How to Become a Walking Revival // Pastor Kevin Myers

All right, I am fired up to be here. Just tell your neighbor just kind of high-five and tell 'em I'm fired up to be here. Just at least tell a couple people. You're fired up to be here. And listen, you should be. I've gotten to know your church a little bit. I've gotten to know your pastor, some of your team. Listen, every church does not experience what you are experiencing here. You're in the midst of a move of God. Not every pastor envisions. Let's go seek God for revival. Not every leadership team carries that kind of anointing. Not every church gets to talk about 10th anniversary and see the impact in the kingdom. I mean, you are in a rich, spiritual place. We oughta stop and just give thanks to God for your pastoral leadership for the team, Kingdom Kudos. (audience applauding) Now, I knew immediately when I was invited, this doesn't happen this way for me, but I knew immediately that I was supposed to come. I hope I can say it that way. I knew when I was asked that the Holy Spirit said, "I want you to do this, and I want you to tell the story." Because Winston Salem was the place in 1997 that God shifted things in me. I'd call it something of a revival in me. And the first time I experienced something

of a revival move of the Holy Spirit in a group, it carried back with us to the church and it redefined our church. And I sensed the Holy Spirit said, I want you to go tell the story. I want you to tell them in Winston Salem that I did it once and they should ask me to do it again. Amen? I mean, it is the heart of God to reach law. It's not like this was our idea and we're helping God. It's like, this is God's heart, God's idea, and we've been invited into the kingdom, thank God. So I'm gonna, this is a different way for me to teach. You know, you grab a scripture, you exit GD, you teach from it and then you give the points and thoughts and I'm gonna tell you the story, the journey. We're gonna hit a couple key scriptures along the way, but if you'll allow me to walk it out, God has been setting something in my soul for two, three decades now. I'd like to tell you that I've learned it, but I find that the deeper things of God, you never learn once, it is a continual process. So I've been on that journey. One word, one thought, one thing that he has been driving in me. I mentioned it in the little video, kind of the promo video, come, I'm gonna give you the single thing. And so the word is dependence.

Everybody say it with me, what is the word? Dependence. I'm not talking about, you know, kind of that dependence's weakness or is soft. I'm not talking about the passivity, like dependence in a very passive way. I'm not talking about you do nothing and you just wait for God to do everything. I'm talking about an awakening of the weight of the word what that means in the heart of God that'll revolutionize the way you see God, see yourself and understand life. It has been so transforming to me that I'm convinced of this. I wrote it down, I wanna say it to this way. A life of deepening dependence on God fuels the fire to become a walking revival. Just hear it again. A life of deepening dependence. A life of deepening what? Dependence. I'm gonna say something and I already gave you the word. I'm gonna pause you, fill it in, okay? You help me, I'll help you, you right? I'm gonna do it again. A life of deepening dependence, okay, right? A life of deepening what? On God fuels the fire to become a walking revival. Listen, I was raised in this, believe God, pray for a revival, believe God.

Most of my life, and it was always this idea that it's the bonfire that happens out there. But with time I become convinced that revival starts when you're a walking revival, when you're on fire, Somehow a move of God when every person is a walk in revival seems to be the beginning of the greater revival God desires to do So there's a couple things I would pray for you. They'll put them on the screen I'll just say them to you. I'm praying for you to have a personal breakthrough into a life of dependence I'm praying For a fresh fire to be a walk in revival So let's go after it. I got to tell the story. So in 1987 pastor Kyle already mentioned Marsha and I sold everything in Michigan moved down to Atlanta, Georgia to start a church It didn't go well. I'll get back to that in a little bit, but ten years into it We had about 900 to a thousand people The only spiritual leadership guru at the time that I knew was named John Maxwell I'd gone to his conferences read a couple of his books. Listen to some of his tapes and He was doing another conference and he was doing the conference in where do you think? Winston Salem, okay, I'll do it again. You yeah, I should have led better He was doing the conference where You're home I read it and I said well, that's dumb. Hang on not because this Winston Salem I said that's dumb because he was doing it the first week of January Now pastor Kyle you already know people people. It's it's been December. They've been through Christmas They've been through New Year's the holidays. They've taken all their time off Pastored like I like they're not gonna look nobody John Nobody is gonna take time off and have all their lay people show up because that's what he wanted at a conference in Winston Salem So it was dumb. So I tossed it to the site But then I had this little check in my spear kind of like you get those little prompts to the Holy Spirit Yeah, like you should go and I thought well Sometimes you have to help God

