Speaker 1: Amen, amen, choir.
Speaker 1: What a phenomenal job.
Speaker 1: Do you believe God's in this place today?
Speaker 1: What a phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can clap for that, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Let's bow and pray together and acknowledge the God who is in our midst, right where you are.
Speaker 1: We just take a moment today and thank God for who he is, that he's holy and he's righteous and he's good through and through.
Speaker 1: Take a moment and thank him for the chance that we get to worship him together as the body of Christ, the family of God, people from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all sorts of different places.
Speaker 1: God has gathered us together in this moment.
Speaker 1: Let's thank him for that.
Speaker 1: Let's pray for where God's leading us as a church, the future that he has in store for us as one church in two locations.
Speaker 1: Take a moment and pray for the people around you today.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know them by name, maybe you know the circumstances of their lives, maybe you don't, I know we've got people in here that are living in the highest of highs right now, and we have some people that are walking through the lowest of lows.
Speaker 1: So let's pray for one another today and those of us in the room.
Speaker 1: Let's pray for those watching online.
Speaker 1: Those watching online.
Speaker 1: We welcome you.
Speaker 1: Will you pray for us gathered in the room today?
Speaker 1: Let's ask God to speak to us from his word, by his spirit, to apply his truth right to our lives, right where we are today.
Speaker 1: So, god, we thank you for this moment, got a moment that you saw before time was even a thing.
Speaker 1: God, you knew that we would be gathered here today.
Speaker 1: You knew the circumstances that we would carry into this place with us this morning.
Speaker 1: You knew the celebrations and the joys.
Speaker 1: You knew the darkness and the pain and the hurt.
Speaker 1: So, father, today we simply want to ask that, by your spirit, through your word, god, that you would shine the light of truth into our lives, father, in a way that challenges us, that confronts us, that shows us, maybe, some things in us that aren't in alignment with your will for our lives.
Speaker 1: And, father, we pray that we would be transformed from one degree of glory into the next as we behold the beauty and the wonder of Christ.
Speaker 1: God, we love you, we thank you in Jesus' name, and everybody says together this morning amen, amen.
Speaker 1: Well, welcome to church.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you're here today.
Speaker 1: My name's James.
Speaker 1: We had the chance to meet.
Speaker 1: I'm normally over at the Pinewood campus on Sunday mornings, but Randy and I did a little switcheroo today, so I am honored to be here with you guys this morning.
Speaker 1: Isn't it a great time to be part of Somerville Baptist Church?
Speaker 1: And I just want to take a moment at the beginning today and honor you as a church, as people who, according to the plan and the purpose and the will of God, are seeking God with everything that you have.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of change upcoming in the future, and what's amazing and incredible and powerful is to watch you as a body say yes to Jesus and to say hey.
Speaker 1: Whatever it takes for us to make space to meet people and to invite people into a place where they can encounter a relationship with Jesus and have their life and their eternity transformed.
Speaker 1: Y'all don't blink, you don't waver, just say yes to Jesus, and it is an honor and a privilege to be part of a church like that.
Speaker 1: So thank you for being a church like that.
Speaker 1: We've got great days ahead, do we not?
Speaker 1: God is going before us, god is preparing a way and it's going to be a phenomenal journey as we follow Jesus together.
Speaker 1: By the way, one more order of business.
Speaker 1: It's 28 days from today.
Speaker 1: Is what Anybody know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, y'all hang out with Randy, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's 28 days until Easter Sunday, which means which means there's still plenty of time right for you to make an invite for you to pray and say God, who do?
Speaker 1: I know that is near to me but far from you, and how can I put an invitation on the table in front of them to get them into a place where they can hear the good news about Jesus?
Speaker 1: You got 28 days 28 days, so let's see what God wants to do with you and who God wants you to invite to be part of what's going on Easter week.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a phenomenal time together.
Speaker 1: We're going to be in Mark chapter nine today, mark chapter nine.
Speaker 1: Let me take a moment and kind of set the stage for where we are going.
Speaker 1: We're in a series called Seven Transformational Habits and we're talking about cultivating intentional habits in order to cultivate a life with God.
