Good morning church. How are we doing today? Good, good. Well, my name is Chris Lovell, if you're wondering who I am.  Not a familiar face, but I am the head men's basketball coach at East Texas Baptist University. And so when I'm not coaching college students, I have the great privilege and honor of traveling the country and speaking to students at student camps, student conferences, and I've had the honor this weekend to be with your students here at Burnt Hickory.  And let me just say to you, church, you have a fantastic group of students here in your congregation that make up the life of your church. And beyond that, you have an unbelievable student staff. And that is very important. I was a youth pastor for 18 years before God called me into coaching full time and speaking. And I will tell you guys, having a student staff that cares about the spiritual well being of students is the most important thing ever. Because if God can get hold of a heart when they're in junior high, and in high school, He can do amazing, amazing things with their lives.  So I'm honored to be with you today. Now before I was at East Texas Baptist, I was a junior college coach for four years. I lived Last Chance U if any of y'all binge on that. It's the finest form of ministry known to mankind in my opinion, before that I was a high school coach, and before that I was a youth pastor. So I've kind of been there and done a whole lot of different things, but here's the thing I would tell you this morning that you need to know about me.  The reason I'm here is because I believe that there's nothing more important than the gospel of Jesus Christ getting out into this world. And I believe that with all of my heart and this morning, what I want to talk to all of us about students and congregation included is I want to talk to you about what it means to revive a life. And so I'm not incredibly smart, but I can Google things I don't know about you. And so for me a jumping off place for all of us if we were to Google the word revive. If we give you a couple of definitions depending on which dictionary source you go with, but the one I chose, the word revive would be defined like this; To return life, to become active again.  Another definition would say, bringing life back to something that was thought to be dead. And that's what it means to revive something. And immediately my mind goes to an emergency room. I've never been in an emergency room outside of little nicks and stitches here and there throughout my life and my hat's off to medical professionals, especially during this time in our world. But the my only view into emergency rooms is through television, in the movies, and so forth. And we've all seen it on some level. But when you go into emergency room and a patient is critical, they take them back and what they're doing is they're trying to give them the best care possible. But sometimes things go wrong. And we know that once they have them hooked up to all the machines and all the monitors and all the things that they have, we know that if the machine flatlines that it means there's no heartbeat. And then they begin to rush around. And what they tried to do is resuscitate life, they try to revive life to the person, they try to bring life back to the person that was thought to be dead  Even so they'll get those paddle things. sorry I don't know the terminology.  And they'll get them out and they'll put them on their chest and electrically try to shock back into rhythm, a heartbeat, all in efforts to revive a life. But more than reviving the life physically and this morning what I want to do is talk about what it means to revive a life spiritually. I believe that God's revival sign to the world is the cross. And it's through a relationship with Him that we who were thought to be dead headed to the penalty of our sin which is a place separate from God and hell we can enter into a relationship with Him, find forgiveness through that relationship that ends in a place called heaven one day for all of eternity. And the question for you this morning is have you been revived.  And this morning, I want to look in the book of Matthew chapter 9.  So if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab that. If you have a smartphone you can use your Bible app. But if you go to Matthew chapter 9, we're going to pick up this story this morning in verse 9.

