Essential (Week 2)

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

Let's give it up for the worship band.

Let's give it up for the worship band.

Thank y'all for leading us into worship this morning.

Well, as Forrest said, or Pastor Reverend Bishop Forrest said, My name is Terrence.

I'm a friend of his, but I'm also a fellow laborer in Christ.

I'm a pastor over in Louisville.

I serve on staff at Southeast Christian Church, the big church with the copper top.

If you ever pass through there, I don't particularly work at that location.

I work in a neighborhood called the Highlands.

I have a little office I work out of with a few other guys, and we're just doing a lot of community engagement in the neighborhood, trying to see where doors can be opened and where the gospel can go and make itself at home, if you know what I mean.

And so we've been laboring there for about two years, been in Louisville for a total of five.

I'm here with my wife, Brittany.

She's up here, my beautiful wife, and we have four children, three boys and one little girl.

And so, man, we're blessed.

And I'm just grateful uh for Forrest to invite me uh into the spot.

I don't take it lightly.

Uh, any opportunity.

Uh someone invites me to step in for them and just share a word because I know the weight that he carries and the responsibility that he cares for the Lord for you, for your spiritual health and for your growth.

And so um I'm blessed to be able to share in that with you, brother.

And so hopefully today I just do my part in helping multiply, uh, continue down the path in which God has called you all to go here in Frankfurt and the surrounding area, because I believe that the name of this church is intentional.

I believe that this church will multiply.

Right?

I believe that there are people in this room who right now you're just here uh trying to find a church home.

And one day God is gonna have you somewhere, maybe across the world, uh giving your life away to ministry because that's what he did to me.

Uh that's part of my story.

I was part of a church planting a movie theater just like this.

Uh just right out of college, showed up into a new town looking for a church, and reached out to a guy who was now who was from Kentucky, um, who's now here in Kentucky.

Um he was planting a church in Georgia, and it said, hey man, you know, love for you and your family to come check it out.

We came in, wasn't sure about going to church at a movie theater.

Um but it was cool because it wasn't because for me, like my church growing up was attached to a gas station.

It was a very small tiny church.

And so I was like, but I don't know how this movie theater business is gonna work.

So we came in and it was great.

Uh we had an amazing time, and uh that pastor became my best friend to this day.

He's the godfather of my children, and he was the first person to look at me and say, hey man, I think you should be a pastor.

And I ran.

I left the church.

I'm gonna be honest with you.

Like I literally left the church uh because I was afraid of what that meant.

But God had something special and something intentional for my life, and it all started with showing up to a movie theater for a church that I wasn't sure I wanted to be at, and God used it.

So for some of you, that that might be your story.

Some of you all are gonna be here for the long haul, and you're gonna be a part of the foundation of this life-giving church for this community.

So I just want you to know how important it is that you're here.

So don't let these moments uh where we're coming into the movie theater and things aren't always exactly how we want them to be every time.

You know, you're not having your own building yet and all the same.

This is special.

This is a special time.

And so we want you all to take that in.

And so I'm excited.

Uh let me pray.

Let me settle my spirit so that I can focus.

Let me pray and then we will dive in.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you.

So we just thank you that you're good.

Um Lord, you are good despite uh what we face, despite what we see, um, despite what others might believe, Lord.

You're good.

You prove yourself to be good.

And so Lord, I just pray that today um this message, your word, will just be a taste of your goodness, Lord, to be glorified.

Um nothing I say will outmatch who you are.

So Lord, I pray that everything uh that comes from my mouth, um Lord, will point people to you.

Lord, I pray that uh my words and my thoughts and uh and my encouragements will be pleasing to your sight.

Um Lord, I just say, Holy Spirit, that you're already here and so have your way.

Um Lord, we we open our hearts up to you to shape, mold, and change anything you want to.

So give us the uh obedience and the humility uh to accept what you want to do in our hearts today.

So we thank you.

We dedicate this time to you in Jesus' name, amen.