Right have you ever felt like God might not see it clearly so I explained to him why it would be dumb and and and You know, I should teach something more meaningful for a moment All of the fire in your soul Depends on a yes When he prompts you Don't make it more complicated Your last no is a hindrance to Being a walking revival you dim your own fire with a no That no was going to cost me over the next two three weeks the spirit of God pushed back and Finally I said, okay, I'll do it, but I don't know how this is going to work Well, you just invite a group of people and see what happens and I said I will So I sent a letter out. I picked 60 people I sent a letter out to him and our church and I said listen I feel prompted by the Holy Spirit to send you all an invitation to go to Winston Salem for a John Maxwell conference That is for lay leaders in the like I Don't know why he's asked me to do it. Hope. It's a good conference, but listen you'll have to pay your way take off work I know you've already lost your vacation time if you don't feel like you need to go That's fine. The Holy Spirit would have to tell you. It's a great sales job high Inspiration like I didn't even believe in it. I was literally going to demonstrate to God why this was dumb Then 50 people said we're in we feel the same prompt 50 people committed we got a bus we drove to Winston Salem. We got to the hotel The hotel lost our reservations They had to put us at another hotel a better hotel The hotel that I'm staying at tonight And the last time I was there I was 36 years old same hotel I'll tell you mark me Walked in and at the desk was John Maxwell checking into the hotel So clearly it was a class up So I met John I was so nervous Met John and he acted like he knew me and that was nice, you know for all my people watching like that's John

Next morning the guy picking up John and bringing him to the conference his own conference locked his keys in the running car and Couldn't take John to the conference We were sitting on our bus, so I invited John. Would you like a ride to your own conference? We start exchanging sarcasm we discovered we had the same spiritual gift How many of you have the spiritual gift to sarcasm? I mean, just 'cause there will be pure love so you know nothing, okay. John bought us lunch and gratitude for the ride. We asked him to dinner, he came to dinner, which apparently I've heard he's never done before. At the end of our dinner was nothing marketing in the dinner. I just got to sit next to John and I had to come up with good leadership questions. Man, did I feel them. When we got done I said, well, let's all stand and hold hands and let's have a closing word of prayer and ask a friend to lead a prayer, and he did. And as he started to pray, I started to weep. Holy Spirit fell on the room. Well, I didn't know that, he fell on me. I was shaking, trying to, my wife is over here so I'm trying to like drive my house 'cause I don't want, I don't want John to think, what is wrong with him? You can't, when the prayer got done and I looked up and everyone was sniffling, tears were everywhere. John Axel was crying. He said, Kevin, I believe the Holy Spirit just asked me to mentor you. I just fell apart.

John didn't know why, nobody knew why. I'll tell you why in a moment. But a revival started in that group of 50 right here in Winston Salem, unlike anything I'd ever seen. For a five hour ride back, we testified, worship, saying, confessed, experienced a power of God. I don't even know how to classify it. We shared with the church what God had done, called them together for prayer. For the next 25 years, over 40,000 people came to Christ at 12 stone as a result of that move. (audience applauds) I'm not, don't get in the number, get in a move of God. Why did the Holy Spirit do that in Winston Salem? I don't know at all. What I do know is the setup. When we started the church, we didn't know what we were doing. We moved down to Atlanta, and there were no books on how to plan the church, and so we didn't know anybody, and we just started going door to door and tried to build a group together, and we did, we did 20,000 phone calls, 'cause there was a system that said, if you do 20,000 phone calls, so we got friends to come help us, 20,000 phone calls, you'll get 2,000 families on the list, and 200 to 400 of those people come, so we did all this stuff, okay. We had 800 people said they'd come, I rented a 440 seat theater,

'cause listen, I had a call of God when I was 16 to be a pastor, I had a vision of God when I was 16 years old to lead a church of thousands, and I embraced it all, and it's all about to happen when we plant the church. Five old, can't wait, probably didn't have enough seats, okay. I welcomed 365 empty seats, empty seats, 'cause that's all I saw. There were 60 to 70 in the room, counting children, workers, insects, anything I could count, (audience laughs) we had 104, I was devastated. It's a quarter of what I thought God would do. Three and a half years later I had grown the church to 82. It's a gift. Not everybody has it, not everybody can do that, it's a leadership gift, you're not familiar with it, it's okay, you haven't seen that gift work around here, I'll tell you about it. I was gonna close the church, I can't do it anymore, God, we lost our house, we lost our cars, we lost our finances, we emptied our accounts, I was doing side jobs, we lost our health insurance, our kids ended up in a children's hospital, my wife had to go back to work, and finally, three and a half years in, I'm not providing, I can't survive this, I'm just done, God, I don't know where you are, you sent us and then you didn't go with us. You know, you can't stop right here,

