We've been in a series, if you've been around for the last
couple of weeks pressing in and pressing on, and we've been
looking at week 1, I set the scene of this coming season
being about digging wells. And if you were here, you'll
know that I brought a literal shovel, a large shovel and a
small shovel and had it on stage.
And and this invitation of the Lord in this moment that he's
calling us to dig the well of prayer in this place as we walk
between in this in between season, as we've said goodbye to
1 senior pastor and a chapter has ended and we're looking
forward to what God is going to do in the next chapter.
And I described prayer as being just quite frankly, hard work.
And we don't always feel like it, but the Lord calls us to
pick up a shovel and to use our prayer muscles, however weak
they might feel, and to just pray.
And as we do, He starts to form us, literally change our shape
because of our encounter with him.
And then last week, Richard did a phenomenal job of talking
about faith and what it is to stand in expectancy.
And he shared that story, which has stuck with me, of a group of
believers who stood in a nation that was experiencing drought,
calling on the name of the Lord to bring the rain.
And they meant it with a whole being.
And then there was this child at the edge that was also praying
that that child had an umbrella up ready and expected.
And that picture that that God moves and he comes through on
his promises. And actually, our posture is to
be like the child with an umbrella up ready for what God
is going to do. And so we've had a shovel and
we've had an umbrella. And I'm not going to lie, the
pressure was on this morning. I was like, what am I going to
come up with today? But we're going to dig into
another dynamic that helps us to persist in prayer this morning.
And so before I kind of kick in, I just want to pray and ask the
Spirit of God to be an honest Lord.
We thank you this morning. You're here.
We're so grateful that you gave us tastes of heaven, presence,
What kindness? And Lord, this morning as we dig
into Your word, we're not here just to come in and eat it and
walk out and look exactly the same.
We're here to encounter You changed by so worried where we
might have walls up this morning or or just the mundane of our
week. We've just rolled in and we're
just here and we're walking through the motions forward by
your spirit. I pray that you would tenderize
our hearts in this room. You'd help us to take off the
coat, the layers that would hinder us encountering you and
seeing you and allowing you space to speak to us.
And I pray that everyone of us, no matter where we're at, would
walk out of here with a taste of that living hope, a taste of
your presence with us that empowers us to walk differently
is coming. Well, a few years ago I went on
a bit of a crazy journey thanks to a wonderful friend and her
great ideas. And it was, we'd had Christmas,
we'd had New Year's, we'd enjoyed all the things that come
with that. And she had this great idea to
embark on a 30 day clean eating experiment.
In fact, my in laws are in the room this morning and they were
here that Christmas. And I think I convinced my
father-in-law to join me on this crazy journey.
But we did a 30 day clean eating, I don't know, diet, I
guess, but just that like purging of all the things.
So there was no sugar, no caffeine, no gluten, and I'm not
going to be like, there was a lot of other things on this list
of things that I thought, well, what on earth am I actually
going to eat? Like I was really excited when I
signed up and I got to the 1st of January and I was like, So
what is here that I'm going to eat?
And and so I embarked on it. I got myself prepped and I'd
shop for some things on the list that you could eat and started
on day one. No, and it's OK, I'm going to
feel grumpy. It's OK, I'm going to feel
grumpy and it and we embarked on this journey and basically the
first week I was a nightmare. I mean, I was every form of
hangry that you could possibly have and my poor family and my
work of colleagues. So I remember sitting in
meetings at while I'm harbourning like I just can't
focus. Like I'm so sorry.
I wish Don't put the caffeine in front of me.
And part of this regime, so to speak, was that they also had
protein shakes. And I'd never had a protein
shake in my life before this. But I remember the first day I
made this protein shake in great hope that this thing was going
to taste amazing. I had no one tell you that
protein shakes taste terrible. They're just awful like, and so
I made this protein shake and I was like, the texture is just
and I thought, oh Lord, I've got 30 days of drinking this.
Like, how am I going to make it? But I made made it through and
we just started to drink this protein shake, forcing myself
and, and I hoped that maybe I'd get used to the protein shake
and I'd come to love it. But you know what?
I never got to love protein shakes.
They are just gross. I'm going to put it out there.
I know they're great. I know they do wonderful things
for us, but I just never loved it.