In Galatians uh 2.20, uh the apostle Paul says this, he says, I've been crucified with Christ, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

In this particular passage, the Apostle Paul is juxtaposing life once live according to the law, where his works and his efforts were his primary means to God, to life in Christ, where we find a more perfect and a more reasonable approach to God, and that route to God is simply faith.

I love the eloquence of his word and and the picture he paints about his life-giving ministry and how he multiplies his life, and and he gives us really a picture into two things that are true about his life that I really want us to grasp today if we're gonna understand any of the essentials that you're all are gonna talk about.

If you're gonna understand anything that I talk about today, we gotta grasp something that Paul was letting us into about his life.

There were two things that marks Paul's life: total surrender and total dependency.

He said it is no longer I to live but Christ, but he also says I live by faith in the Son of God.

Total surrender and total dependency.

Now, when I say those terms, I want to define them.

When I say total surrender, I mean a monster that willingly gives over control.

I mean a mindset that bows down in humility, a conscious and intentional way of giving a decision that waves the white flag in our lives to embrace the idea that Jesus is Lord.

I love the way Luke 9.24 challenges us when it says this.

So then, total surrender is the path to which our lives, our faith, our purposes, our missions, our hopes, and our future.

That's the way that those things are preserved.

That's what it there.

That is the way that those things are realized.

Total surrender.

Now, when I say total dependency, I'm speaking of the way in which we walk in total surrender.

Like I can, in theory, surrender my life to Jesus.

Hey, I'm surrendering my life to Jesus, total surrender.

We can serve, but total dependency is the Lord saying, Hey, not only am I surrendering my life to you, Jesus, but now I'm saying you have to do it.

Like everything about my life that needs to be made new does not hinge on me, God, because I'm surrendered to you.

I'm so dependent on you that every part of me that you want to change, you're gonna have to do it, God.

That's the difference.

And so when we read Paul's life, when we read about his ministry, when we when we see the things that he did, I think we see a great picture of total surrender and total dependency.

When Jesus was early in his ministry, he preached a message we called a Sermon on the Mount.

And if you go back and you read it, the very first truth of nugging and wisdom we receive is in Matthew 5, verse 3.

Matthew 5:3

And here's what he says: it says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

In other words, the blessedness, the promises, and the power of relationship with God are reserved for those who know they need Him and choose to live that way.

And so today I can think of no two better topics to dive into when we talk about total dependency and total surrender than prayer and fasting.

Now, when you get a topic like prayer and fasting, I thank Forrest for it, but I also want to kick Forrest for it.

Because here's the truth there are some topics that any preacher, anybody can stand up and preach on.

We can all preach on the cross because the cross is already done for us.

Right?

But prayer and fasting is one of those things as you begin to dive into the word, as you begin to prepare, you just begin to do a little self-evaluation.

And you begin to learn some things about yourself.

And I just want to say, I'm not standing before you as someone who is this expert on prayer and fasting.

I do not have a prayer and fasting book I will be selling after the service.

I do not have a prayer and fasting ministry that you can call 24-7.

Like, that's not that's not who I am.

I'm just someone who said yes to a friend and said yes to what God called me to do.

But I am someone who has wrestled with the idea of what prayer and fasting is and how we should walk in it.

Right?

I've I've tried and failed a couple times.

I had some bad theology around it that I had to get corrected.

Uh I've I've I've been on some fast before where I did well.

I've been on some fast before where as soon as I got done, I ate like three Snicker bars, like I did it wrong.

Right?

And so today what we're gonna do, we're gonna not talk about me and my success in prayer and fast, but what we're gonna do, we're just gonna see uh what we can learn about prayer and fast.

Like this whole series essentials, I really think it's just gonna be one of those series for y'all that feels more like coming to class.

We're gonna be learning.

All right.

So I may get a little preaching here and there, but really what I want to do, I just want to share just some things that I discovered as I prepared uh for this message, and hopefully it just equips you, all right, with the right doctrines, with the right theology, with the right mindset as you all walk together in these ideas of prayer and fasting.

