All right. Hey, couple things.
Tom is making more of the notes. That's always a good problem to
run out of those. It kind of gives me a gauge on
what people lean into when I'm teaching.
So I appreciate that our church that you do lean in for to, to
hear God's word on Sunday morning, not just like a, a
little, I mean, you're not just like a little chicken soup for
the soul or a Ted Talk. But I hope that you sense that
we as a church really want to lean in and get a hold of God's
truth and his meaning. So we do that by giving out
notes to the messages and on days when we run out before the
second service. That's that's really great.
OK, a couple of things. Paul Freeman was in the first
service and he mentioned this and I just want to say thank you
to our worship team that they served so faithfully.
So this morning we had so many singers.
I just played guitar, which was a lot of fun.
And he said, he said Kurt looked like you were like a proud Papa,
like proud Papa. Looking out at the worship team,
I'm like, yes, it's true because they serve diligently and
they've grown their gifts and skills.
Do you know how much time it takes to learn to play an
instrument? A lot of time.
A lot of young people, particularly nowadays, it just
takes a lot of focus and they get distracted.
So grateful for our worship team, their faithfulness to the
Lord and our singers. And so I'm enjoying the season
where now I'm going to keep leading worship.
But now it's like it's time where, you know, others are kind
of stepping to the forefront. So grateful for those who serve
in worship ministry. So if you see some of our
worship team in the lobby, it would be appropriate for you to
say, hey, thank you. Thank you for leading us and
serving us each week so faithfully.
They get here really early and they stay late.
And our tech team too, just so grateful for them.
OK, so wanted to encourage you in that.
All right, I think there are more notes in the back time.
Are there more now? OK, great.
So if you need notes to the message either during the
teaching or on your way home, then you could grab them and put
them in your Bible when they get home.
And I'll make sure that we print more in the weeks to come.
All right, if you have your Bibles, please take and turn to
Acts chapter 13. Acts is like, I don't know, 85%
through your Bible depending on how many notes you have in the
back. And the book of Acts is the
early story of the church at its launch, in its infancy.
So Jesus comes, born in Bethlehem, lives a perfect
sinless life, and then he has crucified, dead and buried, and
he then ascends to heaven. And when he does, he promises
that the Holy Spirit will come and dwell in US.
He uses the same language of that, that Jesus was going to
come dwell with us. He's Emmanuel, God with us.
And then in the book of Acts, you see that while now we have
the Holy Spirit and he's dwelling in us.
So Acts is the early story of the church, and in Acts chapter
13, where I'm about to read from, this is the story of
Barnabas and Paul. And you will remember that Paul
was the early apostle who was really vital in the growth of
the early church. And initially Paul was an enemy
to Christianity, and he was on a mission to kill Christians with
permission. Permission had been given him in
a letter from church leaders, if you will, to religious leaders
at least. So he's on a mission to kill
Christians, and yet Jesus meets him when he's on the road to
Damascus. Jesus himself appears to Paul,
whose name was initially Saul. And he says to Paul, why do you
persecute me? Meaning you persecute the
church, but that's persecuting me.
So Paul has this grand conversion.
We call it a road to Damascus experience, and he then becomes
part of the church. But you could imagine that he
would not have been very trusted because he was a killer of
Christians and now he's in the church.
And so I want you to see a story that's connected here where Paul
is going to emerge into being a missionary, into being an
apostle and this great Christian leader.
But what happens in order to initiate him into the season of
epic ministry that we now read about and study throughout the
New Testament? So watch what I'm going to start
in verse 2 of chapter 13. While they and they being the
Church of Antioch, which is modern day Syria.
So they're there. This is an enormous church in
the early days of Christianity while they were worshiping the
Lord and fasting, they're worshiping the Lord and they're
fasting. The Holy Spirit said, set apart
for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called
them. Then after fasting and praying,
they laid their hands on them watch after fasting and praying.
So you get worshipping and fasting.
