This week, Pastor Luke led us into the start of a new series called Revival: Reform to Transform. The heart of this series is the prayer of Saint Augustine “Revive thy church, Oh Lord, beginning in me.”

The title of his sermon was ‘Preparing the Way of the Lord’ and took us through the life of John the Baptizer. Pastor Luke’s three main points were:

You need to exchange your vision for God’s calling
Start with your heart
Receive the grace and power of Jesus

As followers of Jesus we need to exchange our cultural values with kingdom values, submit our vision for life under God’s call for our lives (to prepare the way of the Lord and make disciples) and live out our faith as the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Our lives are not about going to heaven one day but bringing heaven down today. It’s not about getting into heaven, but about getting heaven into you. We need to live lives of repentance (recognizing, confessing and turning from our sin) lived out in community and discipleship. We need people in our lives who can call out our sin and baggage.

Pastor Luke concluded by offering two cautions: we have to bear fruit in keeping with repentance without becoming religious, or irreligious. We must rely fully on God and not allow our freedom in Christ to become freedom from Christ.