have any of you ever been confused about something God's doing in your life? Like you prayed one way and he's doing, no, no, put your hands up, 'cause the others need to look around and see, you are not alone, okay, happens to us all. So I grabbed a group of people and I said, we're gonna pray for the next few weeks, if God does not make me stay, I'm gonna close the church and I'm in it. And God made me stay. He said three things to me, he said, first thing. You don't need people to show up for you. You need them to show up for me. Second, your identity is attached to the size of the church. You are part of leading a large church in Michigan and you felt big, you're leading a small church now and you feel small, that has to change. You need to figure out how to put your identity in me. I cannot trust you with the church unless your identity's in me. Third, you don't know how to pray. You do not depend on me. You work like it depends on you and then add prayer. I want you to pray like it depends on me and then add work. And that was it. That was it. Everything didn't, you know, turn around and everything was all of a sudden awesome. But I can tell you is this, it was breakthrough.

A personal breakthrough into a life of dependence. Just write it down, put it in your head, put it in your heart, it's on the screen, a personal breakthrough into a life of dependence. Now I'm just giving, let's just sit in Scripture for a second and just, I know you know this stuff, but let me just say it, prayer is an excellent example of what I mean by this declaration of dependence that we need to make with the Lord. It's all over the Bible. Pastor Kyle's gonna teach from 1 Samuel chapter seven this weekend and, but let me just take a piece of 1 Samuel chapter seven. Let me just take you into the story for a minute. He's gonna exit, Gita. I just want you to see one piece. I just, just a piece in the story. The nation of Israel had been kind of a drift from God and then they were coming back in Samuel. The priest, the prophet, the man of God was leading them back. They had gathered for worship in Miss Paul and they were having a worship experience. They were confessing their sins. They were declaring that they were all his. They would fully follow him. And in the midst of it, the enemies of Israel, the Philistines decide, oh, this is a perfect time. They're all gathered together, let's attack now. So let me go into the scripture

and just listen to what it says in verse seven. When the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid because of the Philistines. Well, of course they were. This is real world pressure. You feel real world pressure, so do I. In the midst of the pressure, we know what fear is. They couldn't protect their families. They couldn't provide. They couldn't solve this. Verse eight. They said to Samuel, do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us. Listen, don't stop praying that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines. Don't stop praying. Like we already see that this is beyond us. Don't stop, stay in this. While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, while he was praying, the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle. But that day the Lord thundered and loud thunder against the Philistines threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites. Who routed them? God, because prayer moves things in heaven to move things on earth. Verse 11, the men of Israel rushed out of Mitzvah, pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Bethkar.

And then verse 12 of Pastor Kyle is gonna teach. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Ms. Ponch and named it Ebenezer, saying thus far. The Lord has helped us. It was the dependence of the people that freed God up to do for them what they could not do for themselves. Victory did not depend on them. It depended on them depending on God. Amen, and maybe that's true in all of life. Maybe it's true in the most practical areas of life. Maybe your marriage doesn't depend on you. Maybe it depends on you depending on God. Maybe the future of your kids don't depend on you. Maybe it depends on you depending on God. Maybe the career that you have all together doesn't fully depend on you. Maybe it depends on you depending on God. You see way back when the church wasn't doing well and God told me to stay at it. I said something before the Lord that I said to no one else, but I wrote it in my journal. I said, okay God, I'll keep pastoring this church. 82 people the rest of my life, if that honors you. But know this, I don't believe you anymore for the vision. I don't believe you anymore for the revival. I don't believe you anymore for the thousandth. I'm gonna lay that down. I just don't have the faith anymore. You

But if you desire to, then I'm going to ask you to do the most absurd thing I can think of. And when that happens, I'll know I'm supposed to pick up the vision and believe you for a revival. When you have someone like John Maxwell come to me and say, "The Holy Spirit told me to mentor you," and I will not ask him, then I will know that you want me to pick it back up. Look, I don't believe in the theology that I tell God what to do. I believe that God sovereignly put that in my spirit because he knew exactly what he was going to do. Amen? He's a big God. Let's not pretend we're managing God. But I'll tell you this, that prayer mattered and it moved things in heaven to move things on earth. And when John made the offer, I knew I had to pick it back up. Prayer moves things in heaven to move things on earth. Maybe this is something of the foreshadowing of what Jesus was saying in John chapter 15. Let me take you there. You're probably familiar with it. Jesus says, "I am the vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. All every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." Verse 3, "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me." Say it with me. "What? Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine.