Speaker 1: That's what this whole series is about.
Speaker 1: Y'all know this.
Speaker 1: I don't need to say this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it anyway.
Speaker 1: We live in a world of abundance, our day and time and place in which we live.
Speaker 1: We live in a culture of abundance, and I know there is a such thing as poverty in our world and food insecurity.
Speaker 1: All of that exists.
Speaker 1: I'm not minimizing any of that today, but at the same time, it is unequivocably true that we live in the most prosperous and convenient time period in human history.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just think about it for a moment.
Speaker 1: Today, if you get hungry, is your first thought?
Speaker 1: I need to grow something or kill something, or is it?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I can go to Wendy's, I can go to Publix or Foodline or Harris Teeter.
Speaker 1: I can go on the Internet and access via the cloud the ability to put some stuff in a cart and a few hours later somebody's going to drop it on my doorstep.
Speaker 1: Or, if I'm really like feeling fancy, I can go to the Taco Bell and I can get some beef and bean enchiladas and burritos.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I got options in front of me.
Speaker 1: Aren't you grateful that we don't live in a time where, if you want to eat something, you got to grow something or kill something?
Speaker 1: Like natural selection would have just selected me right out?
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you like I'm just grateful for that.
Speaker 1: You know, we can't even go to the Target without stopping by the Starbucks in the front of the Target on the way in the door.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like we just live in that type of day and time.
Speaker 1: It's a day and time, a place, a culture of abundance.
Speaker 1: Think about, on the entertainment front, you get bored on a Tuesday afternoon, tuesday evening.
Speaker 1: What am I going to do with my free time tonight?
Speaker 1: You know there was a day and time when you get bored, you put the candle out and you go to sleep, right, I mean, you know, you know there are options.
Speaker 1: Right, we got to wait for the sun to rise so we can go outside and grow some food, you know?
Speaker 1: So now, now it gets dark outside, looking around, hey, I got, you know I got.
Speaker 1: I don't have to go to bed until 10 pm.
Speaker 1: I got four hours.
Speaker 1: What do we need to do?
Speaker 1: Well, let me think.
Speaker 1: I got Netflix.
Speaker 1: I got some new shows on Netflix.
Speaker 1: I got Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: My cousin's got Hulu Plus.
Speaker 1: I can borrow their password and log in there.
Speaker 1: You all do that.
Speaker 1: I don't know you can't.
Speaker 1: Can you admit that in church?
Speaker 1: You can't do that?
Speaker 1: Right, and he's on the front row like, no, we don't do that.
Speaker 1: Nobody does that.
Speaker 1: This is church.
Speaker 1: Netflix, hulu, amazon right, you can.
Speaker 1: You can pull the DVDs out.
Speaker 1: You know like entertainment is everywhere.
Speaker 1: With a small connection to the internet, hours and hours and hours of content is available for our consumption.
Speaker 1: The reality, you all, is this we live in a day and time in which any appetite that we have on the inside can be satiated in a number of different ways.
Speaker 1: You're hungry, you're thirsty, you're bored, you're, you're lonely, like there is an appetite satiating outlet available to you.
Speaker 1: And I'm just here today as someone who's on this journey of life and I'm looking at my own life going.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that that's always a good thing.
Speaker 1: The desert fathers, these early church guys, they, they had this perspective on the world that a fullness of appetite within us robs us of the hunger and the thirst for righteousness that we're called to as followers of Christ, and they would go so far as to say that when we are so full of the world, we're going to that we don't have need, we don't have lack, we don't have want.
Speaker 1: It hinders our relationship with God more than we are aware.
Speaker 1: And so today we're going to talk for a few minutes together about fasting and then we're going to go eat lunch.
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds good to you this morning.
Speaker 1: This is actually just for your information.
Speaker 1: This is like the second part of a sermon on fasting.
Speaker 1: I preached the first part last week at Pinewood.
Speaker 1: You can go back and watch it on YouTube if you want, or you can just take my one sentence big idea which is on the screen.
