Sunday Sermon | D NOW Weekend: Guest Nate Hilgenkamp

Following Jesus was never meant to be easy. But it is always worth it.

In this message, guest speaker Nate Hilgenkamp challenges the idea of comfortable Christianity and calls believers to recover a forgotten spiritual discipline: biblical fasting.

Key Takeaways:

• We fast to resist physical desires and submit them to the Spirit
• We fast to repent of sin and reorient our appetites toward righteousness
• We fast to receive from God—clarity, direction, and deeper intimacy
• There are no easy mountains to climb, but the view with Jesus is worth the cost

Scripture: Genesis 2:7; Galatians 5:16–17; Matthew 5:6; Joel 2:12–13; Acts 13:2–3; Exodus 34:28–35

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Transcript

Camelback Lesson: No Easy Mountains

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, Bernie. If we haven't met before, my name's Nate Hilgenkamp. I come from Waco, Texas. I'm married to another Baylor Bear, and we've got three young kids now. But before we had our first, we decided to go on a baby moon. We were gonna go explore before our life was kind of taken over by kids. And we looked all over the country and we decided we were gonna go to Scottsdale. Now we had never been there before, so we started asking everyone around us, hey, if you've been to Scottsdale, what should we do? And person after person said, Well, you gotta do this one thing. You need to make sure that you climb Camelback Mountain. You need to make sure that you hike Camelback Mountain. So I was like, okay, that's great. And by the amount of people that told me, and also by the type of people that told me, I made an incorrect assumption. I thought it was gonna be easy. Because I don't know about you. When I think of hike, I'm like a a slightly uphill walk. That's my ideal hike. So we we go to Camelback Mountain, and uh at the time my wife is like five months pregnant, so I'm assuming it's gonna be extra difficult for her. She is like a half-mile beyond me at this point because Camelback Mountain, I don't know if you've ever done it. There are times I'm like on my hands and knees trying to climb up this mountain, and the whole time I'm just thinking, I just want to quit. Like I just want to turn around and go back. But with my five-month pregnant wife beyond me, I'm like, I can't tell people she made it, and I didn't. It's just so I kept going and going and going, and eventually we made it there. Both of us did. Yeah. And it was an amazing view. And here's what here's what I learned that day. There are no easy mountains to climb. There are no easy mountains to climb. I made an incorrect assumption that it was going to be easy. There are no easy mountains to climb. And I start with that today because I think for some of us in American Christianity, we've been sold a false bill of goods. You have been told, hey, following Jesus is easy. Come on. Just come to church whenever you don't have anything else on the weekend. You can join us for church or just read the verse of the day in your Bible app. You can just do that every other day. And you're just kind of half-heartedly pursuing Jesus, and you're like, why am I not on fire? Why don't I have those mountaintop moments with Jesus? Here's why. There's no easy mountains to climb. To follow Jesus faithfully and fully, it takes some work. So this morning, if you came in and you feel like you're you're kind of one foot in, one foot out in your faith, and you are desiring to take that next step. I'm gonna teach on something that's really, really hard. And even though it's hard, it doesn't mean it's bad. Because doing hard things is actually good for us. And Jesus does not say, hey, pick up your pillow and follow me. He says, pick up your cross and follow me. It's gonna be hard. So today I'm gonna teach on one of my least favorite things in the world, and that is fasting. It's giving up food for a period of time. I don't want to do that, but just because I don't want to do it doesn't mean I shouldn't do it. In fact, in scripture, it is assumed that we would. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, when you pray, when you give, and then he says, when you fast. It's an assumption that it would be a part of our life. And it was a part of the people's life who followed God. In the Old Testament, the followers of Yahweh would fast twice, not a year, twice, fast twice, not a month, but fast twice a week. And they would they would fast on Tuesday, sorry, on Monday and Thursday. Then the early church, after Jesus lived, died, and rose again, they they switched it up, and now they started to fast Monday and Friday to represent the days in which Jesus was arrested and then ultimately crucified. But then, since it was hard, it started to fade. And there's a theologian named John Wesley, and he said this about fasting. He said, And I fear there are now thousands of Christians who have entirely left off fasting, who are so far from fasting twice