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing. Now, obviously, you can do something. Obviously, you can build a business. You can raise children. You can develop a career. You can make money. You can build a house. I mean, you can do a lot of things without God. But what you cannot do is bring about the power of God. You cannot bring about the life of God because the life of God is channeled through the power of God, through Christ, through the Spirit in you. You have to remain in the vine for all the good things. In fact, I wrote this because I just want you to hear it. Sometimes I write it, and I'm like, "I wish I could say it this way." And I can't think of it in the moment, so I just want to read it this way. You cannot bear fruit that matters. You cannot produce the fruit of righteousness, obedience, answered prayer, selfless love for one another that builds a godly marriage, kids, family, relationships, nor the fruit of the Spirit like love, joy, peace amidst your world of pressures and problems because it's often pressure that costs you, the life you long for, apart from being in the vine. You cannot discern God's purposes or will, and if you could, you couldn't pull them off. You cannot make kingdom things happen. You can't win souls, build up one another, grow your spiritual gifts, break from your past, have true freedom from sin, battle temptation that destroys every good thing in your life. You cannot see with wise eyes discern good from evil, endure hardship that builds character, build godly lives apart from him.

You can do nothing that lasts. Amen? Because it is in him. He is the source. We are not. We don't have to try to build fruit. We have to remain in the vine. So God did something in me that helped settle something. I want to paint a picture for you. Here it is. All of us know how you grow up naturally in a physical, material, relational world. We all know this. Kids are born dependent, right? I mean, we have a two month old grandchild. It's number six. Grandkids are awesome. Wish we had them first. So we had a, God has children born dependent, but what does it mean for them to grow up? You want them to move from dependent to what? Independent. See, you do not want to, you do not want to spoon feet an eight year old. You don't want to change diapers of a ten year old. And when they become teenagers, let's be honest. God makes them adorable when they're young so that you cannot imagine them leaving. And then he lets him become teenagers so that you cannot imagine them staying. That is just, that's how God does it. In other words, we know that over here is dependence and the way you grow up in the natural world is you move from dependence to what everybody, independence. The reason perhaps we don't know how to grow up spiritually is because it's the exact opposite. You're born in independence, far from God, self-willed and self-reliant.

In order for you to discover how to be restored to God, you'll discover that you are wholly dependent on him. You can do nothing to earn your salvation. learning how to be more and more dependent. The most mature are the most dependent while you arrest the seasons when you have a tendency to be independent. And you can be dependent on a lot of things, but he's going to go after the things where you're demonstrating independence. When the Holy Spirit revealed that in me, it was awakening because I have a tendency to be something of an I've got this. How many of you've ever said about something you were managing or doing, I've got this? Like you got it. You know you've got it. You've had it. Of course you have. Maybe because my family growing up was a broken family and my parents divorced when I was about 12 years old. My dad and two older brothers moved out and dad kind of abandoned windows own way. We were estranged. Maybe it's daddy wounds and puts a hole in your soul that cultivates a drivenness. I got baggage. I got mine. I can own it. And so in that season of my life, I'm like, well, I'm alone. I'm my own. It depends on me. So when God asked me to plan a church to do it, I knew it was on me to make it happen. No wonder in the kindness of God he had to the arrest this, I've got this. By the way, our family has a favorite story of the I got this moment and I'll share it with you because it makes the point and it's just fun. Anybody ever loved tent camping or any kind of pop up camper or camper? Anybody ever go camping? Never go camping. Okay. I didn't love it, but you know, we did tent camping. That's all we could afford. We did the pop up stuff, which is beautiful because you have air conditioning. And then we got the real camper, which is fantastic because it has a bathroom in it. Are you kidding me in the middle of the night? You don't have to get up and trumps to that terrifying bathroom far, far away or somebody with a ski mask. You know, you're going to lose some family member. You know, they're going to get disease on their feet. I mean, it's just nasty. This was glorious gift of God till the first time we took it out about four days in. I figured out where all that stuff goes. My wife said, well, you got to empty the black tank. I'm like, I don't want to do that before breakfast. She says, well, it's beeping. I can't do breakfast without it. Oh, honey, please. So I grabbed my, my eldest son. I said, come on, let's go do it. We got to go find the manual. I'd never done it. I had no idea how to do it. So I just grabbed the manual, started reading it, get the hose out. Here's the, it can't be that hard. Here's the thing. Everybody's doing it here.