And but what I did start to notice is that the protein shake
did what they said it would on the tin, which is it?
It did sustain me in a way that when I had to say no to all the
lovely things that I did enjoy, that I would consume this
protein shake. And no, that was a horrible
experience to get it into me. Once it was in, I didn't feel
hungry. And slowly over the course of
this 30 day, clean eating, the protein shake really, really
empowered me to do the thing that I'd set out to do.
And what I came to realise is that that even though we have to
do something sometimes that don't feel good, they actually
empower us to taste and see the thing that's really good for us.
And So what happened over the course of this 30 days is that
the things that like fruit and vegetables, like they came alive
in my taste palate when you eradicated the things that our,
our food culture has taught us taste good.
And suddenly these protein shakes were empowering me to
finally taste just how good a pear actually tastes when you're
not used to extreme sweetness and fake sugar.
And this morning we're going to tuck into something that if
there is a prop that I could have brought this morning, it
would be my protein shake shaker for you, OK?
Because what we're going to tuck into this morning is something
that like protein shakes are to clean eating.
Fasting is to pursuing God. We are going to talk about
fasting this morning. And I know it might be like,
wow, you've given us analogy where you're feeding yourself
and you're talking about fasting.
Claire, how does this work? Trust me, roll with me.
OK, we're going there. So what is fasting?
I mean fasting in a definition in the dictionary is essentially
to abstain from something voluntarily, voluntarily, yes,
to say no to something like food.
And in our health world right now, if you jump on any form,
especially as a 40 year old woman, let me tell you, I get
bombarded with intermittent fasting.
You should do this. It's really good for you.
There is like so much out there, the business world, they say
it's an incredible place to develop an app right now on how
to fast and to help people fast because it is beneficial to our
health, supposedly. But this morning I want to talk
about biblical fasting, which is a little bit different than the
way our modern world is unpacking fasting.
And This is why, because biblical fasting is yes, about
saying no, abstaining to something like food, but it is
in order to make space for something really good, God
himself to taste him in new ways to allow who he is to come alive
in our being. You know Dallas Willard, a great
a great theologian and brilliant on spiritual formation, he
defines fasting like this. He says that fasting has 2
dynamics, 1 is withdrawal and the other is appropriation and
you can never take one part without Part 2.
Any fast which is merely just about a withdrawal is not a fast
in the way of Christ. It's just merely A withdrawal.
Fasting is always about turning from one thing to another.
My way of putting that is to say that the fasting is about saying
no to something that we could say yes to.
In order to say yes to something that we literally cannot afford
to say no to, I'm going to say that again.
Fasting is to say no to something that we could say yes
to in order to say yes to the thing that we literally cannot
afford to say no to, because biblical fasting is an embodied
way of pursuing God. And that in order to little bit
is really important understanding because when we
think about it, like if I said to you, who's super excited to
fast, do you love fasting? You'd be lying to me if you
raised your hand in this room like the mass majority of us are
not going to be like, woo Hoo. I can't wait to say no to lunch
today, dinner, breakfast tomorrow.
And I'm going to tell you upfront, I hate fasting.
Like I am preaching to myself this morning I was like, Lord,
really? You want me to smoke on fasting?
I'm rubbish at this. I really, really don't like it
because we don't like putting ourselves in uncomfortable
places and being confronted with feeling of hunger or the laying
down of something that we love in our life.
And I think some of that is because when we think about
fasting, we actually think about it in a modern understanding of
fasting, which is it's all about saying no to something.
And what we forget is that in we're saying no to something in
order to say yes to something. It's like pulling up a being
offered a seat at a table of amazing things.
But someone walking over and saying, hey, do you want to come
sit at this table over? This is absolutely incredible.
And you're being invited to take your seat from here and go sit
at this table. The fable that God lays for us
with this abundant feast. Fasting is about taking a seat
at the most abundant table that you could ever imagine and
feasting there. Now, I say that, but I still
know that some of you are like, yeah, but you know what, Claire?
Fasting's not commanded in the Bible.
And you are right. Fasting is not a command in the
Bible. Like love your neighbor is or
you know, go into all the nations and make disciples.
Those are commands upon disciples.
And fasting is not a command in the Bible.