a week that they do not fast twice in the month. Are there not some of you who do not fast one day from beginning of the year to the end? The man that never fasts is no more on the way to heaven than the man that never prays. Now, I I want I want to correct that last part. I disagree with that last part. We are saved by grace through faith, not by works, so no one can boast. Fasting does not earn your salvation, neither does prayer, but I understand what he's saying. He's saying if you are not reliant upon God in prayer, then he's not your God, he's not your Lord. And if you are not willing to fast, to humble yourself before him, then are you following him or are you following his desires? So before we get into what the scripture says about fasting, I just want to say, man, all across the scripture, whenever it talks about fasting, biblical fasting is actually only about food. Only about food. We've actually made it easier. I've never seen a passage, maybe you can show me in scripture where Paul says, Hey, I've decided to fast from shopping for a period. It's not in there. I haven't seen Peter say, Hey, I'm gonna give up Netflix and fast. That's not biblical fasting. Biblical fasting is hard. It's giving up food for a period of time. Even we've called the Daniel fast, the Daniel fast. If you look at scripture, that's not, it doesn't say fast. It says he gave up certain foods for a time. It wasn't a fast. Biblical fast is I'm not gonna eat from this period to this period. I'm going to do something hard because there are no easy mountains to climb. And again, before I get into the scripture, I also want to say, man, I know that there's a variety of different struggles in this room, struggles like body image and eating disorders. And man, if that's you, my ask for you is not to fast this week, but instead to tell somebody. Make sure your spouse knows, your community knows. Don't struggle with that on your own. Now, typically I would like to take a single passage and break it down verse by verse, but today we're gonna look at a biblical framework for fasting. So we're gonna jump all over a little bit. But so the first thing we need to understand from Scripture is this that we fast to resist physical desires. Why do we fast? We fast to resist physical desires. And to explain this, let me tell you how we were created. Taking you all the way back to the beginning in Genesis chapter 2, it says this. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground. Now that that word for dust of the ground is in in Hebrew Adama. Adam was formed from the Adam Mah. Adam Mah, oh thank you. You got my back. Appreciate that. So Adama is formed from the earth. And then what happens next is he he was uh that God breathed into his nostrils with the breath of life. Now the breath of life is the word rua, the Hebrew word rua, which also means spirit. Breath and spirit are synonymous in the scriptures. So what's saying here is only once the physical was combined with the spiritual did the man become a living being. So what we have to understand about ourselves is that we are both physical beings and spiritual beings. We have physical desires and spiritual desires. But we have to understand is that our physical desires must be submitted to our spiritual desires. But they're in conflict with one another. Our physical desires are gonna pull us one way, our spiritual desires are gonna pull us another. We see this in the book of Galatians, chapter five. Paul writes, So I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But the issue is in America, oftentimes we do whatever we want. Because we have the availability and the accessibility to do whatever we want. If we want to buy something, we just swipe the credit card. That's why we've got thousands of dollars in credit card debt. If you want to watch something, you can watch it whenever you want. It's available on demand. You can watch the whole season in one day. If you want to eat something, there's restaurants all around you. Right after this, you can go to bum doodlers, you can go to Longhorn Cafe, you can go to Cafe Lorraine, whatever it's called, bakery Lorraine. Like there's a lot of different options here. We have the availability to do whatever we want. And we have really been trained in our culture that if you want something, then just go do it. Go buy it, go eat it, go watch it. But Scripture says that's not best for us because when your God is your stomach, your glory will be your shame. When you just do whatever your physical desires tell you to do, it will only lead to shame. It's gonna take you to a place you don't want to be. The problem is it's it's really hard to resist your physical desires. It's it's really hard to silence them. You know, I think about it this way. As I've mentioned, I've got three kids at home. I've got a four-year-old girl, a two-year-old girl, and a 10-month-old girl. And uh, whenever we sit down for dinner, at dinner, I'm just I'm like trying to connect with my wife