Speaker 1: Fasting is an intentional no to my flesh.
Speaker 1: I'm saying no to something that I want, something that I feel, something that I feed my flesh.
Speaker 1: I'm saying no to that in order to give an intentional yes to God.
Speaker 1: I'm saying no to me so that I can say yes to God.
Speaker 1: Now, don't tell the people at Pinewood I just preached a 40 minute sermon in a sentence.
Speaker 1: They won't come back to church next week.
Speaker 1: Right, you got last week's sermon in a sentence, but last week, if you're interested in going back, I talked about how we are called to fast from the scriptures and some practical ways that we can implement some of that in our lives.
Speaker 1: And it was fascinating so right after service last Sunday, kind of standing at the back of the room and some friends of mine who grew up in our youth ministry here at Somerville Baptist and have since gotten married and the husbands now in the Air Force and they're stationed in Hawaii.
Speaker 1: He came up to me after church last week and they were back to see family and he said hey, that was a phenomenal message on fasting.
Speaker 1: I'm really feeling convicted to put that into practice in my life.
Speaker 1: He said but I got to tell you my family had already scheduled a trip to Myrtle Beach today to go to the All you Can Eat Crab Leg Buffet and I was like that is providential, is it not?
Speaker 1: The Lord is testing you right now, you know.
Speaker 1: But like fasting, it's a no to me so I can give a yes to God, a no to me so I can give a yes to God.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, maybe you're like me, maybe the idea of fasting is relatively kind of new to you.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's an ingrained part of the rhythm of your spiritual life.
Speaker 1: But my goal today is just to share a little bit of what God's been teaching me and invite you to consider the practice, the habit of fasting, and to see what's possible as we begin to say no to the flesh in order to say yes to God.
Speaker 1: So with that said, mark, chapter 9, we're going to start here in verse 14, and read a pretty good chunk of scripture together this morning.
Speaker 1: Context Jesus has just been transfigured in front of Peter, james and John.
Speaker 1: Mountaintop moment, right, powerful moment.
Speaker 1: They've seen the glory of God on the mountaintop and now they've come back down the mountains and verse 14 said when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.
Speaker 1: Now, just a quick I'm not going to do this through the whole passage, but isn't that how life works?
Speaker 1: You have an incredible mountaintop moment and the next moment you're right in the midst of a conflict.
Speaker 1: Things are great and you're flying high and all of a sudden you meet that person, or you have to step right back into that situation, and it's like you go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, just like that.
Speaker 1: They see a crowd gathered around the disciples, there's an argument going on and immediately all the crowd.
Speaker 1: When they saw Jesus, they were greatly amazed and they ran up to him and they greeted him and he asked them what are you arguing about with them?
Speaker 1: Someone from the crowd answered him teacher, I brought my son to you for he has a spirit that makes him mute.
Speaker 1: Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down and he foams and he grinds his teeth and he becomes rigid.
Speaker 1: And so I asked your disciples to cast it out.
Speaker 1: And they were not able.
Speaker 1: And he answered them oh faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
Speaker 1: How long am I to bear with you?
Speaker 1: Bring him to me.
Speaker 1: And they brought the boy to Jesus.
Speaker 1: And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth.
Speaker 1: And Jesus asked his father how long has this been happening to him?
Speaker 1: And he said from childhood.
Speaker 1: And it is often cast him into the fire and into water to destroy him.
Speaker 1: But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
Speaker 1: And Jesus said to him if you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
Speaker 1: Immediately the father of the child cried out and said I believe, help my unbelief.
Speaker 1: When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it you mute in deaf spirit.
Speaker 1: I command you come out of him and never enter him again.
Speaker 1: And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out.
Speaker 1: The spirit came out and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said he is dead.
Speaker 1: But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose.
Speaker 1: When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately why could we not cast it out?
Speaker 1: And Jesus said to them this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
Speaker 1: Now I want you to look at that last word just for a second.
Speaker 1: Mark, chapter 9, verse 29,.
Speaker 1: But prayer, and in my Bible and on the screen there's a little two beside that word prayer, and it says at the bottom of the page some manuscripts add and fasting.
