Psalm 80: What To Do When You Need Revival

When you feel far from God, the most exhausting part is the loop: you notice you’re dry, you try to fix the feeling, and the focus keeps sliding back to you. Psalm 80 breaks that cycle with a simple, repeated prayer that still hits hard today: “Turn us again… make your face shine down upon us.” 

We walk through Psalm 80 line by line, including the powerful images of God “enthroned above the cherubim,” the mercy seat, and Israel pictured as a grapevine God planted and protected. The Psalm doesn’t hide the reality of sorrow, tears, and being mocked by enemies, but it also refuses to believe the story is over. It shows how to remember God’s past faithfulness while asking Him for present help, real rescue, and true spiritual renewal. If you’ve been searching for revival, spiritual refreshment, or a way back from a season of dryness, this Psalm gives language for your prayers and traction for your next step. 

Then we get practical about a “blueprint for revival”: get the focus off yourself and put it back on the Lord. We talk about repenting of whatever is drawing your affection away, spending time seeking God instead of chasing a moment, and choosing praise as a daily practice because God’s mercies are new every morning. You’ll leave with clear homework you can do today and a short prayer to help you breathe again. 

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Transcript

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Welcome And Daily Bible Rhythm

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Psalm chapter 80, and today's title is What to Do When You Need Revival. What to do when you need revival. Now, I don't know where you are from, where you grew up. I know we have people who listen to this podcast literally from all over the world, but where I came from, the word revival was a very interesting word. It can mean a lot of different things. It could be a noun, it could be a verb, it could mean all kinds of things. And so what we are going to do today is we are going to define how we're going to use the word revival today. And we're going to see how God's word gives us a blueprint on how to experience revival in your life. As we're getting to all that in just a moment. So get your Bibles, get your Bible journals, get your coffee, get ready for God's word, but also take just a moment to like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job. And you can get all that information by going to the Biblebreakdown.com because the more we dig, the more we

Defining Revival As Fresh Breath

SPEAKER_01 1:32

find. Well, as we've been saying for the past while, we are calling the book of Psalms soundtrack for life because the book of Psalms is the greatest hits of the people of God from the time of Moses to Malachi. And it's really teaching us how to do life with God. And it's answering questions about what to do in different scenarios. And we've been saying how it helps us learn how to lose with God, how to win with God, how to do road trips with God, everything in between. And today it's what to do when you feel far from God. Now, once again, the word revival can mean so many different things. But one of the things I want us to grab onto today is to revive something, is to breathe fresh air into something that has gone stale or something that has died. And many times when I was growing up, the word revival was used to say it's a time when the people of God would pray for a fresh visitation from God in order to encourage themselves. That was the idea of revival, is a time when people would say, I feel a little stale. I feel a little far from God, I feel a little just kind of flat. And I'm praying that God will just come in and just breathe fresh air into my life. Well, if that's you, God's word speaks to that. God's word realizes. We all go through seasons, we all go through times when we don't feel our freshest when it comes to God. So what do we do? So here we go. Let's read God's word together and see what God's word says we should do. And God's word is always true. So here we go.

Psalm 80 Read Aloud And Images

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Psalm 80, verse 1 says this please listen, O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph's descendants like a flock, O God, enthroned above the cherubim, display your radiant glory. To Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh. Pause real quick. That phrase, enthroned above the cherubim, means above the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was set in such a way that it looked like a seat. They called it the mercy seat, and it was a symbol of God sitting on a throne. Okay, verse two. To Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, show us your mighty power. Come to our rescue. Turn us again to yourself, O God. Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved. O Lord God of heaven's armies, how long will you be angry with our prayers? You have fed us with sorrow and made us drink tears by the bucketful. You have made us the scorn of our neighboring nations. Our enemies treat us as a joke. Turn us again to yourself, O God of heaven's armies. Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved. You brought us from Egypt like a grapevine. You drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land. You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land. Our shade covered the mountains. Our branches covered the mighty cedars. We spread our branches west to the Mediterranean Sea, and our shoots spread east to the Euphrates River. But now, why have you broken down our walls? So that all who pass may steal our fruit? The wild boar from the forest devoured it, and the wild animals feed on it. Come back, we beg you, O God of heaven's armies, look down from heaven and see our plight. Take care of this grapevine that you yourself have planted. His son you've raised for yourself. For that we are chopped up and burned by our enemies. May they perish at the sight of your frown. Strengthen the man you love, the son of your choice. Then we will never abandon you again. Revive us so we can call on your name once more. Turn us again to yourself, O God of heaven's armies. Make your face shine down on us, and only then will we be saved. Wow. There's a lot of metaphor going on in there talking about grapevines and everything else. But the bottom line of what he is saying is he is saying we feel like that we have been beaten up, broken up, tore up, and all of this, and we're asking you, God, to come and save us.

The Shift That Sparks Revival

SPEAKER_01 5:40

The number one way to experience revival is to get the focus off of ourselves and to turn our focus back toward the Lord, to make it less about what we can experience and more about what God can do. One of the things I think that can be so difficult is when we go through seasons when we feel flat, seasons when we feel like that nothing's really going right. Sometimes the reason why we feel spiritually flat is because we're going through seasons where we are we are focusing more on ourselves than God. We're and it's it's a recurring cycle. We don't feel the way we used to. So we think about how we're feeling about it. And we we we get so inside our own heads that we forget about God being the focus. And so we get further and further away from him as we think we're running, running, trying to run closer to him. And it just becomes this frustration, right? And so one of the number one ways I have found to kind of breathe fresh air is to put myself in a position where I can breathe that fresh air. So what I mean by that is, is I get my focus off of myself and I put my focus back on God. And I start saying, God, I want to know you more. God, I want to see you more. God, I want to get out of what I consider to be ordinary and I want to put myself in a fresh place so that I can see you. It doesn't necessarily mean go on vacation or anything like that. It's just if I want to experience more of God, then I need to spend more time going after God. And I want to repent of any sin that's gotten in my life, any stagnation that's happened that's drawn me away from God, and I draw closer to Him. If you do what you've always done, you're gonna get what you've always gotten. So here's my here's my homework for you. If you would say that you're in need of revival, a fresh wind, a fresh air in your lungs, instead of focusing on how bad you need that, I want you to spend time focusing on the goodness of God. Think about how good He is. Take a moment and think about is there something separating you from God? Is there a habit? Is there a sin? Is there something that is drawing your affection away from him? Do you feel far away from him because whatever that is, has it drawn you further away from him? And then think about the goodness of God. And as you do that and you start focusing on him and you start glorifying him, watch what begins to your heart. Because God is always fresh. The Bible says that the mercies of the Lord are new every morning. That doesn't mean we're not going to go through difficult times. Doesn't mean we're not gonna go through dry times. I'm just saying you don't have to stay there. That when those times come, God is always ready to bring you back to Him. When you focus on Him, turn from sin, and glorify Him, watch

Homework Prayer And Final Blessing

SPEAKER_01 8:28

what happens. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you are with us and you're for us and you always have fresh wind for our sails. I pray that today, God, that we will come to know you more, enjoy your presence, and enjoy sharing what we have found with others. We celebrate you today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And then what God's Word says in Psalm 34, verse 1, say it with me, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Psalm chapter 81.