Abdely. I'm trying to have a conversation with her. But but here's what it will look like. She'll be sharing something about her day. I'll be looking her in the eyes, and over here I just hear, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, can I have some milk? Dad, can I have some milk? Dad, can I have some milk? Dad, hey, guess what? Guess what? Guess what happened at school today? Hey, dad, dad, dad, dad. I'm staring at my wife. I'm trying to hear from her, but there's these like best kids, I mean, over here trying to talk to me. And eventually I just have to look at them and say, hey, I'm gonna get to you, but I need to hear from your mom first. Like, I will get to you, I'll I'll talk to you, but I I want to hear from your mom first. And oftentimes in our life, man, you're you're trying to follow Jesus, you're trying to hear from the Spirit, but your physical desires are over here, just saying, hey, you need to eat, you need to eat, you need to sleep, you're so tired, you're thirsty, you're thirsty, hey, your phone's calling for you. Come on, come on, come on. And eventually, what you just need to do is what fasting is fasting is telling your physical desires, hey, I'm gonna get to you, but I'm gonna connect with my God first. I know you have needs, I'll get to them eventually, but I'm gonna make sure that my spiritual desires are met before my physical ones are. So we must listen to our spiritual needs before our physical needs. And it's hard, but scripture says we must train ourselves for godliness. And we are willing to do something hard because he was willing to do something much harder for us. We are here today because we are Christians, which means we believe that God so loved you that he sent his one and only son to leave heaven to enter into earth, and he didn't take life easy. He lived 33 years of a perfect life only to be arrested, tortured, beaten, and crucified upon two beams of wood. And if he was willing to do that for you, you and I can give up a day of food for him. So, point number one: the first thing we see in Scripture is that we fast to resist physical desires. The second reason we fast based in scripture is that we fast to repent of sin. We don't just fast to keep us from sinning in the future, but to repent of sins in our past. I know, I know for all of us, like whenever we we sin, we can feel badly about sin, but uh that there may be uh a number of people in this room where you're like, man, I'm just continually, repeatedly in this sin. Maybe it's an addiction, or maybe it's just something that you've dealt with for a really, really long time, and it's not going away. And you the truth is you're likely not taking repentance seriously enough for that sin. And the scripture shows us that repentance oftentimes comes with fasting. There's a moment in scripture where Jonah preaches to the Ninevehes, they respond and they repent and fast. The king issues a fast over that nation. Elsewhere in Scripture, the book of Joel, Israel had grown spiritually apathetic and complacent, and this is what it says in Joel chapter 2. Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning, rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents in sending calamity. Because you see, fasting makes repentance feel real. Because when you internally feel that uncomfort in your stomach, it's a reminder to you. I've had an appetite for sin. I want to change my appetite. I want to change the things that I hunger and thirst after. I'm done desiring sin. I want to hunger after something else. Jesus teaches us this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, verse 6. Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. So whenever you fast, you go a day without eating and you're hungry and daydreaming about that bowl from Chipotle. You get to reorient your desires and say, God, would you make me this hungry for righteousness? Would you make me desire to live a holy life, just like I desire that food? And when I live without righteousness, Lord, may I be more uncomfortable than what I feel right now. Now, importantly, fasting doesn't just give you the desire to change your ways, but it gives you the power to change your ways. Why? Because it drives you to the one who has the power to change your ways. Because fasting shows you where your power comes from. Because when you fast, you will literally feel the weakness of your body, and it's a reminder to you and to me that we cannot defeat sin on our own. I've heard it said before that if dependence is the goal, then weakness is the advantage. If dependence upon Jesus is the goal, then weakness is the advantage. And fasting makes us feel physically weak, and it drives us to the one who can actually free us. And fasting is a reminder that we need to stop trying to live this life and fighting our sin on our own because you don't have what it takes. I don't have what it takes. You know, as I'm parenting my kids, I see this all the time with them. Something will go wrong with