Speaker 1: If you're reading the King James or the New King James or a couple of other English translations, that verse, verse 29, reads this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.
Speaker 1: Now, context, that's what's called a textual variant and we get those sometimes in the New Testament, in the scriptures, where some of the earlier manuscripts that were actually discovered later read a little bit differently than some of the later manuscripts that were discovered earlier.
Speaker 1: Are you with me there?
Speaker 1: So the King James uses later manuscripts that we actually had before.
Speaker 1: There are a lot more of them in those manuscripts say prayer and fasting.
Speaker 1: Later on in the timeline of things, we archaease.
Speaker 1: We like, I was involved I had nothing to do with it Archaeologists and people that dig places.
Speaker 1: They found other manuscripts that actually dated further back than the manuscripts that were used in the translation process of the King James, and those earlier manuscripts, just said, cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
Speaker 1: So then the question becomes okay, where did the and fasting come from?
Speaker 1: And most scholars, theologians, say that in the days of the early church they were trying to figure out what transformational habits looked like for them and Jesus, in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Sermon on the Mount, he highlights three things that he says as people who are of the kingdom and following after the king should do, and guess what they are.
Speaker 1: He says we should give, he says that we should serve Four things, I guess.
Speaker 1: He says that we should pray and he says that we should fast.
Speaker 1: That is four, right, y'all check me on that.
Speaker 1: That's four.
Speaker 1: I'm not a math, I'm a history guy, not a math guy.
Speaker 1: Four things Give, serve, pray and fast.
Speaker 1: And so in the early church days they're trying to incorporate these habits, these practices, into their church, and so they say prayer and fasting.
Speaker 1: Now, the point of today's message is not to debate whether Mark, chapter 9, verse 29 should be but prayer or but prayer and fasting.
Speaker 1: Whether it's prayer and fasting or simply prayer, the point of Mark chapter 9, the passage that we read this morning today, is that we, as the followers of Christ, desperately need to cultivate a life with God.
Speaker 1: Anybody just agree with that this morning.
Speaker 1: We need to walk with God, and we're going to see why from Mark chapter 9 today.
Speaker 1: So this question that we're going to ask, why does fasting matter or does fasting matter?
Speaker 1: The principles that come out of Mark chapter 9 as to why we need to walk with God, they apply whether it's prayer or fasting, or community, or coming to church or worship, whatever spiritual habit you want to put in the blank today, these principles from Mark chapter 9 apply.
Speaker 1: So today we're going to apply Mark chapter 9 to the habit of fasting.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Why consider fasting?
Speaker 1: Why would I, why would you consider saying no to something that I want and need food, in order to give a yes to God once?
Speaker 1: Well, the first reason is this number one we need a spiritual depth that goes beyond human capacity.
Speaker 1: We need a spiritual depth that goes beyond human capacity.
Speaker 1: I love what happens here in Mark chapter 9.
Speaker 1: Jesus, peter, james and John come down the mountain, they're moving into the valley and they see a crowd gathered.
Speaker 1: And y'all, you got to know, like for Jesus.
Speaker 1: When he sees a crowd gathered with his disciples at the center and he's not there, you got to know like in his mind he's thinking I know he's God and he knows everything.
Speaker 1: There's got to be something in the human side of him that's like oh my goodness, what have they gotten themselves into?
Speaker 1: Now, right?
Speaker 1: And so he walks down the mountain.
Speaker 1: He sees the crowd.
Speaker 1: The scribes are arguing with the disciples and the crowd, they see Jesus and they're like all right, the disciples don't have anything to offer us, now, let's go to Jesus.
Speaker 1: And so they run to Jesus.
Speaker 1: This man speaks up and says teacher, my son is possessed by a spirit, a demon.
Speaker 1: My son is possessed, I brought him to you.
Speaker 1: I brought him to you, but before I brought him to you, what does he say?
Speaker 1: He says I brought him to your disciples and they were not able to cast him out.