So here's a definition I came up with that that I want to help us with.

Prayer is our primary means of communication with God, right?

It is how we build relationships with God and make our requests known to Him.

It's our spiritual 911, it's our life alert.

I've fallen in, I can't get up.

You better start praying.

If you're on the ground, you can't get up.

I'm gonna just tell you.

Right?

It's it's our intercom system to heaven.

Heard somebody say it before.

It's how I think Tony Evans said it.

It's our intercom system to heaven.

It's how, in words, we walk in a poor spirit, and it's how we live honestly and vulnerably before God.

Prayer.

Now, one thing I didn't say was prayer is not a list of things that you yell off like you're talking to Santa.

Right?

It's not a wish list, it's not something that uh you do simply because well, my grandma always prays, so I pray this way.

Right?

It's something that we intentionally engage in because we know that there's a resource there.

Like we know that it is valuable to pray.

Like I'm a former athlete.

I've seen a lot of just ritual prayer.

We would say the Lord's prayer before every football game for no reason.

For no reason.

Half of the dudes on team ain't never been to church.

They're just saying, and everybody gets to the end, don't know how to end it.

You know, you're gonna go.

Right?

No, prayer is something that we intentionally engage with, it's something that we enjoy.

It's a privilege of ours.

Right?

We just did communion.

Prayer changed because of that new covenant.

We get a direct line to the Father now.

So prayer is not something that we take lightly.

On fasting, here's the definition I have for you.

It's an act of worship in which we withhold essentials and pleasures from our lives for a period of time to focus on God, to focus on his will and to focus on his purposes.

It's also a way that we tangibly lay at God's feet and embrace those ideas of dependency and surrender.

And I said, I don't done some, I don't done some terrible fast before.

There's some times where uh I fasted and I cheat on my fast on day 13.

And I feel like, oh man, the whole fast is out the window because I was too weak.

And I beat myself over there.

That's bad theology.

Jesus already knows our weakness.

Right?

That's why we're fasting.

Because we're weak, right?

I remember one time I started fasting.

I said, I'm gonna do a Daniel fast to start the year.

Daniel fast is kind of uh a fast that you, if you read in the Old Testament, uh, this guy named Daniel, he refused uh the food that was offered to him, and he said, I'm gonna eat uh, you know, these specific foods to prove to you that my God is more faithful than anything you could ever offer me.

So he ate a certain way.

Known to Daniel fast, it's pretty much like nothing.

I mean, Daniel fast is something serious.

Daniel fast is like water, raw vegetables, like raw fruit, which I don't know if I never cooked fruit before unless it's in the pie, so I don't know why I said raw fruit.

Um but like it's real deal, man.

Like uh I drank so much orange juice on the Daniel Fast.

I'm like, hey, this is kinda, like this close.

But it was about, I was like, I was I'm gonna do a 21-day Daniel fast.

About day 14, I had lost like 12 pounds.

I was like, oh snap.

I think this is my new diet now.

You know, all of a sudden the Daniel fast was something that was supposed to be for spiritual, became something very personal and very selfish.

Because I started getting some results that I didn't expect, and I was like, oh man.

And the focus of my fasting shifted.

Let's let's see what Richard Foster has said about that.

Richard Foster is the man who wrote a book that inspired the series for you all.

Here's what he says about these two things.

When it comes to prayer, he says, of all the spiritual disciplines, prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.

Now, perpetual is a word that maybe you haven't heard used before.

I remember first time I read, I was like, wait a minute.

I think I know what that word means.

I'm gonna look up a definition anyway.

I'm pretty sure I know what perpetual means, but I'm gonna give a definition anyway.

So, just in case that's you, perpetual means consistent, constant.

This idea that we're just praying without ceasing.

Right.

So it keeps that door wide open.

Like when I was growing up and my kids know this.

If you come up to my room, my door's closed, you better not open my door.

And when I was growing up, my mama's door was closed, you gotta knock.

