Times of Refreshing: Summary and Application
Series 1: “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”
Topic 1: The Restoration of All Things
Key Text: Acts 3:17-21
1. The Current State of the Church
- Marriage breakdown, sexual immorality, burn out, depression, control, lack of creativity, marginalisation of prophetic truth, obsession with money and success, decline in biblical truth.
- Lack of holiness and discipleship.
Application Questions
Which of these problems do you most identify with in your own life?
2. The importance of the Kingdom of Heaven
- Kingdom means “rule.”
- Heaven is where God’s rule is complete (Matt 6:10)
Application Questions
I (JY) believe that we are scared of God’s rule. Discuss this view. If you agree pray about it together.
3. The Restoration of God
- Acts 3:17- 21 is a key text to consult. I suggest one person read it whilst the others listen, perhaps with eyes closed and take a mental note of what stands out to you.
- Jesus passionately desires his life to be poured into the classroom, into the kitchen, into the factory floor, into the office, the football field, the halls of parliament and wherever human beings live and move and have their being (1 Cor 15:8). .
Application Questions
Share what came through to you out of Acts 3:17- 21.
Is the fullness of Christ in all things NOW your all – consuming vision?
4. Jesus Unites Heaven and Earth
- Jesus is now a heavenly person (Acts 3:21 cf. Luke 24:51; Acts 1:2, 11).
- This means that heaven is now your home (Phil 3:20-21; Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11). Much of contemporary Christian “life- style” denies this.
Application Questions
What would have to happen to us for heaven to be a meaningful reality to Christians in Perth today?
“If within us we find nothing over us we succumb to what is around us.”(P.T. Forsyth). Jesus’ Lordship over us is made known through the Spirit in us so that we live free from the powers of this world (Acts 2:1-5 leads to 2:36 and so to 2:44-47; see also 1 Peter 1:12). It seems we need a fresh outpouring of the Spirit. Is this too simple an answer to community transformation?
5. The Need for Refreshing
- The Old Testament prophesied the last-times gift of the Spirit would bring relief (Isa 32:15); this was fulfilled at Pentecost (Acts 2:38).
- Both in scripture and history it is always a remnant/minority that receives this refreshment.
- This relief is actually being aware of the “face” (often translated “presence”) of God (Ex 33:14; Num 6:25-26; Acts 2:28; 3:20; Rev 22:4). Despite the focus of most contemporary “worship” on God’s “presence”, his face is not necessarily pleased (Rev 6:16; 20:11; 1 Pet 3:12).
Application Questions
If God works through a faithful remnant (e.g. Gen 45:7; 1 Ki 19:18; Rom 11:5), what characterises these people? How is 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 relevant?
Do you think that it could be that the remnant is the only group willing to take the risk of seeing the face of God?
6. The Prophetic Message
- Prophets are preoccupied with the suffering of Jesus (Acts 3:18; 1 Pet 1:11) because they are holy people (Luke 1:70; Acts 3:5) who themselves suffer for the kingdom of God.
- Their suffering causes them to long for God to restore his kingdom on the earth (Acts 3:21).
Application Questions
“There is no way to Pentecost except by Calvary; the Spirit is given from the cross.” (T. Smail). This is a very hard saying. How can we possibly embrace it? Talk over this, then consult Hebrews 12:1-2 to see how Jesus was able to face it.
7. Repentance and Restoration
- The Bible commands repentance (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 8:22; 17:30; 26:20; Rev 2:5; 16; 3:3, 19) as a preliminary to restoration. We know we are repentant when we are living in the refreshment of the Spirit e.g. Acts 4:33.
- The restoration of God’s kingdom (at whatever cost) is the true vision of the church.
- There is a false theology of restoration that emphasizes material blessings without suffering for God.
Application Questions
Do the signs in your life indicate that you are living in the refreshment of the Spirit e.g. are you spiritually tired, bored, frustrated, burned-out?
Typically, when a remnant is restored it has to bear persecution from the mass of the church and also from the world. Is this realistically imaginable in 21st century Australia? Are you willing for it to be (Eph 3:20-21)?