Speaker 1: So this spirit, y'all, it makes this young boy, it makes him mute, it overtakes him, it seizes him, it throws him to the ground, it causes him to foam at the mouth and grind his teeth and he becomes rigid when this spirit overtakes him and the disciples were not able to do anything to fix it.
Speaker 1: How many of you know that at some point in time in life we come to the limits of human capacity?
Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes, sometimes we say things.
Speaker 1: We say things, like you know, and it sounds really, really spiritual, like, well, we can't do anything unless God gets involved, and it sounds really spiritual.
Speaker 1: And to an extent it's true.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like some of y'all are pretty extraordinary, you can do a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest, right, some of you are great business people and you can do a lot of great business in your strength and in your power.
Speaker 1: Some of you are great parents.
Speaker 1: You can parent with a lot of patience, in your strength and in your power.
Speaker 1: Some of you are great husbands and wives, and some of you know people who have no relationship with God, who are able to accomplish and achieve at a really high level.
Speaker 1: Anybody know anybody like that and you're like, no, they seem to be doing a lot in their strength and in their power, but how many of you know that at some point in time we all hit a wall when it comes to our strength and our power.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not today, maybe it's not tomorrow, but for every single one of us in the room and online, there will come a moment, a time, a circumstance, where you hit the limit, the limit of your human capacity.
Speaker 1: The disciples hit their limit when this demon-possessed boy was brought to them.
Speaker 1: They had nothing to offer in that moment and if you've ever been there, maybe it's grief or loss or a shift in circumstances of your career that you didn't see coming, or maybe it's relational tension that you just can't resolve.
Speaker 1: When you hit that limit of human capacity, that is incredibly disconcerting, is it not?
Speaker 1: Especially if you're used to being the kind of person who can just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and just keep on achieving.
Speaker 1: When you come to the end of yourself and go I got no answers, no solutions.
Speaker 1: I'm at a wall and I am powerless to move forward in the face of what is opposing me.
Speaker 1: That is a difficult place to be.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's where you are now, and maybe you've been trying to duct tape your life together.
Speaker 1: You know that's the whole saying right, you can fix anything with a little bit of duct tape and WD-40.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's what you look like right now.
Speaker 1: You're duct tape and WD-40 and everything you can trying to hold it together.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're here today to hear that what we just said?
Speaker 1: There is a limit to your capacity.
Speaker 1: There's a limit to your capacity.
Speaker 1: Not only that, we need a spiritual death that goes beyond human capacity.
Speaker 1: We also are in a spiritual battle.
Speaker 1: So there's a limit to us.
Speaker 1: And then there's the reality of the spiritual world around us.
Speaker 1: Why consider fasting?
Speaker 1: Because we are in a spiritual battle, y'all.
Speaker 1: All that you see is not all that there is, and we know that right, there's something within us that we know.
Speaker 1: There's an invisible world that is every bit as real as the spiritual world or the physical world in which we live.
Speaker 1: There's a spiritual battle that's raging all around us every single moment of every single day.
Speaker 1: One theologian said one time that every square inch of the universe is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan.
Speaker 1: Now I want you to think about that for a moment today.
Speaker 1: That means that everywhere you go, everything you do, you are entering into a spiritual battlefield.
Speaker 1: And how many times do we just wander through this spiritual battle completely unaware of the spiritual realm around us?
Speaker 1: Now I have to say this a decade in youth ministry has made it to where I can't talk about spiritual warfare without saying this not every bad thing that happens in your life is Satan's fault.
Speaker 1: You were driving 15 over the speed limit and you got a ticket.
Speaker 1: That was not Satan, that was you.
Speaker 1: You were broke the law, you were a bad driver.
Speaker 1: That's on you, you know.
Speaker 1: You didn't pay your taxes on time and you got to find Satan didn't do that, that was you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 1: Like, whatever it is like, there's some things in life it's like no, that was just me, I just forgot, I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it, I said I failed, I fell short.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, we can't discount the fact that we do have a spiritual enemy.
Speaker 1: Now there's good news right.
Speaker 1: There are angels Hebrews 1 says that are sent out as ministering spirits to serve those who will inherit salvation.