Now you have fasting and praying laid after.
Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them
being Paul and Barnabas, and they sent them off on their
first missionary journey. Today I want to talk to you
about fasting in faith. Fasting in faith.
Let me pray for us, God. When we come to Your Word, we
come in awe. We come with a sense of honor
and reverence, and we come believing that you shape us and
you grow us by Your truth and by the power of Your Holy Spirit.
So you have our attention to God and our hearts and minds are
open and we say speak to us in a profound way and grow us in our
understanding of fasting in faith in Jesus name and everyone
together said, Amen. Now this event in the early
church really leads to you and I being here today because the
Apostle Paul and Barnabas, they, they leave on this missionary
journey because the Holy Spirit spoke to the church at Antioch.
And who knows how the Holy Spirit would have spoken and
maybe prophetically through a person that maybe would have
been there in the service, whether they were worshipping
and fasting. So the Holy Spirit speaks and
says, set them apart, send them out.
They laid hands on them. And then Paul and Barnabas go on
this missionary journey and it's historic and you can read about
it in Acts, the places that they go to and, and they bring the
message of the hope of Jesus and people get saved in other
churches starting. And from there, Christianity
just grows to be what it is today.
But what was it that happened? What was the church doing when
God moved in an enormous way? They were worshipping and
fasting and fasting and praying and fasting has become somewhat
of a lost discipline, mostly in modern church today.
And for some of you, maybe you fast regularly.
Maybe you have seen God move in great ways in your life through
the years in the discipline of fasting.
But for many of you, my guess is that fasting is maybe something
you've never done before, or maybe you've just done it in
years past, but it's not a regular discipline.
So what's happened at our church the last four January's, we've
set apart time to worship and fast and fast and pray.
And it's the way that we've started each year.
And the first first year that we did it, we just did it.
Well, the first three years we would do it from Monday, Sunday,
Sunday day and then we would break the fast Wednesday night.
And I will tell you that every year it is so meaningful when we
get together, we'll pray, we'll sing some songs together, and
then we'll break the fast that many of you will do between
maybe tomorrow. We're encouraging you to start
the fast tomorrow. OK, So if you start tomorrow,
then we would go through and I'll explain options of what a
fast can look like. And I'm going to unpack what
fasting is. But I'm just telling you, I
start with this understanding that the Church of Antioch and
Paul and Barnabas, their lives were greatly changed because of
the church fasting. So I'm going to call us as a
church to a fast and I love that their story starts this way.
And I I want to tell you a little bit more about Paul.
Paul and Barnabas story. They go on this first missionary
journey and they bring with them a young man named John Mark.
And we think that John Mark was likely the one who told Peter's
story in the gospel of Mark. But John Mark is Barnabas as a
nephew. And about halfway through the
missionary journey, John Mark just gives up.
You know, it's too much for him this mission trip.
So when they go to start their second missionary journey, the
Bible says that Paul and Barnabas had a fierce
disagreement, They had a fight. And that happens in the lives of
Christians. I can't really talk about Paul
and Barnabas without telling you this part of their story because
this does happen in the church sometimes.
And the fact that the book of Acts has it.
So Paul and Barnabas, after accomplishing great things for
Jesus, Barnabas wants to bring John Mark on the second trip.
And Paul's like, no way. We're not bringing that punk kid
with us. He gave up during the last one.
He went home to Mama, you know, so we're not bringing them
again. So they have a fierce
disagreement and then they part ways and then you see that Paul
and Silas then go on the second missionary trip and they go like
the church at Philippi and other churches.
So their story really starts here with the Lord through the
Holy Spirit speaking in a church service that they should go and
minister together at the end of their story.
That what happens is Paul, who was not very gracious to John
Mark at the end of his life at Second Timothy.
He at the end of Second Timothy, he says, Oh yeah, and tell John
Mark, tell Mark when he comes to see me to bring some scrolls and
others bring some scripture that I can read.
