Fasting | Luke 4:1-4

Well, good morning church. My name is Jared Stevens. I oversee our discipleship ministry here at Grace Point Church, and it is a joy to be with you guys this morning. Hey. Did we I think we had camp this week. Did any of y'all help out with camp?

I know we got some shirts on the room, some t shirts. Let's give God praise. We had an amazing week of can Cook camp out this morning. Yeah. And hey, I'm excited because today we are going to be starting a new summer series called Living Like Jesus. And I'm really excited because we're going to be looking at the spiritual disciplines that Jesus modeled for us throughout the book of Luke.

So we're going to be in the gospel account of Luke for our whole summer series, and we're going to be looking at nine specific spiritual disciplines that Jesus himself modeled for us. And so these nine spiritual disciplines are going to be fasting, silence and solitude, Sabbath worship, prayer, generosity, service, scripture and witness. And I know that's a lot, but today we're just going to be focusing on just the spiritual discipline of fasting.

And so I'm really excited to hear what God has to say to us and hear what he wants us to know, and how we can live that out and apply that this summer. And you may be wondering like, hey, why are we? Why are we even looking at these? Well, Paul says to Timothy, in first Timothy four, verse seven, he says, Timothy, train yourself for godliness.

He says, train yourself for godliness. And that word train literally means discipline. And so we are exhorted to discipline ourselves for the sake of godliness. And since we believe that Jesus is our ultimate disciple maker, as the master disciple, he's going to be our guide. And there's actually no one that's going to be better at discipling you and I than Jesus himself.

And every single one of us, all of us need to be discipled more like Jesus. And why? Why are we? Why do I think this? Well, God's Word commands us this. In Matthew 1129, Jesus says this. We probably are familiar with this verse. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

So when we learn from Jesus, that's where we actually get to experience fullness of life with Christ. And again in Luke chapter nine verse 23, Jesus says, whoever wants to be my disciple must take up their cross daily and follow me. And so here at Grace Point Church, we we believe that God's Word is actually God's Word, and it holds all authority and all truth.

And so just with that posture, can we stand as we read today's verses together, we'll be in Luke chapter four, reading through verses one through four together. So let me give us a moment to turn their.

All right. Luke chapter four, verses one through four. In Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit into the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil in. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended he was hungry. The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.

And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Hey, my main point today, if there's one thing I want us to know and remember, it is this fasting moves us to delightful, independent intimacy with Jesus. Fasting moves us to delightful, independent intimacy with Jesus.

And I'm going to be unpacking that to get today with us. We're going to be learning more about what I even mean by that. But I want to start off with a question. Have you ever wanted to be like somebody else? Just think in your mind. Have you ever wanted to be like someone else? Here's the thing. We we all have a desire to be like someone else, and that's actually not a bad thing.

It's actually a quite normal thing to want to be like someone else. Do you remember maybe growing up as a kid, you wanting to be like your favorite sports athlete? Or maybe your favorite musician, or maybe your favorite movie character? Wanting to be like someone else is actually quite a normal thing. Maybe you want it to be a Walmart employee when you were growing up, I don't know, I feel like maybe that's some of you guys in here today.

As for me, I wanted to be an Atlanta Braves Chipper Jones. I wanted to be just like Chipper Jones, who played for the Atlanta Braves. All right. Chipper Jones was my favorite player. I remember growing up when I was playing baseball. I wanted to mimic his swing. I wanted to learn his cadence. Everything about Chipper Jones. I wanted to be just like him.

And so I studied every single thing that he did. And so I knew that if I wanted to be like Chipper Jones, I would need to get as close to Chipper Jones as possible to become like him. And so I remember my dad taking me to Braves games growing up, and it was awesome. And we we tried during like BP, we'd get to the very first row of the stadium and try to, like, wave him down and get him over to sign balls.

And it was just such an amazing experience. And you may even remember another example there's this movie came out in 2002 called like Mike. And if you remember in this movie, I was actually nine years old at the time. I know I'm really aging myself. I remember it well. There's this movie called like Mike, and there was this aspiring basketball player, and he was holding this pair of basketball shoes in his hands with the initials MJ written on them.

In this moment, he says, make me like Mike. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah, I remember that line. And so he wanted to be just like Michael Jordan, the goat, right? And so here's the thing. We all have a desire to be like someone else. But I believe that desire to be like someone else is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus himself.