Times of Refreshing:
Series 1: “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”
Topic 1: The Restoration of All Things
Key Text: Acts 3:17-21
1. Why this Series?
The spiritual crises of the contemporary church:
Marriage breakdown, sexual immorality, burn out, depression, control, lack of creativity, marginalisation of prophetic truth, obsession with money and success e.g. numerical church growth, prayerlessness, a decline in biblical truth.
Australians want to “go where they want”, “do what they want”, “be who they want” (Australia Day comment by champion swimmer 2005).
Experienced pastor: “people want to feel good about themselves” = be own authority.
Believers seeking to find a Christian “lifestyle” that suits their personal aspirations. People are trying to “get in touch with themselves”.
Powerlessness to resist the demonic:
Countless addictions e.g. burnout amongst pastors addicted to religious culture. Simply not seeing the sort of miraculous healings— personal and physical, that we read of in scripture and in non-Western nations.
Which church in this city would you go to learn about true holiness?
There seems to be little capturing of the very core of human life and transforming ordinary people into disciples.
All truly prayerful Christians know that there is something deeply wrong with the spirituality of contemporary Christianity but most of the church seems powerless to do anything about it.
2. Why this Theme?
Kingdom theme:
Growing recognition that God’s “kingdom” is bigger than the church and that the function of the church is to serve the kingdom of God, to carry the authority of the King into the centre of all of life.
When human beings rather than God control the church the result is a crisis like that the western church is going through today. Biblically and practically if the church is to come out of this crisis we need to sharpen the contrast between what is of God and what is of man. This explains the importance of the theme of heaven.
Heaven theme:
In the Bible, heaven is the direct sphere of God’s sovereignty
“The highest heavens belong to God, but the earth he has given to man.” (Ps 115:16) cf. Ps 103:11; Isa 55:9. Heaven is the place where God’s will is completely done (Matt 6:10). Man is always “under” heaven. Heaven always speaks of human limits and of inferiority to God.
“Only heaven can prevent theology [spirituality] from becoming psychology.” Example: Bible College principal, “evangelism is spelled m- a- r- k- e- t- i- n- g”. the problem is summed up in this quote from one of the great Christian minds of the last century : “If within us we find nothing over us we succumb to what is around us.”(P.T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind p.32)
3. Why this Text (Acts 3:17-21)?
I want to start off with Acts 3:17-21 because I believe it is a text given by God for this city: Jan 1-7 1994 6am – 6pm diverse group praying in West Perth for revival in the church in Perth.
Day 7— extremely difficult, some people left the meeting feeling “nothing was happening.”
JY in deep inner torment trying to hold in there with God. Text of Acts 3:20 firmly placed in my mind, “[Jesus] whom heaven must receive until the time(s) of the restoration of all things.”
Indelible visual impression of Jesus in heaven far above the earth and everything on it was being ordered or put into it’s proper place by his rule as Lord, e.g., education, health, marriage, art, media, politics, law etc., all of life and culture was being brought into submission to his Lordship.
Jesus is trying to tell his church that he passionately desires to be “all in all/everything to everyone” in every sphere of human existence (cf. 1 Cor 15:8). He wants his life to be poured into the classroom, into the kitchen, into the factory floor, into the office, the football field, the halls of parliament and wherever human beings live and move and have their being.
One of the greatest preachers in church history was John Chrysostom (John the “Golden Mouthed.”) Persecuted out of the church, his dying words were, “Glory to God in all things”.
The only final passion a Christian is allowed in this life is that the fullness of the glory of God stripped from creation by the rebellion of humanity (Rom 3:23) might be restored everywhere (Matt 19:28). That “the earth might be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab 2:14). This is the reason why God created the world (Isa 43:7; 6:3; Rev 4:11).
Salvation is not a matter of the forgiveness of sins and “getting people to heaven”. The “heavenly perspective” to which everything must be submitted is that Jesus longs to fill everything with his glorious life NOW. Without this heavenly perspective the church as we know it will never be renewed, never be holy, never be God-fearing and never live sacrificially.
4. Knowing the Heavenly Jesus is the Window to this Reality
Peter tells us that Jesus was “received into heaven” (Acts 3:21 cf. Luke 24:51; Acts 1:2,11). As Enoch was “taken away” from the earth because “he had pleased God” (Heb 11:4-5), so Jesus was raptured to heaven by the Father because he had filled the Father with overflowing joy (Heb 12:2).