And let me give you a little background as you're turning there, Jesus has begun His earthly ministry.  He has begun to call out people to follow him. He has begun to perform miracles. In fact, right before this encounter with Jesus happens, he had just cast out demons out of a man, he had just healed a paralyzed guy to be able to walk for the first time in his life. And then we pick up the story right here, Matthew, 9:9 it says this, "Jesus went on from there," where do you go on from? Healing the paralyzed guy, performing a miracle.  "As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew," or Levi, depending on which account you're reading the Gospels.  "Sitting at the tax collector's booth. 'Follow me', He told him, and Matthew got up, and he followed them." Verse 10, "When Jesus was having dinner now at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came in with Him and His disciples." Verse 11, "When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, 'Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' " Verse 12, "On overhearing this, Jesus said, 'It is not the healthy, who need a doctor, but it is the sick.' "  Verse 13. "But go and learn what this means, for I desire, mercy, not sacrifice for I've not come to call the righteous, but I've come to save the sinners.". Let's pray together. God, I pray this morning in the power of your word, as I look across this room dear Lord, that You will speak to our hearts.  Dear Lord, that if we feel like we are spiritually dead, that this morning we will walk out of here feeling spiritually alive, because we have been redeemed and revived by Your goodness, and Your grace, and Your mercy, dear God.  Talk to us now, teach us how in Your Word. It's in your name that we pray, and everybody said, Amen.  Here's the good news this morning, ready? Since you're dealing with a basketball coach, I only have two points. That means we might get out of here early. I have two points. The first point, write this down as we get into what it means to revive a life.  The first point write it down. I believe this is the most important point you could ever hear is that, here it is, that Jesus is interested in all people.  Not just the people who follow Him, not just the people who look like Him or act like Him. He is interested in all people. And we see this referenced in this encounter in the Bible. In fact, we see three different groups of people referenced here in this story. And I'm gonna walk backwards through this story a little bit with you this morning. But He sees three different groups of people and He's interested and loves and cares for them all.  The first group of people He sees if you're taking notes, you can jot this down, is He sees what I would call the righteous. And let me clarify who the righteous are. The righteous are His disciples, they're those that are trying to live in a right way. They have entered into a committed relationship with Jesus and they're walking with Jesus, though they are not perfect. They are what we call disciples that are learners of God. That's what the definition of a disciple is. And that when we enter into this committed relationship with Jesus, we actually are learners, of God trying to live God's way. Does that make sense? These are the righteous, we know they're there. If you look at verse 10. So you know, I'm not making it up. In verse 10, it says, "While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors, sinners came and ate with Him and the disciples." There they are. And they are at the table with Jesus and Jesus was interested in them. I get to speak at a lot of student camps and conferences and I don't know if y'all know this, but speakers are very rarely with other speakers. We are always with musicians, band people. And I, let me just clarify this statement on the front end, I think musicians are some of the most talented, creative people ever. I wish I could sing. But because I can't sing and because I can't play an instrument, God told me to use my voice. So that's what I'm going to do. But I'm at this camp at the top of the Ocoee mountain over there in Tennessee, speaking at a student camp in this band from Liberty University, that I'm with that week and you know, they wear their skinny jeans and combat boots, they look really cool. They got great hair, and here's me, the ex athlete, just trying to keep up. And they looked at me after the morning service and like, coach, we're gonna go down the mountain. You may not know this, but they have free Wi Fi at Starbucks. I was like oh, okay. So I grabbed my laptop and I'm thinking, bro, I'm gonna go down the mountain with the band to be cool for a little while and sit in Starbucks. I don't even like Starbucks coffee, by the way. I'm a straight water guy, drinking AdvoCare spark every now then. So be it. So I go down the mountain. We walk into Starbucks, everyone's looking at us not because of me because of them. And we sit down and I reach into my backpack and I pull out my laptop, I log on to the wifi and I'm about to return emails, catch up on work, talk to recruits do everything that I normally do in my downtime and then across from me is Ryan, the 21 year old electric guitar player in the band. He's got the coolest hair you've ever seen. 

I mean, I came out of the womb with this haircut, can't do anything with it. Here I am about to get on my laptop. And there's Ryan. And Ryan reaches in his backpack, and pulls out the biggest Bible I've ever seen in my life. Now, I remember growing up with my grandma and she had a huge Bible that said on her coffee table. And when we would open it up, it felt like the Spirit of God would come in the room. He had one of those. I mean, I can put my Bible in my pocket if I need to. Some of y'all have just reverted using your cell phone, you know, what I'm saying?  But he pulls out this massive Bible in the middle of Starbucks. And he opens it up. And he looks at me and he goes, "Hey, coach, can I ask you some questions about what God's been teaching me out of the book of 1 John?" I close my laptop. I put it up. And for the next hour and a half all Ryan wanted to do was talk about Jesus and what God was teaching him through the Word. You know, when I got back in that white van; why do bands always travel white vans, that's um, nevermind. When I got back in that white van to go back up the mountain to preach that night. Here's the thought I was left with. A 21 year old electric guitar player, Ryan, he has a relationship with Jesus and he can't get enough of Him. How many of y'all have ever been around someone in your life and after you spent time with them, you walked away and felt the same thing like I'm better for being around that dude, or that young lady because they love Jesus and they can't get enough of Him.  You see, Ryan had a relationship and couldn't get enough of God, he was a righteous person. He was someone who knew God and couldn't get enough in these people were at the table this night with Jesus and Jesus cared so much about them. But there's a second group of people that are there in the story, if you look in the text, and the second group, and you can jot this down, and I'll need to clarify this for just a second. But the second group of people that were there with the sinners. Now, I know we're all sinners, okay, so let me clarify the statement. But these are the people who didn't have a relationship with God, and they knew it. Now there's a difference. There are some people who are super religious trying to keep rules and think they have a relationship with God but these people that are referenced here are the ones that don't know God and they're aware that they don't know God. They're the sinners. And if you look at verse 10, while Jesus was having dinner, Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Him and the disciples, so they are there. So let me break it down what tax collectors were back in the day. See, the tax collectors were despised by common people back in the day. In fact, their job was to go and collect taxes from the common people and pay their taxes back to the government. But the tax collectors, let's say, to put it in common terms. If you owe $100 to the government, they're going to charge you $200 to keep 100 for themselves, and then pay the government back with the other 100 that you owe them. And so they were thieves. They were robbers and the people didn't like them. But here comes Jesus, this great teacher here in this text, who's performing all these miracles and there's this buzz about Him and Jesus walks up with His disciples to righteous who are right living and have relationship with them and know Him, and He walks up with them and He looks at a tax collector, Matthew, and He says, "Follow me." Why? Because He's interested in him. He cares about him. Matthew jumps up and follows Him and then he goes to Matthew's house, and all of Matthew's other tax collector friends, come and joined the party. Why? Because Jesus was just as interested in them as He was the righteous and so He's sitting there with those that don't know Him, and they know it. 