And I'm like brilliant. That means it's just for the
Super spiritual people. Sweep that one under the table
and forget that one. I'll, I'll, I'll go for worship.
I love worship, love walking in here.
That's great. I'll meet Jesus in worship.
We'll leave fasting for another day.
But what we discover in the scripture is that fasting isn't
for super spiritual people. Fasting is not an invitation to
religious performance. It's about becoming a person who
lives in the sufficiency of God. It's where inner transformation
happens and it empowers us not through external performance,
but it is effective not because of what we do, but because of
how God meets us in that place of saying come and make the old
self known of me, where we createspace for him to allow him
in to inwardly transform us. And fasting is seen throughout
the Scriptures, Old Testament, New Testament.
And what my hope is this morning is that you walk out of here
understanding that fasting is an absolute gift because it helps
us, it empowers us. And He's not commanding it of
you, but He's inviting you to come and taste and see just how
good he is. And He gives it as this gift
because He knows we need help. And I don't know about you, but
I need help. I need help to encounter Jesus
in deeper, more meaningful ways. I need help to taste Him and
experience Him and really taste Him.
Like I tasted that pear and I've tasted the apple.
I don't want the fake shallow taste of God, I want the deep
encounter of God that literally changes me and satisfies me in a
way that nothing else can satisfy me.
So it's really interesting to me that fasting is actually the
most unused practice of modern discipleship.
And John Mark Chroma offers a really interesting insight into
this. He says that we live in a
culture not only of food, but of excess, luxury and addiction.
And just to be clear here, you know that they say that 95% of
us, the world's population, is addicted to something, not
Jesus, like addicted to something in our world.
And for many, as many as he goes on to say, for many of us, the
desires of our body have come to hold power over us consciously
or mostly unconsciously. And in the battle with our
flesh, we have become its slave and not its master.
Coffee, tea, sugar, social connectedness, even exercise,
essentially anything that has our devotion above our attention
on God. And so as I've considered this
culture that we live in in 2025 and and just like super honestly
looking at my own life, I am addicted to stuff.
I am and man, I need help to get God back in the first position
in my life where He has my devotion and He empowers me to
overcome that stuff. Because in Matthew 4/4 it's
reminds us that we cannot live by bread alone, but only by
every word that comes out of the mouth of God.
And so if you are a disciple of Jesus in this room, I want to
suggest that every single one of us today needs to consider the
place that fasting might place in our journey.
As His disciple, He's inviting you to take the best seat at the
table this morning and to consider how he wants to help
you taste and see how good He is.
Now, there's a lot in the word about fasting, but I want to
highlight three things as I kind of meditated on this and
consider what the world might want to remind us of in this
season as Verso. There's three things I want to
look at this morning, and the first one is this, that fasting
empowers us to be wholeheartedly devoted to Jesus.
You know, I want us to look at Joel.
Joel is an amazing example. He speaks about fasting in Joel
chapter 212 and 13. Now Joel is a minor prophet.
His name means the Lord is God and he's giving a prophecy in
this chapter to the people of Judah.
He were experiencing a plague of locusts which on 1st read you
might think is an agricultural disaster, but at actually what
is happening here is this locust plague is speaking to something
much deeper going on in the people of Judah.
And Joel gives this invitation and it says this in Joel to you
12 to 13 even now declares the Lord return to me with all of
your heart with fasting and weeping and mourning.
Rend your heart and not your garments, for the Lord is
gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love,
and he relents in sending calamity.
Now what Joel is doing is he's speaking to this people that
essentially have drifted, they've drifted into scenarios
that that their attention is not on the Lord and he's speaking to
them prophetically and he's saying hello, you need to return
to me, return to the Lord, not to Joel, Say the Lord, how, how
is he calling them to be wholehearted, devoted, devoted
to God? How is he calling them?
He says to come ultimately with repentance, with mourning and
weeping. What, what are they mourning and
weeping? They're mourning and weeping
over their sin, their lack of devotion to the Lord.
He's calling them to repentance and how?
Through fasting and what I when I sat on this Scripture, I was
like, Lord, what? What is this dynamic about?
He's calling them to an embodied pursuit of God where they
repent, where they're weeping over their sin.
How often do you weep over your sin?
The things that have got your attention over the ward?
I don't weep over that enough. But he also calls them to fast.