And so then so much of discipleship then, is a reorientation of misplaced desires fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And so we were all made to become like someone else in his name is Jesus. So if we intend to be like Christ, then it'll probably be, I hope, pretty obvious to those around us and even to ourselves, like, hey, I'm on this journey of becoming more like Jesus because the reality is we become like who we follow.

So who are you following? So this summer, that's what we're going to be doing. We're going to be looking at the life of Jesus and looking at the spiritual disciplines that he practiced for us, and how we can model those together as a church and individually. So how do we do it? How do we become more like Jesus?

Well, a major way we do this is through practicing the spiritual disciplines that Jesus himself practiced. But here's the thing we cannot literally be what? Jesus the exact same way that his disciples could. But Jesus sent His Holy Spirit and so we can be dwelled in, dwelled with the power of the Holy Spirit to become like Jesus in his life and his faith and in his practice.

And Luke tells us this actually in Luke chapter six verse 40, he says, A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. So that's our job, that's our goal. That's our purpose is to become like our teacher. Hopefully Jesus is our God. Hopefully he's the one that we're aspiring to be like he's our master.

And so when we're trained, when we discipline ourselves, we will become like Jesus. So let's get back to the text. Today I want to observe and kind of look at the context of what was occurring in Luke chapter four and in Jesus life around this passage. And so we know that in chapter three, Jesus had just been baptized and he was full of the Holy Spirit.

The text says, and he returned from Jordan, the place where he was baptized. And he was then led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. And so Jesus is now full of the power of the Holy Spirit, and he's actually fulfilling in Isaiah prophecy, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. And so he's led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested and tempted by Satan.

And so to Luke's audience reading this, hearing this, they would have been like, well, this sounds really familiar, actually. And here's why that is, because Luke four is actually a broader story of Israel. And here's what I mean by that. In Exodus, Israel went through the water of the Red sea, and they went into the wilderness to be tested and tempted by God.

So two Jesus goes through the water in his baptism, and he's now led into the wilderness to be to be tested as Israel was tested and was called God's Son in Exodus chapter four. So now Jesus, the Son of God, is tested in the wilderness for 40 days. And Jesus knows this because when Satan comes to tempt him and attack him, Jesus quotes the exact same verses and references that we know happened during Israel's 40 year wilderness journey in the Book of Deuteronomy.

And so Jesus is trying to prove this point of total dependance and reliance upon the father. And so, unlike the Israelites who failed in the wilderness, Jesus, he is the faithful Son of God. So Jesus is now embodying and fulfilling what Israel failed to do. And so Jesus then, is the true Israel. And so we call this typology.

Can you say typology with me? Typology. What is biblical typology? Biblical typology is this it's the interpretation of people or events in the Old Testament that for shadow and find fuller fulfillment in Jesus Christ. And so you see these examples of typology that occur all throughout the Old Testament, that point two and have their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

There's actually another example of this in Genesis three, where Adam as God's son in Genesis three, Adam and Eve, Adam is God's son, failed at obedience, tempted by Satan. Jesus, as now God's perfect son, obeys in his test. So we here so we see Jesus here in Luke four, living out faithfully and obediently. Faithfulness to the father were Israel and Adam, and he is now full of the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so I think this would be someone worth following, right? Someone who's living this out faithfully. So we have to ask ourselves, like, is this someone then worthy of becoming like? So we see Jesus is just about to begin his ministry, and the very first thing that he does is he goes to be alone with the father in prayer and fasting.

And Satan immediately steps on the scene, and he wants to actually break Jesus of this loyalty and faithfulness. So when we see Jesus at his weakest moment, Jesus replies to the devil's deception with the truth of Scripture found in Deuteronomy, man shall not live by bread alone. That's pretty powerful words. And so Jesus is revealing that there's more to life than just food and meeting physical needs.

There's actually a spiritual hunger and a spiritual thirst that can only be satisfied in Jesus Christ. And that's actually where fullness of life is found. And I think that's what Jesus is trying to show us here. And so what was Jesus doing while he was being tested and tempted by Satan? He was fascinating. He was fascinating. So what is it?

What is fascinating? So here's how I would define fasting. Fasting is learning to hunger for God more than anything else. If you're taking notes today, I would highly encourage you to write some of these things down. Like fasting is learning to hunger for God more than anything else. That's a great question for us. Do we hunger for God more than anything else?

If not, fasting is a way that we can discipline ourselves to posture our heart into that space. Because when we fast, we usually abstain from food or drink for a spiritual purpose for a specific amount of time. So we're literally giving up food saying, hey, I'm going to reject physical food, to be nourished by Christ spiritually, and trust that he will nourish and sustain me through this time of fasting.