You just can't, it ain't no perpetual communication with me when my door is closed.

Alright?

What this saying is prayer is a door wide open to the Father.

Always.

There is no door closed unless we close it.

And so prayer is that perpetual communication with God.

Here's what he says about fasting it must forever center on God.

More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.

Let's jump back to my story real quick.

Yeah.

It revealed real quickly some of the things that were controlling me.

Right?

It reveals really quickly the things that we crave, the things that we hope for, the things that are in the deep recesses of our minds.

When you start depriving yourself of things that keep you busy, you begin to see how much something has control of your life.

I mean, just four months ago, I said I went on to social media fast.

I said, I'm off of social media probably to the end of the year.

And you wouldn't believe how many times in those first three weeks I picked up my phone for no reason.

I mean, I was picking up my phone just like I had like a glitch or something.

I'm like, why am I picking up my phone?

I'm not even getting on here to do anything.

But I had such a habit of looking at my phone that like my connection to the social media world was controlling me.

And the moment I tried to stop doing it, it was revealed to me that man, that had a deep control of my life.

It's the same thing with sugar and caffeine.

We fast from caffeine, we fast from sugar, man.

We find ourselves looking crazy out here sometimes.

Going online, Googling the Splendor count.

Right.

Any way we can just to get the fix, right?

It just shows us what's hovering deep inside.

And here's the truth, man.

God doesn't want any of those things controlling us.

We laugh about it, but God said, I brought you freedom from all those things.

Like when he says, like, like like he like there's life in him and life more abundantly, he's serious.

He's serious.

He says, I want you to experience that life.

And so he calls us into fasting and prayer.

Now, as I study those two things, here's what I noticed.

They had a couple things in common.

In fact, three things are coming.

All right, fasting and prayer have purpose, they have a process, and they have a promise.

They have a purpose for which we do them, they have a process in which they work, and they both have a promise on the other side.

And so, what I want us to do for the remainder of our time, I want to discover what those three things are.

So, the first question I got for us, hey, what is the purpose of prayer and fasting?

Why should I pursue these disciplines in my life?

Like, why should I pursue prayer and fasting?

Here's a simple answer to embrace life centered on God.

And that's the most important thing.

If it remains true that a poor spirit and a humble posture is the way to Jesus, then I think it makes sense for us to pursue things that lead us to there.

There are many reasons that we might dive into prayer and fasting.

Sometimes we do these things out of obedience and religious ritual.

I already talked about it a little bit.

Like when I was growing up in church, like every year, no matter what, there was a 21-day Daniel fast to start here.

Kids too.

So I'm going to school in fifth grade, like I can't have that milk.

Like I'm I don't I don't even know why I'm fasting.

My church is so little, it's like we need everybody fasting.

Kids, babies.

Get off that similec.

You better be on the word of God this month.

Put an audio book, something.

So sometimes you do it just because it's a religious ritual, just something that you do.

There are like religious calendars that people fast in all religions, right?

A time of year comes around, you you hear people fast, you hear about Ramadan and all these other things.

There are people who just fast because like fasting is not something that's just exclusive to Christianity, it's just a spiritual discipline.

And so you you find these things as rituals sometimes.

Sometimes we find seasons and situations in our lives that require us to pray and fast a little bit more intentionally.

My wife will tell you if I sense at any season of our life that the enemy is launching a full-scale attack, I'm about to I'm about to go real Pentecostal in my house for about for about two weeks.

I'm about to be praying, I'm about to be anointing doorposts, I'm putting oil on everybody's head.

We sitting down in the living room, I'm praying to you, I'm talking to Satan as I pray, telling him to get out.

Like there's seasons, but my poor life looks different than just walking in the park and praying.

Right?

There's seasons that I commit to a fast because maybe uh somebody in our church community is dealing with cancer and we're praying for healing.

And we say we're gonna fast for a few days.

Every Wednesday, we're gonna commit to fasting and just praying.

Like we we we do these things for for specific reasons.