And what we start to see here, and perhaps the Lord wants to
speak to us this morning, is that fasting helps us to ensure
our pursuit and persistence is wholehearted and not half
hearted. But fasting empowers us to walk
that out because it helps us keep the first thing first.
It helps us to keep a regular check on the kind of things that
maybe have taken place in our lives as the master instead of
us being the Master over them, we're on a lifelong pursuit.
And what I love in this is that not only does he call them to
mourn and weep and fast, it then goes on to remind us that who is
doing that? The Lord who is compassionate
and loving and kind. And he doesn't do that from a
place of saying, get on your knees and repent of your sin.
And, and he's doing it because he loves us.
He calls us to fast because He loves us so much that He wants
to empower us to pursue Him as we are called and designed to
pursue Him. Because let's not forget,
there's lots of good things and they're gifts from the Lord, but
they can so quickly become more important in our lives than Him.
But I also love here that as they do this actually in in this
Scripture, it's like a prophetic declaration to the world around
them. And my word, does the body of
Christ in this hour need to prophetically declare that the
turning wholeheartedly to Jesus is the only way.
And church, that's you and me in this room.
We need to get serious about our devotion to Jesus because when
we do, we are pointing a world that is lost outside these warts
to say this is the only way. This is the only way.
In this hour. There is no other solution, no
other solution but Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the
life. And as a body of Christ.
It feels hard sometimes, but today I want to offer to you
that fasting is a gift of the Lord that will help us pursue
Jesus wholeheartedly. Secondly, fasting, as I said, is
embodied prayer. Let's look at Ezra for a minute.
Ezra 821 to 23. It says this there by the Ahava
Canal. I proclaimed a fast so that we
might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe
journey for us and our children with all our possessions.
I was ashamed to ask the King for soldiers and horsemen to
protect us from the enemies on the road, because we had told
the King, the gracious hand of God is on everyone who looks to
him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.
And so we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he
answered our prayer. You know, fasting is in bodied
prayer and in that fasting keeps us postured in expectation.
Building off last week what Richard unpacked around
expectation, I want to offer you today that fasting is an
invitation to help us stay in that posture of holding up an
umbrella in full expectation of what God can do.
And here in Ezra, we see Ezra, who is a leader who loved God,
who studied the word. He was a teacher of the word to
others. And here in chapter 8, he's
leading a group of Israelites on a long journey from Babylon to
Jerusalem. And they're carrying a large
amount of treasure, objects actually, from the temple.
And they need to be carefully stewarded and guarded on this
journey. But geographically, physically,
this particular journey is very hazardous and dangerous.
It's a super risky mission. And Ezra, I mean, man, he told
the king, we don't need soldiers.
We don't need anybody to protect us on this journey.
Our God has it. Ezra had spoken out what he
needs to be true. And suddenly he's like, oh man,
now, now we got to walk it. Now we've got to walk it like
God is really who he says he is. And the realness of what is
before them settles on them. And what I love about Ezra in
this moment is he calls this group of people to fast.
Why? Because he knew God's promises,
but he didn't take them for granted.
I want to say that again, He knew God's promises that he did
not take them for granted. We know the promise of this
moment. God is writing a story here in
our church family. He has, He has promised, He's
LED, He's brought provision in our new leaders that are coming.
And we're reminded that he's called us to pursue his
presence, but he's saying to us, don't take my promises for
granted versus church family. We need to stand in this moment
pursuing his presence in full expectation of him encountering
us here in the in between. And if you think about this
journey, if you study this bit, you realise they walk a 900 mile
journey and Ezra's calling them to fast.
This seems like the most ridiculous thing of all things.
They're going to give up food as they encounter, go on this huge
journey of 900 miles, carrying heavy objects from the temple,
encountering huge risk. But Ezra knew God, and he knew
they needed to humble themselves and say that food for this
journey isn't going to be enough.
The only thing that's going to be enough is God and His
provision and His protection. I love these kind of examples
that you see even in the modern examples of like the stories of
the Hebrides revival, you find there were people who didn't
take God's promise of revival for granted.
There were women who just all they did through that revival
was fast and pray, petitioning God.
You know, I can't quite remember now.