And there's also other ways to fast, like through technology or social media. But the primary method that we see in Scripture is people fasting from food. Okay. And this leads to my next point. Fasting confirms our complete dependance on God by finding in him a source of sustenance beyond food. Fasting confirms our complete dependance on God by finding in him a source of substance beyond food.

And so, through this discipline of fasting, we learn that God's Word is a life substance and that it is not truly by bread alone that gives life. I love it. If we can turn to Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse three, I love what this says. And I'm actually going to be quoting the net translation, the new English translation. But let me read this for us.

So he that is God, he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. He did this to teach you that humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also that every word from the mouth of the Lord, everything that comes from the mouse Lord's mouth. That's kind of crazy statement like God humbles us. He makes us hungry so that he can teach us, and so that he can be the one who feeds us.

And so it's funny when when Jesus was actually hanging out with his disciples, you can probably remember it in John chapter four, the woman at the well, Jesus was hanging out with his disciples and they were all hungry. And this disciples were urging Jesus to eat food. And Jesus says, hey, I have a food to eat that you do not even know about.

And it's actually funny. The disciples are hilarious. They're like, hey, has someone brought in food? Has someone else brought in food to Jesus that we don't know about? Has someone else brought him something to eat? And Jesus responds by saying, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. It's amazing.

Like that mindset that that perspective, that posture that is powerful. Do we have that same purpose? So when we regularly practice fasting as a spiritual discipline, we're aware of the clear and constant awareness of the resources and strength that we have in God. And this helps us endure trials of various kinds and knowing that we're not alone, and that our good father here's our every single prayer and every need.

And I don't know how familiar y'all are with practice with fasting. I'm sure some of y'all have practiced before. Maybe this is new to some of y'all, but if I could say anything, I love, love, love this about fasting. Fasting brings about what God has always wanted to do. When you fast, you know, like you, you, you, you kind of have to have this dependance in God, right?

You encounter him, you experience him. There's this deep intimacy with God when you fast, when you fast like it brings about how things should always be. When you fast, like the things that you experience, the the the intimacy that you have with God, that should be the normal. That's why we call them disciplines, because it doesn't come normal to us.

So we have to literally discipline ourself to stay in this heart posture of intimacy with Jesus. When we fast, it gets us out of the way and it moves us into deeper faith. It moves us, all of us, into the light. And it shows us that Jesus is going to meet us there, and that he still loves us in spite of who we are, because of who he is.

And so every moment of emptiness, every moment of hunger should remind us when we fast that Jesus, you are enough. And so let us. Let us hunger for more of Jesus. And when we hunger, when we're fasting, like I want to be clear, fasting doesn't create hunger for God. It should reveal the hunger that has always been there.

And that's my main point. There is like fasting brings about what God has always intended for us to be living in this constant proximity to Him in His presence. So when we fast, we learn how to suffer well with joy, because in life we're all going to suffer. Maybe some of you are suffering right now, and fasting teaches us about the peace, the dependance, the presence of Jesus that is so sweet and satisfying more than anything else that this world has to offer.

I love what the psalmist says. The Psalm 34 verse eight says, taste and see that the Lord is good. Taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the one who takes shelter in him. I'm sure many of us have have tasted and seen the goodness of God in our lives. So when we taste and see the things that aren't from the Lord, hopefully that should be this like immediate reaction of just like disgust.

Like that's not from the Lord. I don't want to do that. But hopefully God has revealed himself to us in such a way that when we experience and encounter him, we can taste and see his goodness. And there there's nothing else that we want. There's no sin, there's no immediate relief. There's no temptation that we would choose to compromise in, to follow something that's other than Jesus.

Because we tasted and seen his goodness and his faithfulness in our own lives. This goes into my third point. Fasting is a powerful spiritual weapon against Satan. Fasting is a powerful spiritual weapon against Satan. Let me ask us a question. Why did Jesus fast? Here in Luke chapter four, when Jesus was led into the wilderness, when he was at his weakest moment, when he was hungry, when he was suffering, that is when Satan attacked him.

Satan's like, oh, you're hungry. I can take all of that away. Oh, you're suffering. All you got to do is this the devil literally says to him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. Oh, you want this? I can give that to you right now. All you got to do is just compromise a little bit.

All you got to do is just tell me what you want. I can give it to you. I can actually serve you and give you what you need right now. And this is what Satan does. He tricks us. He deceives us. He lies to us. You're feeling pain. You're feeling suffering. You're feeling the weight of the world upon you.