I was speaking at a camp several years ago in Texas, the big state of Texas. It was a middle school camp. Now, I just want you for a minute to think about spending a week with 500 sixth through eighth graders and their youth pastor.  Some of y'all that makes your blood curl. For me, I love middle school students. I think they're awesome. You want to know why? There's no filter. They don't care yet. They get into high school, they know how to cover things up, make themselves look good, act like nothings wrong with them and as adults, we perfected it. But junior high kids, they don't even care. They probably wouldn't even shower the whole week at  camp and didn't care. First night at  middle school camp on a Monday night,  I roll up on the stage and I started preaching my sermon and midway through the sermon there was a seventh grade boy sitting right there. And in the middle of my sermon he starts waving at me. Now we're taught as communicators to say, you know, if something distracting happens in the audience, ignore it. Keep preaching. So what did I do? I just kept preaching. After the service was over that seventh grade boy who had the Justin Bieber swoop hair, did this, the whole service, I thought he was gonna get whiplash.  He came running up to me. He said, "Coach, my name is JP." And I thought to myself, well, yes, you are. He said, Coach, I don't believe in God." See, that's why I like junior high kids right there.  "I don't believe in God. I believe in this stuff."  I said, "Okay."  He said, "You're a coach, right?" I said, "Yeah, I'm a coach."  He said,  "I'll listen to you." I said, "Okay."  And he ran off. Nice conversation. You get a lot done in three minutes with Junior High student. Next night service rolls around and in the middle of my sermon guess who starts waving at me,  JP.  After the sermon he runs up to me, "Hey, hey coach can I talk to you?"  I said, yeah."  And we went in the back corner of the worship room concrete slab two metal folding chairs and we sat down.  He goes, "Hey, I've been listening." I said, "That's good."  You know, I mean, people don't listen at Camp that's great. He said, "I've been listening to this God thing. It's kind of a big deal?"  I said, "Yeah, it's kind of a big deal."  He said, "Can it really change my life?"  I said, "Yeah."  We talked about and he said, "You know my parents hate God."  I said, "Man, I'm sorry."  He got up and left. That was it, four minutes.  The  third night at camp at end of my sermon he runs up and said, "Can I talk to you."  I said, "Yeah." We go sit in the back. He said, Can Jesus really forgive my sins?"  I said, "Yeah."  He said, "God really did that for me?"  I said, "Yes." He said, "And all I have to do is believe in Him and call out to Him and He'll like make me a Christian?"  I said, "Like yeah."  And, he ran off.

Last night a camp he started waving at me again. He was consistent, I'll give him that. I think he wore the same shirt all week, by the way. Got to the end of the sermon. He was the first one down the aisle. That night I had the privilege and honor of leading my friend JP to the Lord.   Went home from camp and they called me and they said, "Chris can we bring in and can you baptize JP,"  we'd really connected. Four minute  conversations are amazing. I said, "Yeah, I'll come baptize the dude."  I went to Wichita Falls where he lives and went in the church they were great people and his parents who hated God came. We baptized JP. Now, I got a call six months later from JP and he called to tell me that he had led both of his parents to Jesus.