Where are we at? 2025 S probably 3-4 years ago,
our oldest daughter, she got COVID quite badly in the October
and by the January she was super, super sick and we ended
up in Lister Hospital for 2 1/2 weeks flat on the bed, no energy
like super sick. And the doctors were doing lots
and lots of tests and they were trying to work out what was
wrong. And, and it turned out that that
it was discovered her thyroid was full of toxic goiters.
There was hardly any normal thyroid tissue left, which was
very unusual in AI think she was 1415 at the time when this
happened. And I remember standing in the
hospital room with her and the doctor came in and they said,
well, we found all these goiters and we're not really sure what
they are and we're not sure if they're sinister or not.
And we're going to have to go down biopsies and all kinds of
things. And she was so sick.
And I remember standing there thinking, Oh my word, like what
is before us? And I remember walking into the
little parents kitchen and standing there and being like,
dear God, like help like this is not, this is not OK.
I'm not OK with this. I need to fix it.
How can I fix it? And I was like, I remember
having this conversation being like, I know I'm going to I'm
going to fast, I'm going to fast because if I fast, will you
listen harder to my prayer that I want this as the result, this
to disappear, this to be how I want the outcome to come.
And so I started to fast and the journey unraveled.
And it wasn't sinister, but she had a pretty horrific year and
she had to have major surgery, remove her thyroid.
She was a soccer player and a big dream.
And she had to give up all soccer for a year.
And it was a devastating journey in the midst of it.
But what was really funny is I didn't get what I wanted.
I didn't get the fix that I wanted, even though I'd fasted.
But I did encounter Jesus in the middle of it, and so did she.
And this is the kindness of God. My motivation was totally what?
We don't fast to manipulate God, OK?
We don't fast to convince Him that our answer is the right
answer. We fast because we want to
encounter Him and in that place we create room in our lives for
Him to sustain us. And in my story, the kindness of
God is that even though I walked in with this screwed up
motivation, like somehow I could manipulate the God of heaven to
do what I wanted him to do. Now hear me, God doesn't make
illness. I don't believe he causes
illness, but he's so kind that he meets us in these journeys
that oh, in these tension of the here and the not yet.
And in his kindness, he still met me and sustained us.
Because like in Daniel, when Daniel talks about fasting, the
reality is as Daniel 1012 says that God heard my whispered
prayer from the moment that that doctor walked in and started to
give me doom and gleam and then he sustains us.
And Daniel, Daniel talks about that he fasted for three weeks
and it's and it in verse 12, it says do not be afraid Daniel,
since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding
and to humble yourself before your God, your words were hurt
and I have come in response to them.
This is the deal. We don't manipulate God by being
religious and fasting, but we have a responsive God who hears
our prayer from the first utterance as we humble ourselves
before him. And in his kindness, He comes
and he meets with us and He sustains us and he keeps our
eyes focused on what He is seeing and what He is doing in
the midst of the stories that we are walking.
And we see more and more examples.
Nehemiah. He fast because he's not giving
up on the world around him, and he's pursuing God for a plan for
rebuilding a city. And he fasted and prayed for
many days, pursuing God's heart. Jehoshaphat is another one.
He called a fast for the people of Judah who were facing a great
enemy, and God gave them victory without lifting a sword.
Two Chronicles, 20, I could go on.
There are many, many examples, but this is what I want to say
to you #3 that fasting is a lifestyle, not a one hit wonder.
If you look at Anna in the New Testament, Luke 36, she was a
prophet and she had been married for seven years and she'd lost
her husband and she went to the temple until she was 84, day and
night, praying and fasting. Her position, position and her
persist. Her persist, Oh my gosh, her
position and her persistence postured her that when Mary and
Joseph walked in with baby Jesus, she said this is the
Messiah because she'd humbled herself to see what God sees.
Jesus, he starts the first story of his adult life that we read
about is him fasting and praying for 40 days and nights.
And man, if Jesus is fasting and praying, maybe, maybe it needs
some of our attention. The early church fasted and
prayed twice a week for over a millennia.
It's only in recent times that fasting has fallen out of favour
in our discipleship rhythms. In Acts 13 and Acts 14 we read
about how the early church fasted as they were starting to
see the expansion of the church. Revival broke out.
The church multiplied. They sent out Paul and Barnabas
as they were commissioning new leaders.