You don't have to rely on God. You may not even come through for you. You may not answer that prayer. I'm here right now. I can give you instant satisfaction and relief right now. And this is what Satan does. If Jesus is the master disciple, Satan is the master deceiver. He tricks us. He tricks us with lies. He he wants us to get to this place where we question God, just like Adam and Eve did in Genesis chapter three.

So here's what's crazy. What was the number one thing that Jesus did as he was being tested and tempted by Satan? Jesus is like, hey, what you don't realize is that I'm fasting right now, and as I'm fasting, I it made me stronger and it made me more dependent on the father. And yet I may be hungry. Yeah, I may be suffering, I may be thirsty.

But I have a spiritual food that you don't even know about. I have a satisfaction in my father that you don't even know what it's like. I'm so satisfied and full from being in my father's presence, full of the Holy Spirit, spending time with him. That you were the last thing that I want right now. And so not only are you going to flee from me, Satan, this is what Jesus does.

I'm actually going to use the Word of God against you, the sword of the spirit, to combat you with the lies from lies of what is true.

And so this is what Satan does. He tries to offer us this fake artificial bread. He tries to offer us fake manna, fake pleasures, fake delight. And Jesus is like, hey guys, like I am the bread of life. I'm the I'm the real stuff. There's nothing artificial about me. Everything that Satan does when he tempts you, when he attacks you, even when he tips you with falling into sin, it's this immediate relief.

But it's all artificial. It leads to death and destruction and decay and chaos in our lives. And Jesus is like, hey guys, when you're tested and tempted by Satan, you can use the Word of God against Satan. That's why memorizing scripture is so powerful. Guys, we got to be in the world. We got to memorize scripture because it is a weapon against Satan.

So Jesus alone, but with the father full of the spirit being attacked by Satan, uses the Word of God as a spiritual weapon out of a place of spiritual nourishment because he's like, hey, I got a bread that this world doesn't even know about, and it satisfies my longing heart. And so Jesus quoted Deuteronomy eight three. He quoted Scripture back to Satan.

And so when we're tested, when we're tempted by Satan, let us look to God's Word as a weapon of truth.

My last point is this fasting exposes hunger and redirects it to Jesus. Fasting exposes hunger and redirects it to Jesus. Let me ask another question. When you don't eat, what do you feel?

Do you feel hungry? I feel super hungry. I'll just be honest, fellas, am I right? I feel super angry when I. When I fast, I'm like, dude, I am so hungry. But when you fast, what do you feel? Do you feel hunger? Do you feel suffering? Do you feel pain? What do you feel? But then sometimes when you do eat, sometimes you feel those exact same things.

You still feel hungry. You still feel the pain. You still feel the suffering doesn't go away. I think the point is this. That there is a kind of pain that you cannot soothe by eating, and it points to a deeper spiritual hunger that can only be satisfied in Christ, not with food. And during the fall, with Adam and Eve, when they ate of the fruit that God told them not to eat, they took that which God had created and ate it, and it brought about the greatest emptiness into the world sin.

And so when we get hungry now, that's now this inevitable sign of suffering and death that was initiated into the world during the fall. And so many times in our own lives, we we try to rehearse the fall over and over and over and over again. We're trying to eat our way out of this emptiness. We're trying to save ourselves.

And we would rather here ourselves speak than God speak. We would rather want to do things our own way than do things God's way. We would rather want to follow our word than God's Word. And so fasting is this way to break out of this original sin pattern and resist that, and instead look to Jesus to be our source of life and to be our source of strength.

And so when we fast, then we lean into the suffering of the world. We actually get into it, we lean into the suffering, and we realize, yeah, things aren't the way they should be. Things are broken. We can see that very evidently around us, right? Our hunger even reveals that. And yet we still long for God to come back and redeem it.

And so maybe this is why Jesus fasted. He was sent to undo the fall as he longed for the world to be restored by his ministry to come. Jesus literally had to nt himself. He laid down his life. He laid down his body so that we could partake of his body and finally be redeemed in the cross is the ultimate example of this, right Jesus giving up his life so that we may find true life in him.

And so when we fast, we become more like Jesus.

Jared, you may be. You may be asking like, hey, what happens when I fast? And my prayers don't get answered? I know that's happened to me before. I come into this place of devotion and wholehearted surrender before the Lord and fasting, I'm like, God, I got something I need to bring before you. And then while I'm doing it, there just seems to be this disconnect.