Here's what I want you to know. God was just as interested in JP, when he didn't know him as he was interested in me knowing him for years at that point. And when God looks at people, he doesn't look at them like we do. He looks at their soul, He looks at their eternity. And He looks at what they could be instead of what they are right then. And here's Jesus sitting with those who know them and can't get enough of them, just like He's sitting with those who are lost. And they're aware that they have no relationship with Him, and He loves them the same. But then there's this third group of people that enter the story. And God loves this group of people just like the other two groups of people in this story. But they're the Pharisees. They're the religious. These are the religious people. And let me explain who the Pharisees were.  Back in the day, they were the ones that were a little bit more highly educated than everybody else. They were educated in the law. They kept all the rules, if the law said, and I'm making this up, but if the law said, bow down and pray 90 times a day, they were gonna bow down and pray 90 times a day, they weren't great at keeping the law and they were prideful, that they could keep the law. And they knew the law better than other people. They weren't bad people. They just had a lot of information that other people didn't have. And they found their self worth in keeping these rules. And so the Pharisees come on the scene, and they see Jesus sitting with the righteous, his disciples and the sinners, the tax collectors, and this is not acceptable in society. And the Pharisees are like, they walk up to one of the disciples, and they say, why does your teacher sit and eat with sinners, and tax collectors? And don't you hate it when you go up to ask a question about somebody else and somebody else hears you ask it, then you got to deal with somebody else's.  This is what happened? Jesus overhears the question. And instead of allowing his disciples to respond, Jesus decides to respond himself. Why? Because he loved the Pharisees. He loved the religious people, just like he loved those that were lost and those that knew Him and look at what he says, because it's so interesting. Verse 12, "On hearing this, Jesus looked at the Pharisees, at the religious people, and it said, it's not the healthy, who need a doctor, but it is the sick. And then Jesus does something so incredibly clever. He appeals to their intellect. He related to them in a way that they could understand. That's what made Jesus so unbelievable as a teacher, look at what He says in verse 13, "But go and learn what this means." Well, they're all about learning. They were all about keeping the law. Do you understand? So we appeal to them in a way where you can catch their attention. He says, go and learn what this means for I desire mercy, not sacrifice. If you read commentaries on this passage, and you go and look at the original text in which it was written, what He meant when He said, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice," what He meant was, I just wish you would acknowledge me as your God and maybe not keep all the rules. He said I love you so much and I'm thankful for you keeping the law but could you just acknowledge me as your God?

And we all know that the only way to enter into a relationship with Jesus is to acknowledge our need for Him and to acknowledge Him as our Savior. And so He's making the same plea to the religious as He was those that knew they had no idea who He was and that they were lost. He needed them. Because see, Jesus was interested in all people, you know what I'm afraid of church as I traveled the country, and I get to do this, with many congregations and student groups?  It's that we have a lot of religious people in the church. And it doesn't make them bad. But somehow they think by being here every Sunday gains them favor with God. Somehow they think by having all this knowledge of the Bible is going to gain them a relationship with Jesus. The Bible says that in the last days, many will come to Him and say, Lord, Lord, did I not preach in your name, did I not prophesy your will, in your name? Did I not show up to church every Sunday in your name?  Did I not go on mission trips in your name? And the Bible says clearly He'll look at them if they don't know Him, and don't have a relationship with Him and He will say, depart for Me for I never knew you. And it scares me to death to think that we have people that fill the pews every Sunday and the chairs every Sunday, and they hear the gospel presented over and over and over again, and they're sitting there and they're like, look I'm in church and I'm okay.  I know about the Bible, I'm okay. I go on mission trips, I'm okay. But they're sitting there trying to justify their salvation, instead of having the confidence that God knows them. And they know God. Because Jesus is interested in all people, He gives them the same invitation that He gives you and me. And then if you will just acknowledge your need for Me and Me as your God, I will save you.  Second point; not only is God interested in all people, but His rescue plan, was to revive, lives. His rescue plan for mankind was to bring back to life, something that was thought to be dead, and all of us spiritually were born dead and He looked upon our life and He sent Jesus so that He could remedy the situation. That's why He closes with these words. Jesus says in verse 13, "For I have not come just to call those that know me the righteous. But I have come,"  watch what he does right here, "to save the sinners. That word sinner right there in the context of the Scripture includes all people, because we're all sinners. And what does He come to save you from?  Eternal separation from Him? What does He come to save you from?  The penalty of your sin? What does He come to save you from?  A life without meaning and purpose? But what does He offer?  Forgiveness of your sins that you can find no other way.  What does He offer?  A committed relationship with Him?  What does He offer?  Eeternity in Heaven with Him forever. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him does not perish, but that they can have everlasting life." I close with this this morning. I'm a dad. I'm proud dad, by the way. I got three kids. And so I relate to this. 

