Red Rocks Austin Revival Sermon - Ethan Matott

Date: July 19, 2025 Speaker: Ethan Matott, Pastor Church: Red Rocks Austin Series: Young Bucks (Final Week) Service: Saturday "Rowdy Six" 6pm service Title: "Ready for Revival"

Context & Setting

Final week of the "Young Bucks" series at Red Rocks Austin. Ethan Matott, 36-year-old pastor, delivered what he described as "everything I've been trying to say for the past year in one message." The service included announcements about their new church app, prison ministry expansion through the GoGo app reaching 1,250 correctional facilities, and recognition of McKenzie Hamilton's work with the Arlene Murray unit campus.

Core Thesis: We Are Currently in Revival

Ethan's central argument: "I genuinely believe we are in a time of revival. There is an awakening happening. There is something special happening in the time and space in history that you live right now. And it will be remembered what the church does in this moment."

Statistical Evidence Presented:

• Since the pandemic: majority of churches in America reporting growth
• 30 million Americans have put their faith in Jesus in the last four years
• Bible sales up 22%
• Global Christian growth outpacing population growth
• 15% increase in Gen Z men returning to church
• 19% increase in millennial men returning to church

Key Theme: God Uses Unlikely People

Personal Vulnerability

Ethan shared his own journey of feeling disqualified: "There was this huge part of me that wanted to jump into what God was doing, and then another part of me, another voice, always said, 'Yeah, but not you.' Me sometimes telling God, like, 'you don't want me on your team, I'm gonna make you look bad. You know my past, you know my resume.'"

He referenced coming to faith in Boulder, Colorado: "I came to Faith midway through college in Boulder Colorado, talking about an unlikely place. People are always like, 'that's where you found God?' Yes. Boulder, Colorado."

Biblical Foundation

"God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called. He's not looking for perfect. He's looking for willing."

Cited examples: Joseph (17), Samuel (12), David (teenager), Jeremiah (13-16), Daniel and friends, Esther (15), Mary (16), the disciples as "rag tag, unqualified, unlikely group of teenagers and young adults."

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you're young, but set an example for the believers in speech, and conduct and love and faith and purity." (1 Timothy 4:12)

Central Teaching: King Josiah as Revival Model

Focused on King Josiah from 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35 as the primary example of leading revival as an unlikely person.

Josiah's Legacy

"Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did, with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength in accordance with all the law of Moses."

Five Returns for Revival Readiness

1. Return to God's Grace (Repentance)

"Repentance is not that you run from God because you sin. Repentance is that you run right to God because you sin."

When Josiah heard God's word: "When the king heard the words of the law, he tore his robes." - This tearing of robes represented genuine repentance, not guilt-driven self-punishment.

"Some of you you've been in time out for way too long. And your Heavenly Father's not like, still holding the clock. He's like, 'What are you doing over there? I got a whole life for you to live.'"

2. Return to God's Promises (Covenant Renewal)

Josiah renewed the covenant: "The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul."

Ethan compared this to marriage vow renewal: "What it did more than anything was it renewed our marriage. It reminded us of why we got married in the first place, what the whole purpose, why we're in this thing, why we love each other."

3. Return to God's Word

"I opened up the box and got all the pieces out, and I didn't see instructions... So I get that out, with the instructions in my head, and I literally felt like, now I know how to build this thing. That's how you should feel every time the word of God is in your hands. 'Oh, thank God. Now I know how to live this life.'"

Referenced the "smoothie faith" problem: "You take the pieces of a lot of different things and you mix it together, a little Buddhism, a little Hinduism, astrology, tarot cards, witchcraft, maybe a little Jesus... And you blend it together and you get to decide what's truth and you get to be God."

Story of Summer's transformation from New Age: "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, not a way, a truth, a life, but THE way, THE truth, THE life."

4. Return to God's Presence (Worship)

"When you show up to church, you're coming here for two main courses. Worship is not the appetizer, and it's not dessert. It is a main course that you need."

"We enter His courts with praise and thanksgiving, and so many of us are not getting in His presence 'cause you will not open your mouth and worship him."

Challenged passive attendance: "How crazy is it that the God who made everything wants to meet with you today? And let you experience His goodness in his presence."

5. Return to God's Parties (Celebration)

"Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such passover been observed."

"He is the God of the parties. Jesus embodied that. Jesus threw parties with a bunch of unlikely people all the time."

"The joy of the Lord is your strength. And man do we need that in us as the church."

Personal story about his son and the trampoline: "I need to let the joy of the Lord be my strength again, to get filled back up and rejoice and return to celebration of a God who is so good and gracious to me."

Global Revival Evidence

"This is not just happening in this culture or a country. Remember when everyone was like, Europe is where the church is the most dead... In the UK, in France, countries like that, they are reporting revival. People coming back to church in waves."

"There's a group of people who heard the gospel in one of these hostile nations, and these pastors took them and baptized them in secret because it's illegal to do so, but the government can't stop the church."

"They estimate right now that the Chinese church, the church in China is over 100 million strong. The country that has a government trying to control more than anywhere else declared as an atheistic nation has probably the largest church body of any country in the world."

Contemporary Cultural Context

Referenced journalists investigating the return of young men to church, specifically Gen Z and millennial men. "Journalists are coming to churches that aren't believers going, 'What is going on? What is happening right now?'"

"I truly believe the story of history will call them [Gen Z] the found generation, because they found Jesus and they helped a whole bunch of other people get found in Jesus."

Practical Application & Call to Action

"Do you want to see a move of God or be a move of God? Because if you want to be a move of God, then learn from this young man [Josiah] and what he did and how he led in a time of revival."

"Don't miss this. Don't drift through your workplaces, to your neighborhoods, to your friend groups. You feel unlikely. Good, you're exactly who God's looking for."

"This is our moment, this is our time. You get to be a part of history right now. And I want you in the thick of it."

Church Culture & Philosophy

"We are a hospital, not a courtroom. We don't come in here and pretend to be better than we are. We come in here and say, 'This is how I'm broken, I need the great physician. Let's start the healing process.'"

"We exist to worship God."

"Make Heaven more crowded."

"Imperfect people pursuing a perfect God."

Personal Ministry Reflections

Ethan shared vulnerability about returning to Denver to preach: "I felt that insecurity rise up in me, and that held me back for a long time... feeling so disqualified because of things I've done."

"If God could use that guy [Paul - 'worst of sinners'], what could he do through my life? If this guy who persecuted the church became the greatest church planter ever, what could God do through my life?"

Concluding Challenge

"There are so many people who do not care, do not care about what God is doing right now in this world... And then there's a whole bunch of people who hear it and it's like, 'cool, I'm excited,' but are going to stay on the sidelines and miss out. And I want to call you and invite you to be on the field for a time of revival in the church."

"You're called to this. You're invited into this... God very purposefully puts you on this earth in this moment of history. And what a cool moment he decided to put you on this earth for."

Response & Ministry Context

The sermon concluded with worship and an invitation for salvation and renewed commitment. Ethan emphasized the "Rowdy Six" service as particularly engaged: "I believe you are leading this in our church. At this service, when I preach at this service, I feel the most people that are in this with me."

The message represents Red Rocks Austin's core philosophy of reaching unlikely people through authentic, vulnerable leadership while maintaining strong biblical foundations and contemporary cultural relevance.