I'm sure maybe some of you feel that way in your relationship with the Lord. So what happens when our prayers don't get answered? I would encourage you with this. Like even when our prayers don't get answered, we still get Jesus. He is our source of strength. He's our source of life. We still get Jesus. We still get to share with him.

We still get to be in his presence. We still get to pour out our heart before him.

I love this quote by a guy named Justin Early. He wrote this book called The Uncommon Rule fantastic book about the spiritual disciplines, but he says this about following Jesus. He says to follow Jesus is not just to believe in his life, it is also to follow in his lifestyle. And so many of us were like, yeah, I want to be like, Jesus.

Yeah, I want to follow that Jesus guy. But then when he's like, oh yeah, you got to take up your cross daily and follow me, we're like, oh, wait, wait, that's hold up. That's a little too much. That's a little too far. But that's what Jesus did for us. He laid down and surrendered his whole life for us.

So why would we choose to follow him in his person but not follow him also in his lifestyle? So, guys, I'll be honest, there's there's real power when we fast and pray and I'm not. I'm actually about to give some examples that we see in Scripture, in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, just really quickly, almost rapid fire of examples.

We see people coming before the Lord and fasting and just you can see I want I hope that you guys will maybe spend time this week looking at these passages too, and seeing the power of the Lord at display in these people's lives. So there's there's real power when we fast and pray. And so let me just list off a couple examples of people in the Old Testament and New Testament who fasted.

You see, Moses, just listen. Moses fasted for 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Sinai while receiving the law from God. In Exodus 34, David fasted while praying for his sick child. In second chapter 12, Israel fasted as a nation, repenting of their sin. In judges chapter 20, Hannah fasted from eating in deep grief and prayed to be given a child who would ultimately be Samuel.

In First Samuel chapter one, Elijah fasted for 40 days and 40 nights without food while journeying to Mount Sinai, where he did, where he then actually did hear from the Lord. In one Kings 19, Ahab fasted in repentance. After God's judgment was pronounced. In first Kings 21, Ezra fasted, mourning Israel's sin. In Ezra ten, Nehemiah fasted and prayed, hearing Jerusalem's condition.

In Nehemiah one, Esther fasted with the Jews. She actually called all the Jews to fast with her and Susa for three days before she was going to go be approach to the king. In Esther chapter four, Daniel fasted, refusing to eat the royal food as an act of consecration. The people of Nineveh fasted. After the judgment was cast upon them.

They were declared a citywide fast and it was actually kind of weird. Even the animals were included in this fast. You can read about it in Jonah chapter three. In the New Testament you have Anna, who worshiped with fasting and prayer in Luke chapter two. Jesus, in our text today in Luke four, fasted for 40 days and nights in the wilderness before beginning his public ministry.

John the Baptist back to practice fasting regularly. In Matthew chapter nine, Cornelius was fasting when he received a vision from the Lord. In acts chapter 13, the Apostle Paul went without food three days after encountering Christ in Acts chapter nine. And so you can see clearly all over Scripture God's people fasted and prayed, and every time they would, God would meet them powerfully in seasons where they fasted.

There's this time in my own life back in 2020, right in the middle of Covid. I tried to not think about that time, but this was actually a really cool experience. I was doing a pastoral residency at this church called The Square Church outside of Atlanta, where I was being discipled by this guy named Phil, man, Janelle. And like I said, it was right in the middle of Covid, so everything kind of shut down.

I was like, man. Like we had some great momentum going, just meeting regularly as the church, like God was doing amazing things. And then coming up and I remember one morning I woke up in this word, Dallas just kept popping in my head. I'm like, Dallas, was that me? Dallas? And so every morning I'd sure enough wake up.

And that word Dallas kept popping up. And I'm like, all right, God, what's going on? Dallas? Remember, I've lived in Atlanta my whole entire life for about 20, 28 years. Up to that point. I'm like, all right, God, I don't know what you're trying to say to me. I don't know what you're trying to reveal, but I'm going to go talk to Pastor Phil about this.

So one day, Pastor Phil and I met every Monday from 330 to 5 in our discipleship relationship that we had together, where he was discipling me and pouring into me. I told him was like, Phil, I need to tell you something, man. God keeps revealing the word Dallas to me. What does that mean? He said, let's pray about it.

I'm like, okay. He's like, you know what? I'm actually going to fast for you. He's like, how about this? What's fast together? I'm going to fast for you. And then we'll come back together and we'll see what God says. And I remember in that moment I was just like, man, what? Like, no one's done this for me before.