But there's a story about a dad, that in his household, he had one son, and his son's name was Armand. And the dad's wife worked early, so she would get up early, and she would go to work. And it was the dad's responsibility in the mornings to fix breakfast for Armand.  To get him dressed and they would walk out the front door every morning together and down the sidewalk to the stop sign and across the street was Armands elementary school.  And right before Armand would try to cross the street to go to school every morning, his dad would get down on one knee. And he looked Armand in the eye. He said, "Armand, I hope you have a great day but I want you to remember something.   Your dad loves you. And he'll always be here for you. And just like little kids do, I miss this. My boys are as big as me now. That little first grader Armand would give him one of those little kids squeezy hugs.  Ya'll know what I'm talking about?  

He let go of his dad and he'd run across the street and go to school. This happened every day, during the school year and on this one day, not any different from any other day. He got Armand up, fixed him breakfast, helped him get dressed, walked him down to the stop sign, got down on one knee and said Armand remember your dad loves you and I'll always be here for you, buddy. Have a great day. They hug it up and he's gone. Dad walks back into the house starts preparing himself for work and all of a sudden, the ground began to shake. And it shook so violently that it took the man to his knees. You see an earthquake had happened. Immediately his thought wasn't, Oh, I'm going to be late to work or they'll lose my brand new car I just bought it was nothing like that. His first thought was my son. So he runs out the front door. Down to the stop sign. He looks across the street and the school is gone. Earth had opened up and swallowed it. He runs across the street and begins to cry Armand, Armand, where are you? There's no response.  Emergency teams, medical teams start showing up on the scene, start roping off the area and they tell him to go home that they've got it under control and they'll let him know if they find any survivors. He's like no, no, no,  I'm not going anywhere. You don't understand. My son. He's out there somewhere. So they allow volunteers to help them and that happened at 7:30, 8:00 o'clock that morning and all through the night they searched.   They found no one.  Hopelessness starts to set in. His son that he so loved is gone. They continue to look.  About 5:00, 5:30 the next morning, they pull over this big block of cement.  A ray of light shoots down in a hole and they hear a voice Hello.  Hello.  Someone says, "We're down here." The dad recognized the voice it was Armand. He said, "Dad we're here.  A pillar fell over our classroom and 11 of my classmates. We're here and we're okay." Can you imagine what he thought was gone was still alive. They started securing the area and they start pulling these kids out of this hole one by one.  Here comes Armand. They take him out of the hole and they give them to his dad.  And that dad takes his son. He looks at him. And his son looked at him. He said "Dad, I told him. Oh Dad, I told him that you would be here for me."

Can I be honest with y'all? That's exactly what God did. For every single one of us. When we were lost when we were gone and thought to be separated from Him forever, He found a way to rescue us. And if we acknowledge Him as our Lord and Savior and call upon His name to save us, He rescues us from that eternal destination and brings us into another one. Why? Because He's interested in all people.  Why?  Because His mission was to revive lives and to bring something that was thought to be dead back to life.  I'm gonna ask you just to bow your heads and close your eyes for just a moment.

I don't know what group of people you fall in this morning .   Some  of you can be very religious and maybe this morning you realize you don't have a relationship .  Some of you could be like my friend JP and be lost and he knew it.  Some of you in this room you say man, Chris I've got a relationship and I can't get enough of God. But let me just say this; whatever group of people you fall into this morning God's interested in you and He offers you the opportunity to know Him so this morning if you would like to know Him, I would ask you just where you sit to pray a prayer and say God I acknowledge I need you as my Lord and Savior and I ask you to come into my heart and forgive me of my sins and be my Lord.  And the Bible says that if we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that He is Lord that He will save us.  That the old things are gone and new things are yet to come and if you did that this morning and prayed that prayer where you sit here in a minute I want you to grab your phone and go to the Burnt Hickory app and there hit next steps and you can just click I accepted Christ whatever decision you made and someone from this great church is going to reach out to you. 

Maybe this morning you were burdened for a friend there's not a greater time to bring a friend to church than Easter and it's next week and I encourage you.  Remember God is interested in the people you work with, the people you do life with, just as much as He's interested in you so God thank you for this moment and what you've done and we worship you now Lord because you have revived us.