You just hook the hose on to here. And apparently, if you pull this, it releases it, the 200 gallons. And then, and then it fortunately on our site, there's a little, there's a drain. And so you just put it in the drain. How hard can it be? So I got it all set. And I'm about to say, son, let her rip. And I, and I felt a presence. It wasn't the Holy Spirit. It was my wife over my shoulder. How many of you hate people looking over your shoulder? Just be honest, be honest. Man, I hate that. Man, I just hate that. And she's like, I don't know if you're doing that right. My bride is sitting right here, 44 years of marriage. Is this true? Did it happen this way? Yes, it did. Okay. She's over my shoulder. I don't think you're doing that right. I've walked around the campground. And people have a, do him a jiggy that's on the, the, the hose and then latched onto the, I, I don't think that's right, honey. I've got this. Why don't you go cook some breakfast? Yes, I did. Sometimes you just got to make a point. And I yelled to my son, let her rip, Josh. And he did. Now listen, I had no idea what pressure meant. When 200 gallons of stuff hit the hole, that thing ripped out of my hand and started dancing. And it was everywhere. And I'm trying to grab it and I can't breathe. And I'm over here. Thanks for watching! got far enough away not to be in the blast zone, and just said, "So you've got that." That's kind of how the church plant went. That's kind of how a lot of things in my life has gone. And I'll bet you know what I'm talking about. Come on, own it, amen? How many times you said in your marriage, "I've got this." You said, "I'm protecting your kids. I've got this." You said, "I'm providing. I've got this." You said, "In your career, I've got this." You said, "About your faith, I've got this."

You decided you could sin, you've got this. You can go that far. You're okay. You can neglect prayer, you've got this. You don't have to honor God with firstfruits, you've got this. And maybe the thing the Spirit of God needs to arrest is, "You don't have this. God's got this, but you don't have this." See, dependence is an awareness that I am progressively growing from independence to dependence because I don't have this and the God who loves me hasn't. All right, that's the breakthrough independence. God's got this and it gives you great freedom. It gives you great freedom because you get to live like nobody else on earth. You get to live free from pressure that lands on everyone else and it goes everywhere and the Spirit of God is saying, "Independence, I will help you handle your pressure." In fact, I handle the majority of your pressure so that you are freed up in me. Dependence frees up and fuels the fire to be a walking revival. And I said it before I'll say it again, "What if a revival isn't the thing that happens out there? What if revival is the thing that happens first and foremost in you?" What if when the Apostle Paul said in Romans 12, 11, "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor." Listen to God. Never be lacking, never, never, never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Never let a time in your life where the fire goes out. You live with such dependence on God cultivating an attentiveness to Him, relying on Him, leaning on Him, looking to the Him where you know He's got this and you don't so that the fire remains hot in you because God's got you. By the way, I'm going to give you a quick prayer, they'll put it on the screen. This is my prayer of dependence. I don't have time to teach it.

I'm just going to say it to you. God over the years, over the decades has helped me kind of cultivate and set in my soul. Maybe you'll say, "I don't need this, I don't know, I surely have." God over me, He is my protector. God for me, He is my provider. God with me, He is my presence. God through me, He is my power. Maybe from a broken home, I got messed up and I didn't have a protector. Maybe I'm more needy than you. Maybe not. Who's your first provider? Who's your primary provider for your family? God, who's the presence, the one that is always with you who will never leave you nor forsake you? I mean, you have a heavenly Father who watches over you, cares for you and provides so that you don't have to chase after everything the same way the pagans do. You live in a freedom that the rest of the world doesn't have and when you live in that freedom, out of your dependence, God keeps the fire of flame in you because, God, you are over me, my protector, and you are forming my provider. Listen, you need this in your 20s and in your 30s and your 40s and your 50s. You need it in your 60s and your 70s as long as you let you live. You're with me. I'm not alone and I'm not on my own. This doesn't all land on me and you are through me. You are the power to pull it off. That prayer, you would think I would be able to solve and own and have in me and never I pray it almost every day. I have a journal. In fact, when I coach people, I invite them to something.