Hello First O church, we are about to Commission new leaders.
What did the early church do? They fasted and prayed.
John Wesley, he was another man who believed that fasting and
praying was absolutely essential.
He said you could not teach the word if you don't fast or pray.
Man, that hit home for me. Fasting helps us to persist in
prayer because it gives us focus, it keeps us dependent, it
keeps us postured in humility, it keeps us growing in spiritual
stamina, and it helps us to stand as one unified body of
Christ. Now I'm not this morning going
to go into how to fast because guess what?
You can Google a million ideas of how to fast.
It's not complicated. ChatGPT will help you too.
But the key here is to understand that biblical fasting
calls us to intentionality. It's a taking an act of
devotion. It's not about dieting, It's not
about getting it all right. It's about making a posture
towards Jesus and saying I need help to do that.
And so I'm going to say no to this thing because I want to say
yes to the thing I cannot live without, which is Jesus.
And I just want to throw this out here.
I, I, I read this as I was prepping.
I thought, man, oh, that's, that's good.
It's just a thought on how we fast and what we fast.
In fact. So when you do hear people
fasting in our day and age and often at Lent, this is the key.
They'll be like, I'll give up social media or I'll give up
Netflix or I'll give up whatever it might be, just not food or
maybe a portion of food. And, and, and hear my heart in
this, like I understand there is nuance.
There are people that can't fast because of health reasons.
I'm not saying that fasting food is the only way, but it was an
interesting thought to consider how many times we give up things
that are actually toxic already in our life and should be given
up anyway. And so I want us to think in
this room, if the word might be saying to us, I want you to give
up food because food was good and created for your sustenance.
And in in fasting food, you're actually making a declaration
that I'm giving out something good for even something better.
I'm not just dealing with something I should be dealing
with anyway. Fascinating isn't it?
But do you hear my heart in that I'm not suggesting that if you
give anything that will help you pursue Jesus is good.
But for some of us, I think we need that sharpened edge to can
to actually face it front on and say, actually, I'm going to fast
food. And So what does this mean for
us as a church? Brace yourselves.
Well, first and foremost, as individuals, I want you to
consider where fasting should play a part in your
discipleship. Is there things that need Spirit
of God to come in and keep a check?
Are there things that are stopping you from truly being
wholehearted followers of Jesus that are operating subtly in
your life? Are you in a season where you
want to pray, you want to be someone devoted in prayer, but
somehow you're a bit stuck and you just can't seem to get
there? Or are you in a season where you
need to see the Lord breakthrough in an area and you
are not saying to the Lord, I want this is the outcome, but
you're saying, man, I need you, Jesus in this season and I need
you to sustain me and I need you to help me see what you're
seeing. But as a church, we felt this
conviction of the Spirit to call us as a church to fast as one
body in this season, from now until January, maybe beyond, who
knows? Because we don't want to take
God's promises for granted. We want to be wholehearted in
our pursuit of His presence in this season.
We want to be formed. We want to pick up our shovels
and start praying. And we want the Lord to help us
do that so that we become who He's creating us to be.
And so we want to invite you to join us.
We are going to start to fast on a Wednesday lunchtime because we
have space online on a Wednesday lunchtime.
And so whether you are in your office in London, whether you're
in your home in Hemel, whether you are at school or university
or anywhere you are, the invitation is to come and taste
how good God is together. And because we have space
online, that is a place that we can gather from wherever we are
corporately together as a church to pray and to worship and to
fast. And so I'm calling you versa,
church family, to consider if you will give your yes to
pursuing Jesus in this season by fasting corporately together at
Wednesday lunchtime. God hears our prayers and he's
breaking through in our families and our lives, and he's
informing us to be like Jesus and to pursue the love of a
Father that will sustain us at all times and in all seasons.
And as Galatians 69 says, let us not grow weary while doing good.
We're doing great stuff for the Kingdom.
Let's not grow weary in that. Let's not take it for granted.
But in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
And we are here to make spaces and places for people to
encounter Jesus. And I want to see hundreds and
thousands of people come to encounter the living hope, Jesus
Christ. And we need to be ready because
with that comes a whole multitude of things.
And we need to see what God is seeing, and we need to be able
to speak what He is saying into people's lives right where
they're at. And so with that, would you
stand?