Speaker 1: There's also a spiritual enemy and his name is Satan and he's got a force, a power under his control to wage war against the plans and purposes of God in the earth.
Speaker 1: And we see that in Mark, chapter nine, this demon possessed boy is brought to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Jesus says faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?
Speaker 1: How long am I to bear with you?
Speaker 1: Bring him to me.
Speaker 1: They bring the boy to Jesus and watch this.
Speaker 1: When the spirit saw Jesus, immediately it convulsed the boy.
Speaker 1: He fell on the ground and rolled around foaming at the mouth.
Speaker 1: Here's spiritual warfare lived out right in front of Jesus and his disciples.
Speaker 1: Now imagine being in the crowd and watching that.
Speaker 1: Now again, we live in a different day and a different time.
Speaker 1: We live in a different world than first century Palestine.
Speaker 1: It's a different day and time, but the spiritual realm is every bit as real today.
Speaker 1: The spiritual clearly impacts the natural, the unseen clearly impacts the scene.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean for us?
Speaker 1: It means that we need two things we need wisdom and we need discernment, do we not?
Speaker 1: Ephesians, chapter six, the apostle Paul is writing about putting on the armor of God.
Speaker 1: He says the goal, the goal for the armor of God, is that we would be able to stand against the schemes of the enemy.
Speaker 1: Who wants to stand against the schemes of the enemy?
Speaker 1: I do, and I hope you do as well.
Speaker 1: So Paul says we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers and principalities and powers, against cosmic powers over this present darkness.
Speaker 1: And so when Paul gets to the listing of the spiritual armor, he starts with the belt of truth.
Speaker 1: We need wisdom and we need discernment.
Speaker 1: We need the ability to look at the physical world and discern the spiritual.
Speaker 1: We need the ability to look at the scene, circumstances and, through the wisdom of the word and the presence of the spirit in our lives, discern what God is doing and where Satan is attacking, so that we can navigate not by our feelings and our emotions and our thoughts, but by the truth that comes from God.
Speaker 1: Anybody need wisdom and discernment in your life today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: Me too, we need a spiritual death because we're in a spiritual battle.
Speaker 1: And can we just say number three, the stakes are high because Satan's goal is your eternal death.
Speaker 1: Satan's goal is your eternal death.
Speaker 1: Jesus asked the voice father, how long has this been happening to him?
Speaker 1: He said from childhood.
Speaker 1: From childhood, from childhood, satan has been after this boy and it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him, to destroy him.
Speaker 1: The stakes are high.
Speaker 1: Satan is not playing games.
Speaker 1: He's a defeated foe.
Speaker 1: The cross is our sign of victory.
Speaker 1: The empty tomb is our promise that Satan is a defeated foe.
Speaker 1: Jesus will return, but in the meantime, satan's strategy is scorched earth.
Speaker 1: He knows that he is going to hell.
Speaker 1: He knows that's where he's going to end up.
Speaker 1: His strategy is to take as many of the people made in the image of God with him as he can.
Speaker 1: Like, james, this sounds like this is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1: This is a big, big deal.
Speaker 1: Satan knows where he's heading and he wants to take as many people with him as he possibly can.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're here, maybe you're watching online.
Speaker 1: Like I can't believe that a loving God would send anybody to hell, I just wanna say really, really clearly today God's goal is not for anybody to go to hell.
Speaker 1: God doesn't want anybody to go to hell.
Speaker 1: God's plan, god's purpose for me, for you, for people, is not that anybody should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Speaker 1: That's 1 Peter, chapter three God's heart.
Speaker 1: He's patient towards us because his heart is for as many people as possible to see the beauty of Christ, the power of Jesus' blood shed for us, the beauty of the resurrection, the promise of eternal life, and place their faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Hell was not created for me and it was not created for you, James.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: Well, look at Matthew, chapter 25, verse 41.
Speaker 1: I want to show you this really quickly.
Speaker 1: Matthew 25, verse 41,.
Speaker 1: Jesus is in a conversation with some of his followers about the last days and he's promising hey, judgment is coming.