Take seven minutes every day. You just go do it for the next seven days. Go do it for the next 21 days. Pick a season of time and start the day, give seven minutes and write a declaration of dependence. Go write one. Maybe that prayer I just offered will help you. And in that declaration of dependence, look through your day and say, God, as I walk into this in my marriage, as I walk into this in my kids, as I do this in business, as I enter this meeting, as I make this financial decision, I depend on you, I need your help, I need your guidance, I need your wisdom, I need your provision. I can't tell you everything you need to know to, to land at dependence. What I can tell you is that's the direction we're all supposed to be going. Yeah. And every day, take a moment of prayer before you pick up the phone, before you send the email, before you post on social media, I should say that twice. Before you respond to another person before a decision, before a problem starts talking louder, before you bow to temptation, pause and declare your dependence on God.

And when you declare your dependence on God, he's going to arrest wherever there is independence. But it's the death of independence, and the traveling toward dependence, that fuels the fire of revival in you, so that you're never lacking in zeal, always having that spiritual fire. I'll say it again, a life of deepening dependence on God fuels the fire, and you become a walking revival. Unlike anyone else on earth, you live free. When I got the invitation to come hang with you, which I'm honored to hang with you, I knew, tell the story, invite them in, remind them that I did something marking in this dependence thing that got awakened in you, and remind them to ask for me to do it again. Right here in the same place, Winston Salem, tonight is the beginning, it's the launch, it's kind of the revival stirring among us all. All right, well then let's go get this, let's mark this night, let's set this, let's set our soul before the Lord, and let's declare our dependence on him. Shall we, shall we just mark it and say, look, I'm going to declare my dependence on God. And this can sound silly, but it doesn't have to be. And let something like a candle moment,

be the marker that you are declaring dependence, and then have it, have it lit as acknowledging the flame that you carry as a walking revival. Hey, maybe the revival stuff God's willing to do in Winston Salem is not a big bonfire that happens out there, but it starts as a fire ignited and carried in each one of us. Yeah, maybe, maybe. So what about you? Would you make a declaration of dependence? Now I think you have candles, right? Do you get candles? You all get your candles out, put it in front of you. (gentle music) Let's just attend to the Holy Spirit. Let's let him make this a sacred moment for us. Let me give you some instruction, just listen in, and give you some guidance for this moment so that you can attend to him and he can let this be as sacred as it needs to be. We're gonna light our candle. It's for everyone, but if you have your candle lit, and you don't have to, but if you have your candle lit tonight, what you are saying to everyone listening, watching, is that I am making a declaration of dependence. Listen, maybe you're already on that track and this is easier, you're a light, high candle. Maybe you got a pause. Maybe you let the fire pass to the person next to you and you hold it for a moment

because the Holy Spirit says, "Hey, there's a couple of independent issues going on that need to be freshly surrendered." And you surrender that to him, you say, "God, I'm here." This is for everyone, but everyone doesn't have to. This is not performance art. This is holy declaration. We live in a world that has a declaration of independence the Kingdom of God has built on declarations of repentance. And so, maybe you're not ready. Maybe you just carry the candle home with you. Maybe over the next two or three days, it's part of this revival experience. You'll hit that place where you say, "I declare my dependence on you, oh God." And you light it. So, would you stand with me? You obviously recognize. Not only is fire significant biblically, but it's also a problem if it's mishandled in a room. Please handle it appropriately. Hold it so that the wax goes to the cardboard. Let me give you a little clue if you've never done this. If your candle is lit and somebody wants to light their candle from yours, which is really how revival works, that's how it works. The candle that's lit stays straight up and down. This creates a problem of proportions, wax everywhere. You get that, don't you? Yeah. All your heads for an owner. I don't know where I would be. Heavenly Father, had you not graciously?

Holy Spirit, had you not kindly and mercifully built me up? My independent spirit to my life got this. The places in my life where I didn't even understand what dependence meant. I have declared my dependence on you for now thousands of thousands of days, and I am still being woke up to New Jersey. I am still a learner of this. But my sense, Lord, is that all that you would be willing to do, in and through two cities church, has to begin right here. Before we can have tomorrow night and Saturday night and Sunday, I think it was your intention to say, I need you to be a walking revival before I unleash a broader fight. I need your fire to be all in, well fueled by dependence, igniting one another. So I'm going to ask, Lord, some thirty years ago, you brought me to this city, and you ignited a revival, and I will never be the same. Would you do it again? That this church may continue what I think is already a revival in process that they may never be the same, but that the tens of thousands who do not know you would come to faith. So if you'd like to make your declaration of dependence, you'll see the candles start to get lit. There are ushers who are going to assist. Listen, if you let it be lit, you're saying, God, I declare my dependence on you. And if you need a few moments and you have to have an altar where you stand, you have an altar where you stand. So do business without it. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]

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