So you then get the picture that Paul, then he reconciles with
John Mark, OK, but I want you to see, so that's beautiful at the
end of his life. But what I want you to see is
that Paul and Barnabas, their great ministry starts here in a
church that's worshiping and fasting and fasting and praying.
Now, what is fasting? This is my definition.
I would say fasting is withholding something in order
to createspace to connect with God.
And that part where I'm saying in order to connect with God is
a really important part of fasting, right?
I'm, I'm creating space. I'm eliminating some things in
my life. I'm withholding me receiving
them or participating in whether it's eating or social media or
screens or other things. You know, I'm, I'm creating
space with the hope that now I will have space within my head,
if you will, and heart to receive from God.
And so fasting has been a discipline in the church and in
the biblical story all throughout Old Testament and New
Testament. You see over and over and over
again. Now Matthew chapter 6, Jesus
mentions fasting and so Jesus mentions it here and he says and
when you fast, now he doesn't say if you fast, He says when
you fast. In other words, it's like a
given fasting is just, it's, it's part of being a Christian,
the way that Jesus speaks of it. OK.
And he gives instructions. And when you fast, do not look
gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that
their fasting may be seen by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Now this is a curious thing. Jesus is saying, OK, when you
fast don't look gloomy. When you fast, it's a given
you're going to fast. Don't fast for the attention of
man. And then he says those who fast
to get the attention of man, they get their reward.
They're just reward. And what is it?
The attention of man only if the intent of your heart is OK, I'm
going to do this thing so the people notice how spiritual I
am. Then you'll get just the
attention of ban. Well, the point of fasting is
not the attention of ban. Jesus goes on in verse 17.
He says, but when you fast, anoint your head and wash your
face, that you're fasting may not be seen by others, but by
your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in
secret will reward you. And what is the reward for
fasting in the right way? The attention of God and also we
then become more attentive to God when we fast, when we
withhold things in our lives for the intent of creating space for
God to fill. Then we get that reward, the
filling, even the more of the Holy Spirit, the attention of
God in a sense of wow, God is satisfying me.
Now you can go look at in Scripture.
Moses fasted David fasted Bathsheba even fasted kings
fasted Jesus and the early church, they all fasted.
You'll see it over and over and again.
I'm going to give you a few of the stories to be insightful,
but I want you to see that it's a regular routine throughout
scriptures. Now I like to illustrate what
fasting does in US and what many Christians look like with the
story. Like a couple years ago, Jason
and I were driving down to Grand Rapids together and it was
morning time and around 10:00 or 10:30 we ended up in Lake City
and she wanted some smart water chase like smart water, right?
So she asked me to go to the grocery store.
So what's the irony? Is I going to get her smart
water, but on my way to get the smart water.
This is so odd. It's really not typical for me,
but especially that time of the day.
But I, I saw this family size bag of, of ruffled potato chips,
but the really good kind of the, the, the cheddar and sour cream
ones, right? And not like a small size one
that you would, you know, put in the lunch bag.
It was the family size 1. Now I, I don't think I've ever
before just bought a bag of chips and just pounded the whole
bag. But I must tell you that just
drive in the Grand Rapids. I started eating these chips and
before you know, I pounded the entire family size bag.
OK, So I'm like, OK, well, how did I just do?
Because the the sad thing was we were driving to Grand Rapids
where we used to live, and we have restaurants there that we
love, you know, that we go to when we're down there.
So we have these plans that we're going to go to this
particular restaurant that we like downtown and it's so good.
And but when I got to the restaurant, lo and behold, guess
what? I was so full of junk that there
was no space to put in me, right?
It's like there was a table set before me, right?
And yet there was no space. And I must tell you that lot
often this is how we live as Christians because there's a
space in us that is made for us to fill with God.
There's a place where we're to commune and have Kona NIA
fellowship with God. And yet if we fill our lives
with social media and Netflix and sports and you name it, it
could be anything. These things are not bad in of
themselves, but when we think that we're going to satisfy and
fill ourselves and there are so many things around us to try to
fill ourselves with, it's never ending.