Speaker 1: There is coming, a day when judgment will come.
Speaker 1: And on that day of the final judgment, there will be those on the left of Jesus to whom he says depart from me, you cursed into the eternal fire.
Speaker 1: But here's the key prepared for the devil and his angels.
Speaker 1: Who was hell created?
Speaker 1: For the devil and his angels.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean for me and for you?
Speaker 1: Well, it means simply this you and I were created to live today and forever in the presence of Almighty God.
Speaker 1: And when I messed that up, and when you messed that up, and when people throughout human history rebelled against God and chose their own way, god took things into his own hands and he sent his son to do for me and to do for you what I could not do for myself and what you cannot do for yourself.
Speaker 1: Jesus shed his blood, jesus died, jesus was buried in a tomb, jesus resurrected from the dead so that I and so that you don't have to go to hell and we can live forever in the presence of Almighty God.
Speaker 1: You were not created for hell, and we can clap for that because I'm glad about that Right, you're like James.
Speaker 1: It's so much more than about not going to hell.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, god wants to give you life, and life to the full.
Speaker 1: God wants to give you peace.
Speaker 1: God wants to forgive you.
Speaker 1: God wants your life to be characterized by joy in the midst of pain.
Speaker 1: God wants to give you hope in the darkness.
Speaker 1: God wants to use you for his plans and his purposes in the earth.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, all of that is true.
Speaker 1: And then one day, at the judgment, god wants to usher you into his presence forever by the blood of Jesus.
Speaker 1: So can I just say, if you're here and you don't know Jesus a savior, you're watching online and you don't know Jesus a savior, the invitation is open to you.
Speaker 1: Today you don't have to go to hell.
Speaker 1: You can live in the presence of the loving, almighty Father, who has made a way for you to go to heaven.
Speaker 1: Isn't that good news?
Speaker 1: Jesus is greater.
Speaker 1: This demon wants to cast this boy into fire and why he's been doing it since childhood, to destroy him.
Speaker 1: The man, the father who is hurting for his son, looks at Jesus and says if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
Speaker 1: Jesus says back to the man if you can, all things are possible for one who believes.
Speaker 1: Immediately, the father of the child cried out and said I believe, help my unbelief.
Speaker 1: And isn't that such an honest expression of where we are so many times when it comes to our faith?
Speaker 1: God, I've got questions.
Speaker 1: God, I've got doubts, but I believe, help my unbelief.
Speaker 1: God, I trust you and I'm still weak.
Speaker 1: God, I want to follow you, but I also struggle sometimes.
Speaker 1: Aren't you grateful that we come to the Jesus who says anything is possible for the one who believes?
Speaker 1: See, here's the great news from Mark chapter 9.
Speaker 1: The power in Mark chapter 9 was not in the amount of faith that the father was able to muster up.
Speaker 1: The power in Mark chapter 9 comes from who the father puts his faith in.
Speaker 1: And the same thing is true for me and it's true for you today.
Speaker 1: The power is not in your ability to believe.
Speaker 1: It is in Jesus's ability to save and to redeem and to restore.
Speaker 1: He's a much better savior than I am believer.
Speaker 1: He's a much better sustainer than I am follower.
Speaker 1: Jesus is greater, and that is good news for me and for you.
Speaker 1: So Jesus sees that the crowd comes running together, he rebukes the unclean spirit saying to it you mute and deaf spirit, I command you come out of him, never enter him again.
Speaker 1: After crying out and convulsing him terribly, the spirit came out.
Speaker 1: Come on y'all.
Speaker 1: The spirit came out.
Speaker 1: The darkness had no power at a word from Jesus.
Speaker 1: The spirit comes out.
Speaker 1: The boy's like a corpse.
Speaker 1: Most of them are looking at this situation and says they're saying he is dead.
Speaker 1: But Jesus took him by the hand, lifted him up and he arose.
Speaker 1: And he arose.
Speaker 1: Resurrection is the end of our story.
Speaker 1: Redemption is in our future.
Speaker 1: Jesus wins.
