffic was good, weather was good, got to Mojave and got on the 58, started west on the 58 over to Bakersfield, crossed over the Tehachapi Mountains, no problem, good, we're right on schedule. Bakersfield, got on the 99, started heading north up to 99, everything was perfect. I mean, I'm watching the clock, I'm watching our speed, we are right there. So we get to Fresno. I didn't have a map. I didn't have GPS. I didn't have any of that stuff. You know, real men don't need that stuff. I'd been to Fresno many times before. I'd been to the Averbeck house many times before. I knew exactly where they lived. I didn't need a map. So we got to Fresno and got off on the 41, which kind of doesn't be there at the south part of Fresno. We got on the 41 going north. I got off at Shaw Avenue, the correct exit. And I started down that Shaw Avenue and I was looking for the mall because that was my landmark to turn to the right and I turned to the right at the right street and immediately upon making that right I made another right onto Scott Avenue where they live. But as I got on that street, they live several houses down, but there were cars parked on both sides. I mean, all up and down. I thought, good night. There's a lot of people visiting. Relatives. I mean, we were, you know, we're just a few minutes before nine. I mean, kickoffs in a couple of minutes. And I'm thinking, man, where are we going to park? We got a place for two cars. So we went about two blocks past their house, found a place to park. And now I'm frantic, you know, because, you know, I'm going to miss kickoff. So I get out of the car, come on everybody, come on. I've got the trunks open, I'm throwing stuff to people. Here, you carry this, carry that, carry this. So I grab my load of stuff and I started down the sidewalk and I've got about ten people behind me. You know, we're all walking in a single file line and I'm walking as fast as I can because kickoff is about to take place. And I walked down that two blocks to the Averbeck house and walked up the sidewalk and ten people behind me all carrying stuff. And I got to the door. I didn't bother to knock or ring the doorbell. They know we're coming. So I just walked in the house. And in the front room of that house was this beautiful table. I mean, all set with fine china and fancy silverware and a big candle flower display in the middle of the table. I thought, man, they went all out for us. This is amazing. But I didn't see anybody. You've got nine kids. You know, I'm thinking, where is everybody? And then I'm thinking, well, they're all in the back. They're in the family room. Because they kick off, you know. And so I started walking down along that table toward an open door, which was the kitchen. And I'm walking. Everybody's coming in after me. And I said, hey, where is everybody? And this lady I had never seen in my life looked around the doorway of the kitchen at me. And I looked at her, and I said, whoops. Wrong house. And I started backing up. And the ten people behind me were backing up. And we backed down the sidewalk. I was only one house off. Those people call the Averbecks every Thanksgiving. Is that guy coming again? Kind of be prepared, make sure we're out of the shower, you know. We talk about humiliating. That story comes up more often than I would like to admit. God has a way of humbling us, and though that's a story and it's funny and it's harmless, but I think all of us could probably point to some place in our life where God had to humble us. God had to bring us down a notch. My mother used to say when I was a junior high kid thinking I was pretty tough, she'd say, son, why don't you come down off your high horse and live with the rest of us for a while? There are certainly times in our life where we get proud or we get haughty or we think we have the world by the tail, so to speak, and God has a way of humbling us. I think of Deuteronomy chapter 8 where God said of the children of Israel, He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger. and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, that ye may know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." God had to humble His people through a time there in order to teach them His provision. And God can do that. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled. The mighty man shall be humbled, the Bible says in Isaiah 5 and verse 15. So God has the ability to humble, but here God is asking us to humble. Humble yourselves. And it is consistent throughout the Scripture, 1 Peter 5, 6, Humble yourself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you in due time. James 4, 10, Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. Proverbs 6 and verse 3, Go, humble thyself. Matthew 18, 4, Humbleth himself as a little child. We can preach the statutes. We can practice the standards. We can prepare the schedules. We can pray for success. But if we miss the stature of revival, the promise goes unfulfilled. I wonder tonight, as God looks at us, is His promise of revival hindered? Because in us he does not see humility. As we saw yesterday, God wants the glory. And as long as we're standing in the path of his glory, as Nebuchadnezzar did, as Herod did, as Lucifer did, God's work cannot be done in God's way. Are we willing tonight to humble ourselves? We can wait for God to do it, but God says, I want you as my people to humble yourselves. The stature of revival. Let's pray. Father, I pray tonight that you would see in us a humble heart, a humble prayer, Lord, a humble stature before you. And while, Lord, even sometimes in our attempt to be humble, we can be proud. It's such a delicate thing, Lord, that you've asked us to do. And I pray, Lord, that we would consider tonight the definition from your word of humility of no reputation, No resources. No rights. Lord, may we indeed crucify our flesh tonight. May we die to self. May we put to death that old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. Lord, may we truly be that living sacrifice. Lord, I pray that you would allow us to be humble before you, to walk humbly in the sight of our God. Lord, we need revival. We need, Lord, you to work in this world as never before. Lord, may we not be that barrier that stands in the way of that awesome work because of our pride working us tonight. If there's someone here, Lord, that's not saved, may be proud of the fact that they're better than someone else or they're religious, or may they recognize that those things will keep them from heaven, that the ground is level at the cross, they must humble themselves before Christ and receive Him as their only Lord and Savior. Lord, for us as believers, may we not think that we can do something or be something that will produce revival. Lord, may we fall before You tonight in recognition that everything that we have comes from You, and everything that You've promised can only come from You and not from us. So work, Lord, in this invitation. Lord, we're nothing. While we could say we have a wonderful church, and we wouldn't be wrong to say that, We could say we have a good family. And Lord, we could be thankful for all those things without being proud, I believe. Lord, help us never forget that whatever we have is only by Your grace. Lord, help us to walk humbly. Lord, You don't share Your glory with anybody. I am the Lord. That is my name. My glory do not share with another. Lord, may we understand that we can't be co-equal, so to speak, with you when it comes to what we have or what we do or what we accomplish. It is none of us. It is all of you. And Lord, I pray that even in times of victory and times of success, that Lord, we might walk humbly. And Lord, in times of difficulty and trial, maybe it's a little easier then But Lord, sometimes we can still in those moments get all the focus on ourselves and have our pity party. And Lord, in the same way, be proud and not really exercise that humility that you desire. So Lord, we understand that the attack comes in many ways, in many forms. But I pray that something we've learned tonight will help us to walk humbly. that you might open the floodgates of heaven and give us the revival that you intend. Lord, if there is someone here tonight not sure of eternal life, I pray that they would literally be humble enough to come to pastor or his wife or a deacon or someone here in the church, maybe a friend sitting beside them after the service and say, could you help me find Christ? Lord, what a blessing would follow because of that humbleness. And so Lord, help us tonight. And Lord, give us that revival that you want to give us in response to this first step in this verse. And we'll thank you for it in Christ's name. Amen.