It's overwhelming. So we fill, we fill, we fill,
and then we get to our space and time and with God, and what
happens? We're so full of junk that
there's no space for God to reach us.
And we're created for longing for God, but we tend to fill
that space with junk. The psalmist illustrates it this
way in Psalm 42. He says as a deer pants for
flowing streams or as the deer pants for the water.
So pants my soul for you, oh God, my soul thirsts for you for
the living, God. When shall I come and appear
before God? When shall I come and appear?
Be with you, God? When, when can I get to be with
you, God? And he's painting it like my
soul, God, there's a place in me just hungers and thirst.
I thirst for you, God. And yet if we live our lives in
such a way where we're just filling ourselves full of
Netflix and video games and you name it.
Again, these things in themselves are not bad.
But when we fill ourselves to overflowing with them, there's
no space. And fasting, when we withhold
those things, it creates within us space.
Richard Foster, famous author, said that more than any other
discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.
We become maybe addicted or so just used to these things around
us that can pseudo fill us that we don't have space.
Now fasting shows up in the Bible often when difficult
decisions are to be made. And I'm going to show you a few
examples of this. And maybe in the year to come,
you have some big decisions that you've got to make with your
work or relationships, children, whatever it might be.
And maybe you're going in the year and saying, OK God, I need
your help with this. But again, if you're so full of
junk, then there's no space for God to get to and so you'll miss
out. So watch what happens.
I'm going to give you 2 stories that are from the Old Testament
that illustrate wow, fasting. Look what it can do in us.
So of course, the story of Esther is so loved in the Old
Testament. Who was Esther?
Well, Esther, she lives after the time of like Sadrak Meeshak
and bending away after like Abraham and Moses and all those
characters. So her story is later in the
timeline of the Old Testament. And so she's in exile.
Remember, the Babylonians came in and conquered what was Israel
at one time. And so then the children were
carried away in exile. And Esther would have been born
in Persia, but she her her heritage would have been from
the Jews. OK, so here she is.
She's in the the Kingdom of Persia.
And the king of Persia, his name was Exerges.
He's quite a a tyrant and so he liked to party.
So he's having this party and it's going for days and days and
days. And he calls his queen, his wife
to come to be at the party. And you can read the story and
ask her. She doesn't want to go.
She's, you know, bothered by it all.
You know, the big party that's, you know, horrible.
So. So she doesn't go.
Well, when she tells him I'm not coming, he discards her, gets
rid of her, and he sets up a contest, like a beauty pageant
to come up with the most beautiful woman in all of
Persia. And it's a very elaborate beauty
contest of sorts. And so it turns out that Esther,
a descendant of the Israelites, she wins the king, She becomes
the queen because she's the most beautiful in the land.
Now what happens is she now is the Queen of Persia and there's
a man, well her uncle or cousin. What we it's kind of confusing
as to which, but like her parent figure, his name is Mordecai and
Mordecai raises Esther. OK, so he raises her.
Then he ends up working for the king.
Mordecai does and she's now the Queen of Persia.
There's a very evil antagonist in his name is Haman, and Haman
comes up with a plan where he's going to annihilate and wipe out
all the Jews, all the descendants of the Jews that are
in Persia. He has a plan that the king is
okayed where he's going to wipe out the Jews.
It's very evil. Now watch what happens.
Mordecai gets word of this and he goes to Esther who is the
queen, and he encourages her to go to the king to report this
evil that is about to come. But she understands that it's
against the law for her to go before the king unless he asks
her to come. If he invites her, she can go be
with him, but she must be just in waiting.
The way the story goes, she must just be in waiting for the king
to call for her. Now Mordecai, her parent figure
is going to encourage her to take action.
Watch what happens. The story picks up in Esther
chapter 4 verse 14. He says to her, Mordecai to
Esther, if you keep silent at this time, relief and
deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you
and your father's house will perish.