Now, through Jesus not only the earthly but also the heavenly sphere belongs to humanity. Through the presence of Christ’s resurrection body heaven is now filled with the glory of a man fully alive. The great gulf between heaven and earth no longer exists. From the day our leader (Heb 2:10; 12:2) went back to heaven this earth ceased to be the true home and hope of human beings (Phil 3:20 -21; Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11).
The fact that pastors and people seem to be obsessed with the better, the bigger the more comfortable and the more prosperous in lifestyle and spirituality infallibly testifies against us that the home of Jesus is less real to us than the visible and sensual world that is perishing (2 Cor 4:18). Without a revelation of the heavenly Lord the church is always be idolatrous. [P.T. Forsyth: “If within us we find nothing over us we succumb to what is around us.”] We cannot equally focus on earthly prosperity and heavenly identity.
Why is there was so little practical unity in the church in Perth? The answer is simply, in Paul’s words, Christian leaders are following “gods many and lords many” (1 Cor 8:5), rather than living under the one heavenly Lordship of Jesus.
It is past time for the church in our city to turn from the “fleeting pleasures of sin” and to “consider abuse suffered for the Christ to be greater wealth than all the treasures” of this world (Heb 11:25-26).
“As was the man of dust, so are those of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.” (1 Cor 15:48).
5. The Need for Refreshing
If you are satisfied with the quality of your spirituality and church life then this series has nothing for you. For what we are on about here is refreshing, the transformation of a wilderness experience.
The Old Testament background to Peter’s “times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord” is Isaiah 32:15, “until the Spirit from on high is poured upon us, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field becomes a forest.” What we need is not a few drops of rain but like a spiritual deluge at the end of a long drought.
This refreshing broke out with the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38 approximates 3:19) and continues until the second coming [“these days” in 3:24 show the present time to the speaker is indicated].
Refreshment brings relief [Note the strong parallel between this verse and 2 Thess 1:7 “to give relief to those who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire”] and is always limited to a minority– 500 saw the resurrected Christ (1 Cor 15:6), but only 120 were present to receive the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:15); the Holy Spirit fell on the Moravians but not on the Lutherans, the Methodists not the Anglicans, the Pentecostals and not on the Baptists. Neither on the basis of scripture nor revivals in church history can we expect the majority of the church in Perth to experience or even initially desire these “times of refreshing”. Those upon whom this refreshing of the Spirit will descend and remain are those who passionately long to see Jesus’ life fill everything (Eph 4:10) cf. bigger church.
This outpouring of new life will come from “the presence of the Lord”, literally, “the face of the Lord”. This was God’s promise in response to Moses prayer in Exodus 33:14 “my face will go with you and I will give you rest”.
“Face” is a powerful image, because the face is the primary agent of emotional expressiveness for a human being. God’s face can express his favour (Ex 33:14; Num 6:25- 26; Acts 2:28; Rev 22:4) or his anger, “hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!” (Rev 6:16; 20:11; 1 Pet 3:12).
(Difficulty many Christians have in spending prolonged periods of intimacy alone with God shows that they do not see his face shining on them.)
“The presence of the Lord” is not a vague emotional experience but an encounter with the living God who frees us from addiction to our own emotions. (Luther – grace is the experience of being delivered from experience.)
The only expression Jesus allowed to have on his face according to most so called “worship leaders” is celebratory— this is self-deceiving, you cannot read the face of God off your own experience but only in the revelation of the crucified and resurrected King (2 Cor 4:6, “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”).
I am sure that because the suffering and victory of Christ have been placed in second place to our ecstatic states the dominant expressions on face of Jesus in relation to the church in Perth are sadness, grief, disappointment, lament and pain.
6. All the Prophets
According to Peter, two things dominated the consciousness of the prophets and their message.
