There are sermons that inform you—and then there are sermons that invite you. This one is an invitation.
In “Revival,” Pastor Steve talks like someone who’s been living in a “season of revelation,” trying to choose which pieces to share because there’s simply too much to fit into one message. That alone sets the tone: revival isn’t a topic to master; it’s a reality to enter.
What follows is part testimony, part warning, part roadmap—and it lands with a simple challenge: don’t resist what God is doing in your life. Embrace it.
A Bold Word: Step Out, Even If It’s Not “Your Turn”
Early in the message, Pastor Steve shares a moment of prayer where he senses something specific: gifts of healing rising up among the people, perhaps even while he’s away for a season. He calls out something that quietly sabotages so much spiritual growth:
“A lot of stuff doesn’t happen because people are timid.”
He isn’t scolding—he’s inviting courage. In this framing, revival isn’t reserved for the platform. It’s activated in ordinary believers who decide to be bold and step forward.
Why Leaders Burn Out—and Why Rest Can Be Spiritual Warfare
Pastor Steve also gets honest about ministry pressure: not as a complaint, but as clarity. He describes how pastors live close to constant crisis—always carrying other people’s emergencies, grief, and stress. That weight can produce a cold distance (self-protection) or deep compassion (which can drain you).
He shares his own history of burning out hard enough to question everything—then rebuilding, then feeling the wear again—until he reaches a point where taking a month of rest isn’t “time off,” it’s wisdom.
This isn’t a detour from revival. It’s part of it.
Because revival without sustainability becomes a flash—and God is forming a people, not just lighting a match.
Azusa Street Revival and the Shockwave Principle
One of the strongest threads in the sermon is from the big-picture lens: how God moves in moments that seem small, strange, or even culturally offensive—and then rewrites history through them.
He points back to the Azusa Street Revival and William J. Seymour—a move that began with meetings so unimpressive by worldly standards that you could miss their significance entirely… until you look at what it produced.
His point is simple:
Never judge a move of God by its humble beginnings.
The “shockwave” can travel farther than the room it started in.
“Revival Is Where Religion Comes to Die”
Pastor Steve quotes a line he heard that captures the tension perfectly:
“Revival is the place where religion comes to die.”
Revival disrupts tidy categories. It won’t always match our preferred style, our comfort level, or our sense of “how church should work.” In the sermon he keeps returning to a theme: God is shifting the Church away from being:
- building-centered to body-centered
- institutional to organic
- celebrity-clergy to believer-priests
- petition-only prayer to declaration and petition
- local-only thinking to regional “church in the city” vision
He’s not trying to start an argument about labels. He’s describing momentum—movement.
Don’t Evaluate Revival by the Manifestations
This is where the message gets especially practical—and surprisingly relevant in 2026.
Pastor Steve recounts experiences where the presence of God was undeniable, but people responded in unusual ways. His anchor in the middle of that conversation is straight out of the wisdom stream of Jonathan Edwards:
Don’t judge the move of God by the physical reactions of people.
People can get weird. People can get sincere. People can get messy. But the question is not, “Do I like how this looks?” The question is, “Is God here—and what is my response to His presence?”
The Mantle Moment: 1 Kings 19 and the Choice to Burn the Plow
The centerpiece of the sermon is the story of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 19).
Elijah throws his mantle on Elisha—and keeps walking.
No speech. No persuasion. Just an invitation draped across a young man’s life.
Elisha’s response is wild and clean: he goes back, sacrifices the oxen, burns the plow, feeds the people, and follows. In other words: no backup plan.
Pastor Steve frames it as the recurring decision of spiritual life:
When God breaks into your world, you have three options:
- Embrace it
- Reject it
- Ignore it
And “ignore” might be the most common one—because it’s so easy to walk back into normal life and pretend nothing happened.
Revival often begins with a mantle moment: something you can’t fully explain… but you know you’ve been touched. The question is whether you’ll treat it as a passing emotion—or a divine invitation.
“Talk to Me”: Revival as Relationship, Not a Project
Near the end, Steven leans into a phrase spoken in the room: “Talk to me.”
He compares it to a spouse saying, “Just talk to me,” not because there’s a problem to solve, but because there’s relationship to build.
That’s a gut-check for achievement-oriented faith.
Sometimes we want to know the full roadmap—what this revival will accomplish, where it will lead, how it will scale.
But the sermon’s quieter message is this:
God may be moving simply because He wants you.
Not your output. Not your platform. Not your plan. You.
And from that place, transformation grows.
What to Listen For in This Audio
If you’re pressing play on this sermon, listen for these themes:
- Courage over timidity: stepping out when you feel the nudge
- Sustainable fire: rest as part of spiritual longevity
- God’s shifting structures: from institution to organism
- The mantle choice: refusing to treat holy moments as disposable
- Relationship-first revival: “Talk to Me” as the posture of awakening
Closing Reflection
Revival isn’t primarily a crowd. It’s a response.
It’s the moment you stop clutching the chair, stop resisting, stop trying to control outcomes—and you let God minister to you.
And sometimes the holiest thing you can do is what Elisha did:
burn the plow.
No retreat. No spiritual nostalgia. No “maybe later.”
Just yes.
Message: “Revival” (audio sermon)
Recorded: May 25, 2008
Location: New Song Church
Speaker: Pastor Steven G. Dyer
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