And when he says your father's house, he means himself.
He's saying, listen, if you don't stand up and stand for
righteousness, well, God will come up with another plan, but
you'll, you won't survive it, but God will still sustain the
nation of Israel because he knew the promises Jesus was going to
come through the lineage of Abraham.
And he says, And who knows whether you have not come?
This is the famous saying, and I want you to see this famous
saying from Esther, one of the most profound statements in all
the Bible, that it's connected to fasting.
Watch, he says, and who knows whether you have come, not come
to the Kingdom for such a time as this.
This is one of the most epic moments in Scripture.
Maybe it is that you came into the Kingdom for such a moment as
this. Then Esther told them to reply
to Mordecai. She said Go gather all the Jews
to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not
eat or drink for three days, night or day.
And I and my young women will also fast as you do.
Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law,
and if I perish, I perish. Mordecai then went away and did
everything as Esther head ordered him.
I don't have time to tell you all the details of of Esther's
story but watch what happens. God miraculously leads Mordecai
to having favor with the king. Haman had built these poles that
he was going to impale and kill the Jews on right?
And it turns out, Long story short, because Esther prayed and
fasted, then God miraculously gives strategy, God moves, and
in the end of the story, Haman himself is impaled or hung on
the poles that he created to kill the Jews on.
OK, that's the story of Esther in its essence.
What I want you to see is that the turning point in the story
of Esther is when she fasts, it's not her beauty that saves
her. It's not her own insight or
strategy. She calls for a fast of all the
Jews and all of her women in waiting, if you will, right?
And when they fast, God miraculously delivers the Jews
and they celebrate it to this day.
So fasting is in the story of Esther.
There's another occasion in the Old Testament.
It's the story of King Jehoshaphat.
He's the king of Judah, which is the southern part of Israel, and
he is this godly king. And I want you to see a turning
point in his life and how fasting shows up.
So in Second Chronicles 20, one through 4, after the Moabites
and the Ammonites, and with them some of the men unites, came
against Jehoshaphat for battle. So these tribes join together,
they make, you know, a pact where they're going to come
against Jehoshaphat and Judah. Some men came and told
Jehoshaphat, A great multitude is coming against you from Edom,
from beyond the sea, and behold, they are Hazaz and Tamar, that
is, and Getti. Then Jehoshaphat was afraid.
He set his face to seek the Lord.
Then he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah, and Judah
assembled to seek help from the Lord.
From all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.
What I want you to see is Jehoshaphat, this great king, he
calls for a fast. And when he does, what God
happens to do is he confuses these armies that have created
this pact with each other against Jehoshaphat and Judah.
And so they get confused and they fight each other and they
kill each other. And so Jehoshaphat and the
Israelites survive. Why?
Because they fasted. Did Jehoshaphat cry to go come
up with some great military strategy?
Did he call for his generals? No, he called people to fast.
So you can I can give you multiple stories that where this
is the occasion where you might have forgotten, oh, without
these epic stories in the Old Testament and the New Testament,
fasting is involved in it. Now I want to talk about the
fruit of fasting in faith. I encourage us to fast in faith.
Fasting has become somewhat of a rage even in like the scientific
world. I don't know if you know this,
but like intermittent fasting, maybe you've heard of that.
And what's happened now is that science knows that there are all
of these great benefits for your cells and for inflammation and,
and your health that come from fasting from food right now.
We know this, right? So it's, I love this when God
creates natural benefits that operate outside of our faith,
OK, the nature of God in his commands, they operate even for
those that don't believe in God. It's like the Sabbath day,
right? God created this and then on the
7th day he rested. Why?
Because even God needed rest. God needs, well, that seems like
bad theology, but God wanted rest.
So we're designed to also get rest.
We can't work non-stop, right? We need rest.
And so God's plan, it's a 10 commandment, it's up there with
lying and murder and adultery, and I'll honor the Sabbath and
keep it holy and the world around us.