one of their toys. Maybe they they knock over their Legos, maybe they're trying to change the clothes on their Barbie doll. And I'll just step in and say, Hey, I can I help you? And uh, especially my two-year-old, she'll just say, Me do it. Me do it, me do it. I'm trying to help her. She's like, No, me do it, me do it. And she just struggles with it until finally she just gives up and realizes she can't fix it. In in your life and mine, at least for me. Speaking from experience, there's often times when I'm just like, no, God, me do it. Me defeat my sin. Me overcome my anxiety, me overcome my temptations. And here's the thing: we're gonna struggle until finally we go, okay, God, I can't. Dad, would you help me out? And then whenever we fast, it reminds us I am weak, but He is strong. So if you're trying to white knuckle your way to holiness, it's gonna take you a while. It's gonna take you your whole life because you won't be able to get there because you don't have the strength on your own, because there's only one way to get to freedom, and it's by submitting yourself to his Holy Spirit. And if you're trying to fight a spiritual battle in your physical strength, I want you to know there's someone who's thrilled about it. And then that's Satan. Satan would love for you to continue to fight this battle on your own because he knows that you can't defeat him. But there's someone who can, and there's someone who did. Jesus lived, died, and rise again, making a mockery of sin, death, and the devil. And if you submitted yourself to him for your salvation, then we also must submit to him for our sanctification. Because it was his power that saved us, and it will also be his power that sanctifies us. So when we fast, point number two, second thing we see in scripture is that we fast to repent of sin. Lastly, the third reason we see fasting in Scripture is that we fast to receive from God. Point number three, we fast to receive from God. Probably the best example of this is in Acts chapter 13. The disciples got together and it says this. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. So as they fasted, they received an answer from God. Their fasting put them in a position to hear God more clearly. Now is he rewarding their fasting here by speaking to them? Maybe. I think he might be. Because again, as I'm as I'm parenting my kids, oftentimes I hear myself say things like, Hey, when you eat your broccoli, then you can be excused. When you pick up your room, then you can go outside and play. And what does Jesus say in this His Sermon on the Mount? When you fast, I think there's a reward on the other side of obedience. And sometimes you will hear God more clearly in that season. So I bet you've got some decisions to make. Some of you have some weighty decisions to make. Should I take this job or not? What should we do with our finances? How should we handle our kid? What should I do in my marriage? Sometimes there's an answer for you on the other side of fasting because you'll be able to hear God more clearly when you do, because you're giving him more of your attention when you fast. You're saying no to everything else and saying yes to him, and you can hear him better that way. I've noticed this oftentimes in my my uh uh relationship with my wife. Her biggest pet peeve with me, number one biggest pet peeve, I know exactly what it is. It's whenever she's talking to me, and I'm just going like this. Like I'm just on my phone, she's she's talking to me, talking to me, and I'm sending texts, I'm checking Instagram, and then she'll go, Hey Nate, did you hear me? And and it's the worst feeling in the world to say, I have no idea what you just said. No, I didn't I didn't hear you. I was focused on something else. What I need to do is put away everything else in the world and focus on her. And this is what happens when we fast. We're saying no to everything else and saying yes to God, and when we say no to the world and yes to God. And here's the crazy thing: you'll start to hear him better because he has your full attention. So sometimes when you fast, you will receive an answer from God. Sometimes you won't. I don't want to sell you something that's not true. Sometimes you won't, but when you fast, you will always receive something. Sometimes you will receive an answer from God, sometimes you'll just get more of God. And not just like sometimes you will get more of God. We we see this in Exodus chapter 40, Sir 34. Again, it's all throughout the scriptures. Moses goes upon a mountain, Mount Sinai, and he fasted for 40 days. And as he did, he got closer and closer to God. And what happened to him? As he came down, his face was glowing because he was focused on his God during that season. So, my my question to you is do you want to be comfortable here or do you want to be close to him here? Do you want to be comfortable or do you want to be close? And oftentimes those two things are not gonna go hand in hand. So, are you gonna choose the