Speaker 1: Jesus wins, like.
Speaker 1: That's where this story is going.
Speaker 1: And so, last thought for the day, fasting in the meantime, for followers of Christ, those of us who have been made alive by Jesus, fasting is a means, a means by which we starve the flesh and feed the spirit.
Speaker 1: We long to see the power and the presence of God at work in our lives.
Speaker 1: We long for the work of Christ to be done in our lives.
Speaker 1: We long to see Jesus one day, face to face.
Speaker 1: Fasting is saying no to me so that in the meantime, in the in-between between now and the time I see Jesus face to face, I can focus my attention and the affections of my heart on Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be so full of the junk of this day and time that I miss the power of Almighty God, because, yes, Satan is a defeated foe, yes, jesus wins.
Speaker 1: But can we just be honest Sin is still deadly.
Speaker 1: We still have the power to self-destruct our lives here and now, and I don't want that to be my story and I don't want that to be your story.
Speaker 1: I want to live in alignment with the plan and the purpose of God.
Speaker 1: Let me illustrate it like this and I'm done and we're going to sing and we're going to respond to what Jesus is doing.
Speaker 1: About a year and a half ago, I was taking Judah, my youngest, for we were walking through the neighborhood and he was in his stroller, and anytime we see any sort of like dead animal on the road, we have to stop and examine it.
Speaker 1: That's what life with boys is like.
Speaker 1: Sorry, we're talking about fasting.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're like I need to fast now because I definitely don't want to eat.
Speaker 1: We came across I don't know how to say this other than like this we came across a recently deceased copperhead snake, fresh, like it was fresh.
Speaker 1: And Judah two and a half years old at the time.
Speaker 1: He looks at me and he's like Dad, I'm going to touch it.
Speaker 1: And he's like climbing out of the stroller, like trying his best to get to this recently deceased copperhead snake.
Speaker 1: Now he's two and a half, he doesn't know what I know, and it's that just because this snake is dead doesn't mean it's any less deadly.
Speaker 1: And I knew that if Judah got near this snake it could still bite him, it's venom could still infect him, it could still be a dangerous moment.
Speaker 1: Y'all, satan is a defeated foe, but in the meantime he's still deadly.
Speaker 1: And so, for me and for you, what we need to do is walk by the Spirit.
Speaker 1: As Paul says it in Galatians, chapter five.
Speaker 1: We need the power that comes from a connection to God.
Speaker 1: We need to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, not gratifying the desires of the flesh, but seeking Jesus with our heart, our mind, our lives, with everything that we are.
Speaker 1: Why fast?
Speaker 1: Because we need the power that comes from connection to God.
Speaker 1: And can I just remind you of the promise in the Sermon on the Mount?
Speaker 1: Jesus says this those who fast, god will reward Like?
Speaker 1: What does that reward mean?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it could look like a lot of different things, but I think it has everything to do with the power of the Spirit working through your life.
Speaker 1: So just a thought what's your next step, father?
Speaker 1: I thank you for this morning, god, I'm grateful for your word.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for the power of Jesus that meets us in our sin and our shame and our guilt, on the road to death and destruction, and lifts us up to resurrection life.
Speaker 1: Father, my goal, my prayer, my aim is that for all of us as a church God, we would not miss that power in the day-to-day areas of life, in the journey called life, that God, we would live in connection to you, aligning our hearts with your hearts, that we can do your will In Jesus' name, amen, as we sing.
Speaker 1: This is a moment for you to respond.
Speaker 1: Maybe for the first time, you need to give your life to Jesus.
Speaker 1: I invite you this morning to step out from where you are.
Speaker 1: Come down front.
Speaker 1: There would be nothing better than to celebrate salvation today.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know that this is where God is calling you.
Speaker 1: You need to join the church.
Speaker 1: Maybe you just need to pray.
Speaker 1: Say, god, what do you want me to do with this?
Speaker 1: I feel like my flesh is full of the stuff of the world.
Speaker 1: How do I empty that so that I can be filled with your spirit?
Speaker 1: Let's stand and sing and respond as the spirit leads this morning.