They also, even outside their faith, can benefit from a rhythm
of rest. But I don't want to encourage us
just to fast scientifically for the health benefits of it.
Instead, I want us to fast in faith, believing that when we
fasten faith, what happened in Acts 13 can happen for us as a
church, the church at Antioch. God moves supernaturally and
Christianity is ever changed in our lives.
If we fasten faith, who knows what God could do with our
church? Who knows what God could do in
your life as a result of fasting?
Now when we fast, yes, we get God's attention, but also God
gets our attention. That's one of the great benefits
of it. It's like, God, I've not been
attentive to you enough, but when I withhold these things
that seem to satisfy me now I've experienced even the more this
longing in me for more relationship and communion with
you. Yeah, I want to give you just
some basic ideas in your notes. I wrongly put Matthew 6 here
again. Sometimes I'm copying and moving
things around, but I want you to know that prayer and fasting go
hand in hand. The point of fasting, one of the
points is to create time and space in my head and heart for
communion with God in prayer. So that means I'm sitting and
I'm talking to God and I'm and I'm being honest with God.
We just did a great study through the Psalms the last
several months. And often the Psalms are very
like, like surprising and shockingly honest about
disappointment and a seeming distance from God, right?
So what do we do when we pray? We sit and we talk with God and
we bring requests. We all, we bring praise, we
bring honor to God. We start with praise, right?
And then we can bring our petitions and make our petitions
and our needs known to God. He knows about them.
But there's something beautiful in US bringing words and
meditation to our prayers. Now, whenever I think about
fasting or any other spiritual discipline, I always want to, I
always want to illustrate and and let you remind you that the
spiritual disciplines like fasting, like prayer, they are
important and vital in the life of a Christian of spiritual
disciplines like attending church, even being with other
believers, us, you know, even just being together, right?
This, this is part of the spiritual disciplines that grow
us. Now, Christians will often get
in the trap and Terry and Dwayne are here.
We talked about this in the kitchen like a month ago.
And I said, I'm going to put this in a sermon in January.
Again, watch Christians wrongly often try to measure their
spirituality by the spiritual disciplines.
OK, and it's the wrong measurement, right?
It would be like if I if I had a tape measure and I took the tape
measure and, and, and, and I invited somebody, Jamie, you
know, can you measure my weight with the tape measure?
The answer is that even Hazel knows, no, you can't measure my
weight with a tape measure. It's the wrong measuring unit.
How tall am I? What if I gave you a, you know,
an eighth cup with eight oz, like an 8 oz cup, right.
And I said, OK, measure my height with this.
That doesn't work. It's the wrong measuring.
You're using the wrong measurement.
And Christians painfully and horribly often try to measure
their spirituality by how much they do the spiritual
disciplines. The spiritual disciplines are
not the measurement for my spirituality.
The measurement for my spirituality and my love for
Jesus is, do I abound in the fruit of the Spirit?
Because if I go to church and I fast and I pray and I'm with
other believers, I do the spiritual disciplines, but I'm
hateful and I'm bitter and I'm judgmental, then I miss it as a
Christian. So whenever I think about
fasting and praying, I'm like, okay, I'm going to fast and I'm
going to pray. But these are the disciplines.
These are the exercises that should lead to the fruit of the
Spirit. It would be like a quarterback
in the NFL. Let's say we had a quarterback
in the NFL and he got up and bragged because he does 300 push
ups, right? And he can bench press 300 lbs
or whatever. It was like, yeah, we don't
really care about that. That's the discipline, that's
the exercise. We care what how many receptions
you throw, how many interceptions you throw.
That's the measurement of how great you are as a quarterback.
And again, how ridiculous would it be for an athlete to brag
about curls and other things they do?
It's like, no, that's not how you measure how great you are.
And a lot of times Christians, so I'm encouraging you to fast,
but I'm encouraging you to fast with an awareness.