You're going to fast for me. Like, not even for yourself. You're going to fast for me. And so I remember going back to my house at the time and, you know, there's nothing to do. Middle of Covid. I remember reading the word at this moment that I was really hungry. Stomach was growling. I'm just like, man, I'm hungry.

So I remember reading through John chapter six and I believe in verse 35, it's when Jesus says the first of his I am statements. It says, I am the bread of life. And I remember reading that and it just moving me to tears because I could genuinely sense the presence of God nourishing my soul and nourishing me physically in that moment as I was fasting.

And then I felt this clear and constant answer from the Lord of like, Jared, you need to move to Dallas. I'm like, all right, God. And so the next day, met back up with Pastor Phil at a coffee shop, and I'm like, right, Phil, what did God tell you? He's like, Jared, this is crazy. Because, like, I'm studying underneath him.

He's like, Jared. As much as I hate to say this, as much as I would love for you to be here, I think that God wants you to move to Dallas. And I just couldn't believe that in this moment that this man would literally empty himself, have me in mind and pray for me as I made as I was praying through this decision and moved to Dallas, and ultimately it ended up being one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Moved to Dallas, finished seminary school on campus. Met my wife in two weeks, found this amazing church out there and got plugged in with God. Worked in miraculous ways when I moved to Dallas. But what was more mind blowing to me was the willingness of this man to limit himself and to love me in this way too fast for me.

And ultimately, this is what Jesus did for us. He emptied himself. He he went to the cross, sacrificing himself, giving up his body so that we can have life in him. So some of you may be experiencing that like, man, I just need Jesus to quench my my longing, lost, broken, sinful heart. Well, he can do that. He gave himself up for you.

He loves you enough that he gave his life to save you. And so yeah, we indeed have this physical hunger, but we also have a spiritual hunger. And I believe that it can only be satisfied in Jesus Christ. So why should we fast? Because fasting moves us to delightful, independent intimacy with Jesus.

Hey, I want us to take just a couple of minutes right here and to actually sit in silence as we respond and reflect about the message today. Can we do that? Can we just go ahead and bow your heads, like, close your eyes? I want us to just come before the Lord right now. And just this humble heart posture, but also an open heart posture to receive something that maybe he wants to speak to you and remember, like Jesus, he's our guide here, right?

He shows us the way to do it. We see this in Luke four. And so maybe what is God putting on your heart right now? Maybe you need direction or guidance on a big decision. Maybe you simply just want to pour out your heart and devotion to the Lord. Maybe you need to consider fasting to repent over sin.

Maybe you need to pray for someone else that you know, for God to give them wisdom and guidance like Phil did for me. Maybe you need is just simply fast and sit at the feet of Jesus and receive his love for you to walk in further dependance on him. Maybe you need to consider wanting to fast because of the suffering that's currently going on in your life and just saying God, like, I just want to lament with you.

I believe that you can actually meet me in my lament and that you want to be there. And so whatever it is, I just want to ask you guys, like, what's God asking you to do? What is faithful obedience look like for you right now?

And if I could extend an invitation to our church, I feel deeply that as I was praying and preparing for this today, that God is calling our church to spend a day in fasting this week. And so I would love for you guys to join me, join our leadership of our church. Join our church body to fast this Thursday.

And when asking God like, hey God, like, what do you want our people to fast for? I feel like there was only one word that he kept bringing to mind, and that word was repentance. I don't know why, but that's just what God spoke to me. I don't know if that resonates with you, but if I can encourage us this Thursday, can we do this?

Can we practice this together as a church? Can we fast together with this theme of repentance? Maybe there's something we need to repent of. Maybe we just need to come before the Lord and just God. I just want to consecrate my my life to you. I want to set my heart and my life apart to follow you, because I believe that's where fullness of life is.

God, thank you so much for just this moment to come together as a church to hear your Word. Thank you for.

Giving us an example, giving us a model, a guide of what it's like to follow you. There's things that you did that you call us to practice in with you and that you went before us in. And so, God, we we want to do whatever it takes to follow you. We're willing we want to you follow you not just in your life but also in your practice.

And so may we be a people this week that lean into that. I pray that as we enter into this day, this Thursday of fasting, that you would open up our hearts, open up our eyes. I pray that you'd speak to us, draw us closer to yourself. Because, God, we know that the more we lose our life, the more we actually find it because we find it in you.

Jesus. So, God, thank you so much for every person in this room. We know that you know their story. You see them, you love them, and you want to lead them into fullness of life with you, Jesus. So we believe that in faith this week, as we go forward, in Jesus name we pray. Amen.