path that leads to easy or the path that leads to an encounter with God? And some of us we have a half-hearted faith because we have a half-hearted pursuit. We do the things we want to do when we want to do them. We go to church when our schedule is free, we're just kind of going through the motions, and again, you're wondering, man, why am I not on fire? Why am I not having a mountain type type of faith? Because there are no easy mountains to climb. Scripture says that we should do hard things. And while fasting is not a mandate, it's an invitation. It's an invitation to a deeper relationship with Jesus. It's an invitation to repent of your sin. It's an invitation to put your spiritual needs above your physical needs. So my invitation to you is pick a day this week. Pick a day this week and go a time without food. And use that time whenever you feel those hunger pangs to go towards God in prayer and say, God, would I be hunger, hungry and thirsty for righteousness more than I am for food? So, in summary, point number one, we fast to resist physical desires. Point number two, we fast to repent of sin. And point number three, we fast to receive from God. I uh to close, I lead a young adult ministry at our church, which is is really like a singles ministry. And and someone asked me recently, uh, you know, Nate, what does what does it cost to have kids? They've seen me with three kids. They're like, what does it cost you to have kids? And I just started laughing. I'm like, I mean, everything, like like the birth itself was thousands of dollars. Every time I go to H B, it's like another$45 on diapers and whatever else they need. It's like every single week. It's more money and more money and more money. And that's just money. Like my four-year-old now, she has started at 3:30 at night. I don't know how she times it, but at 3 30 at night, she'll come into our room and she picks me and she wakes me up. She's like, Dad, my blankets fell off. Dad, my pillow's uncomfortable. So it they don't just cost me finances, they cost me sleep, they cost me like emotional health. They cost me so much. Is it worth it? My goodness, yes. If I had a picture, I would show you. There are the most amazing things in the world. I love my JC Callie and Annie. I love you guys. I can't wait to get out of here and go give them a hug this afternoon. Because I love them. They bring so much joy, they bring so much happiness. My favorite moment in my day, every single day, is coming home from work and opening up the door and my kids running to give their dad a hug. I would pay anything for that. I'd pay anything for that. What does it cost you to have a close relationship with Jesus? Here's what you got to understand: it's gonna cost you so much. It's gonna cost you your sleep, it's gonna cost you your finances, it's gonna cost you your food. At times, it's gonna cost you a lot. Don't buy the lie, you can just do a little for a deep faith. No, it's gonna cost you a lot. My question to you, is it worth it? My goodness, it's worth it. Are you kidding me? There's only one place I know that will give me a full life here and an abundant life later, an eternal life later. That there's only one person I know that can give me peace in the storm. There's only one person I know that can give me joy when my life isn't going well. There's only one person I know that can give me freedom from sin, and that's the name of Jesus Christ. So no matter what it costs me, I will follow him anywhere. Why? Because he was willing to pay the ultimate cost to have me. So if he was willing to give up his life, we can give up some food. And it's gonna drive you closer to him. I think it's gonna increase your faith and allow you to feel and receive from God in a real way. So let's try it this week. See what God might do in and through your life. Let me pray. Father, thank you for letting me get through this message with my voice. Sustain me for the next one. And in Heavenly Father, I just pray that we would just be reminded every single day that, man, our physical desires are so strong, but may they not be stronger than our spiritual desires. May we desire you more than food, more than clothes, more than money, more than a new house. May our hunger and thirst be for you above anything else. And Father, would our yes be to your Holy Spirit and not our physical desires, first and foremost? And Father, I do pray for every single person here. I pray that the best days of their life following you would be right in front of them. That we would start to do hard things, to follow you wholeheartedly, because we believe that you are worth it. You're worth any cost because you paid the ultimate cost upon the tree. You died and rose again so that we could have life everlasting. So, Father, may we follow you wholeheartedly because you're worthy of it. So, Father, we're grateful because the reason we're here today is because of the fact that Jesus is alive and with us and for us. It's in his name we pray. Amen.