He goes, Ah, this is this is not the spiritual measurement of how
great I'm as a Christian. It should lead to the fruit of
the spirit. And when it does, then we
flourish and we grow in Christ. But you know, Christians that
that use the wrong measurement and they think themselves so
spiritual and they're hateful and they're horrible to their
neighbor and they miss it because they think wrongly that
it's the spiritual disciplines that they get to be proud of.
So our encouragement for our church is let's go into praying
fast and let's do it. Let's go all at it, man.
But let's beware. It's not how we measure how
spiritual we are. So this is the 4th January we're
doing this. So I and our and our team, our
leaders are calling us as a church to fast and I want to
encourage you to be part of this.
OK, So in years past, as I mentioned, we did it from Sunday
to Wednesday. This year we're what my
encouragement to you is to take today and pray and earnestly say
God, what could I fast social media food, whatever time here
time there, whatever, just pray about and say what would be what
would like createspace in me to give up for a while and maybe
you want to eat one meal a day or you want to skip breakfast or
and in that time to where you would normally be eating or
watching Netflix or playing video games or doing whatever
you're like God, I'm going to dedicate this time to you and
I'm just going to be with you and I'm going to I'm going to
createspace hunger in me and now God, I'm going to come to you to
satisfy and feel that hunger. That's what fasting does.
So you can take today, think about, OK, what would I want to
give up fast? And then encouragement to you is
to start the fast tomorrow. And then we're going to go a
week. I guess it's kind of really 8
days because we'll do two Mondays, but so we'll go Monday
to Monday this year. And I can't wait to hear stories
of people may, especially if you're fasting for the first
time or it's been a long time and you're like, wow, God, the
Holy Spirit really like met me in a profound way.
OK, so that's my encouragement to you.
Now on the back table, there are prayer request forms.
Are there still some back there on the table?
They should look like this. OK, So what we've done in years
past and we'll do again this year is you can it can be
anonymous or you can put your name on it.
But what we're going to do is we're going to take these prayer
requests and then we're going to put them on the front of the
stage here. And next Sunday when you come,
hopefully they'll be a whole lot of them.
And so Sunday in the service, we will have been fasting and we're
going to take extra time and service to pray over the prayer
request. And then Monday night, what
we'll do is when we're still fasting, we'll come and we'll
pray over the prayer request. And what we'll do is those who
are here on that, that Monday night, we'll pick up a prayer
request. I like to walk when I pray.
Some people just want to sit or kneel.
And so you can take the prayer request and pray over it.
And then you just put it back on and other people come pray for
it. And I hope that we have like a
stage lined with these prayer requests, maybe for your family,
your job, some need that you have in your life.
So these are back there. And I think there should be pens
and the likes. So you can take those, you can
leave them back there. And then we're going to put them
here on the front of the stage. OK, so here is my expectation
that God will do great things in US.
In Ephesians, it says the benediction.
The answer is now to him who was able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all that you could ever ask or think or
imagine to him be glory in the church.
And the point of that Scripture is like we when we have great
faith in God and we're like God, we come.
This is my posture when I come to church.
I'm like God, I'm coming with high expectations and I believe
that you're able to exceed my expectancy, my faith.
That's what faith is. It's expectancy.
So if you go into this with high expectations, like, OK, God,
meet me here, God, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to do it.
I'm going to fast. I'm going to create space and
then expect God to exceed your expectations.
All right, let me pray for us. God, we earnestly come before
you asking as individuals, wow, what can I fast?
Some of us are going to get in the car with our kids or our
spouse on the way home and we're going to have conversations to
say, what can we do together? How can we make this a
meaningful time? And I pray that you'll speak to
us and that it will be challenging, not torture, but
but it'll be enlightening and that we will successfully
createspace that you'll meet us in as the deer pants for the
water. I pray that our song, our souls
will long for you. And then when we looked up our
prayers to you, we expect and hope for you to answer our
prayers and however you see fit in your will.