First, “all the prophets” foretold that the Messiah should suffer (Acts 3:18). [This is an extraordinary claim— one that he backs up in his first letter by saying “the prophets inquired about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory” (1 Peter 1:11)]. All the prophets were fixated not only upon Jesus (Rev 19:10), but in particular upon his suffering. Many commentators have puzzled over these claims of Peter (e.g. where in the book of Jonah is the prophecy of the coming suffering Messiah) but in doing so have shown themselves not to be prophets. This is because the prophets, whatever their words, essentially testify to the sufferings of the one who anoints them through their own representative suffering for the purposes of the kingdom. All true prophets offer sacrifice— Abel offers his life (Matt 23:35), Abraham offers Isaac (Gen 22), Jeremiah is a reject… Daniel in the lions den… Suffering like Jesus suffered is the interior reality from which all true prophecy and its insights springs.
The other thing that has preoccupied genuine prophets from “long ago” is “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21). The second flows only from the first— out of their identification with the agony of Christ the prophets long that the refreshment and restoration that he received in his resurrection come upon all God’s children (including themselves). There is no shortage of prophecy today, but little of it seems to proclaim the essential message of the cross and its connection with the end time restoration of all things. There is much talk about blessing, prosperity, growth and leadership but little comprehension that “There is no way to Pentecost except by Calvary; the Spirit is given from the cross.” (T. Smail, Reflected Glory, 1975:104).
The reason for this failure to connect suffering and restoration is given by Peter, “the times of universal restoration” that were “announced long ago”, were spoken by “holy prophets” (Acts 3:21). Throughout the New Testament the assumption is made that significant prophetic revelation issues from holy persons (Luke 1:70; Eph 3:5).
John Wesley gave us a good definition of holiness, “Give me 100 people/men who fear nothing but God and hate nothing but sin and I will change the world.” Much of the prophetic gifting in the church seems to have bowed the knee to Baal. Greatly gifted people visit the church in Perth but never seem, to quote John the Baptist, “lay the axe to the root of the trees” (Luke 3:19). They often seem to be more like the “court prophets” of the corrupt Old Testament kings who tell the rulers of the church what they want to hear (Amos 7:12-13).
The inner secret of prophetic insight is that in the economy of the kingdom of heaven the purest pain brings the deepest gain— only because of the purity of the suffering of the cross Jesus is the Lord of heaven and earth (Acts 10:36). His universal authority (Heb 1:2; Matt 28:18; John 17:2) is the outworking of the agony of his holy death.
6. Repentance and Turning
“Repent therefore and turn around, so that your sins might be blotted out and times of refreshing might come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:20). The test of our repentance is simple, are we refreshed or are we exhausted. All my experience tells me that in the things of the Spirit most of the church is exhausted and we therefore desperately need to implore our God for the gift of repentance and restoration (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Tim 2:25).
7. Conclusion
“The restoration of all things” is the true vision of the church – we are to long for the renewal of the universe, for that day when all things in heaven and on earth will be united under one head, Christ (Eph 1:10).
(Restoration in the Bible always means multiplication e.g. Ex 22:21; Job 42:10-12; Joel 2:21-26; Matt 10:29-30 = a hundred times. God will not just take you back to where you were before.)
On the way to this fullness we must necessarily be committed to the restoration of dignity to indigenous peoples, honour to the elderly, compassion to the abused, reunion in marriages, freedom for the oppressed, good news for the poor, honesty in power and godliness in the church. This is the progress of the setting up of the heavenly kingdom of God upon the earth, and the church is entirely its servant.
According to God, we are worth what Jesus is worth. The church is “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” and “the fullness of him who fills all things in every way” (Eph 1:23; 4:13 cf. 1 Cor 3:21-22; Col 2:9-10; 1 John 4:17). Until we know who Christ, is we can never know who we are. We will never know what is worth suffering and dying for and we will never see the fullness of God’s glory in the church (Eph 3:19, 21).
The Jews of Jesus day had a theology of restoration— it was of the restoration to Israel of the economic wealth and political power of the kingdoms of David and Solomon. This demon of material prosperity and personal comfort has by and large overtaken the church in our day. To shift from this worldly perspective of restoration to a focus on God’s kingdom (Acts 1:3, 6, 8) will lead to inevitable persecution, first within the church then by the world (Acts 14:22).
Whatever it takes, whatever the suffering, for Jesus to be able to receive joy in all things— only this attitude will bring forth a holy and prophetic church.
Where do I desperately need restoration in my own life and ministry— repentance brings refreshment brings restoration.