God, we pray believing for miracles, supernatural, shocking
things to happen that we pray about in the midst of your
sovereignty, both. And that's our prayer, God.
So we dedicate this next week and sum to you as a church and
when we finished up on that Monday night, I want to hope and
pray that it will be really a beautiful time for us as a
church family in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.
Now before we leave, I always do want to take a moment and give
an opportunity for any who might be here who've never made the
decision to become a Christian. And what does that look like?
What does it mean? Well, it means that God created
us for relationship, but we lost that relationship with God
because of our sinful nature. In essence.
That's the basic of it. And so our descendants are those
who are ancestors. Our ancestors kind of distanced
us from God. But God came up with a plan, and
his plan was that he would come. God would put on human skin and
come as Jesus. Jesus is God and he would live a
perfect, sinless life, and then he would offer himself up for us
to pay the penalty for our redemption that was being
redeemed, bought back. And so now because of the death
and resurrection of Jesus, we can be in relationship with God
eternally, but God doesn't force it upon us.
God gives us a choice to either submit our lives to him or to
run from him. And maybe you've been sensing
like a drawing to God through Jesus, and at a certain point in
your life, you have to make the decision to the Bible calls it
being born again of all things. It's like you're born a second
time. You're born spiritually.
And God doesn't force it on us, but it's his invitation to us.
And at that point, when we surrender our lives to the
Lordship of Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit and God comes to
dwell in US. And you don't have to understand
all the theology and doctrine of Christianity.
You can grow in it, but it just takes its basic understanding.
That relationship with God comes through Christ.
And the Bible says if you believe in your heart and
confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, then you shall be
saved. And I want to invite you to that
today, invite you to believing in your heart, saying, yes, I've
wrestled with the claims of Christianity.
I believe it. And so now I'm going to confess
it with my mouth. And maybe you want to tell a
friend or me or someone that can encourage you in your walk with
Christ, But I'm going to pray. And I want to invite those of
you who would say, I want to make the decision to become a
Christian and I want to invite you to pray with me.
You can do it out loud or you can do it quietly.
And then the next step would be to be baptized.
We'll tell you more about that in the weeks to come.
But that's the initial point of becoming a Christian.
So let me lead a prayer. And some of you who are wanting
to make that decision, I invite you to echo this prayer with me.
You might say, Heavenly Father, I come to you in Jesus name and
I sent you drawing me. I sense you, God pulling me
towards you and I recognize that the way to you is through Jesus,
his life and death and resurrection.
So Jesus, I said, I welcome your lordship, I repent of my own
ways, my own sin, and I turn towards you and I say come and
rule and reign in me and I receive your presence God, to
dwell in me and I receive eternal life now, not just after
I die. Thank you for your eternal life
with you then, but also thank you that I receive eternal
meaningful life now here. So I receive you Lord, I welcome
you to reign in my life, grow me in your ways as I chase after
you in Jesus name. And everyone said Amen.
All right, if you made that decision, I encourage you to
tell somebody, me or a friend or a loved one, let's all stand
before you go. I do want to say a blessing over
you. I hope that you go enjoy the
snow. You know, there's a lot of snow
out there, man. If you're in northern Michigan,
you might as well enjoy it, right?
I just saw that so far we've had over 80, I think, 86 inches of
snow and which is I think 25 inches more than normal.
I think that was like Friday. So it's coming, man, Just keeps
coming. So enjoy it before you go,
please allow me to say this blessing over you, if you'll
prepare your heart. And now may the Lord bless you
and keep you. And may He make his face to
shine upon you. And may the joy of the Lord that
is unspeakable and full of glory made a bound to you.
And may the peace of God that passes all understanding, may it
shock you in the midst of all of the challenges that life brings.
And then made the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the
forgiveness of God. That is new every morning.
May it be especially new to you now and your mornings to come.
And now may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your
mind. You are salt in your light.
Go now and be salt and light into the world.
You are blessed. We'll see you again soon.