And I believe, no, maybe you all will get to experience that as a church soon as we you all go through this here.

I'm sure Forge has some up his sleeve.

All right, where he's gonna tell y'all no more Mickey D's.

All right.

But ultimately, at the foundation of our practices and at the foundation of all these things we do is just this pursuit of God, like this relentless pursuit of God, to commune with him in deep intimacy, to to To know the Father in a real relational way.

It's an opportunity for us to enjoy the fellowship and friendship of Jesus.

Like He like, I don't know how many people miss the fact that Jesus genuinely wants to be our friend.

Like I laugh about it sometimes because our kids' ministry at church always says that Jesus wants to be your friend.

Our kids come home, they talk about how Jesus wants to be their friend.

And it's some of the most simple theology, but it's some of the, it's some of the uh some of the most basic truth that many Christians miss about Jesus.

It's that he genuinely loves you, not just to save you, but to know you.

And so prayer and fasting gives us an opportunity to know him.

But it also ushers us into this posture of learning how to depend on the Holy Spirit, how to be led by the Spirit.

So prayer and fasting is gonna help us know the whole triumph God.

It's gonna get you real close to your daddy.

It's gonna get you real close to your Lord and Savior, but your spiritual brother and your friend.

Right?

And it's gonna teach you how to walk with the gift of God that lives inside of you every day.

That Holy Spirit, that counselor, right, that convictor, the one who lights the path and leads away.

It's gonna teach you how to live out those things.

It moves us again to that purpose of a God-centered life.

And I'm just gonna tell you, nothing that forced anybody up here stands to talk about matters if your life is not centered on God.

Nothing you do matters.

Your career, your futures.

I go as far as say your relationships, anything, in the grand scheme of things, it will not reach its full potential until your life is centered on God.

And so prayer fasting invites us into that.

So that's the purpose to center our lives on God.

What is the process of prayer fasting?

Like, what does prayer fasting do for me?

Right?

What does prayer and fasting produce out of me?

What does it do for me?

How does it help me?

You know, uh probably, I'm trying to think, three and a half years ago, maybe four years ago, I went on this uh men's retreat.

All right, it's one of those men's retreats where they tell you to fly out to the middle of nowhere.

They don't tell you anything that you're gonna be doing, and they just tell you when you leave, you're gonna be a better man.

All right.

So I went to one of these retreats up in Colorado, and uh it was snow capped, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

If you've never seen the snow capped Rockies, I I mean, you should.

It is literally the most I've never been enamored by nature until I was driving up that mountain.

I was like, wow, God is magnificent.

This is just so beautiful.

But I got there and beauty quickly became my torture.

All right, and so I pull up to this place, number one thing they do.

You know, you you get there, you can't talk.

You show up, you can't talk.

Alright?

And you walk into the room, everything's dark.

It feels like a movie.

I'm like, I knew, I knew I shouldn't have.

I knew I shouldn't have done this.

Everything's dark, and there's 30 other men, they're all looking at you crazy because they're like, what the heck did we sign up for?

I'm like, I don't know, but you can't talk, so you can't even say that.

You walk into a room one by one, there's like 20 dudes in there, and they're dressing all black, and it's like, oh man.

And they're like checking your bags, take your phone, can't have your phone, shuffle you through, and you're there.

And you have no clue what's on the calendar.

There ain't no program they gave out.

You just know I'm here for three days.

There ain't no clock in sight.

I'm just here until they tell me I can go home.

Because they took my keys too.

So, so like I'm here.

And so one of the very first things that they had us do was they uh number one, it was snowy cold.

So they made us stand outside and it was probably five degrees, and it was freezing.

But they put us on teams, and um man, they told us that there's an incentive on the other side of this.

But there's some rules.

You can't talk.

There's a there's one leader, that one leader is the only one that can communicate with the rest of the team, and we're gonna have some exercise that we're gonna have you do.

So we go outside and they have us carrying this thing that they call the burden.

And it's just it's this huge log.

This log probably weighs, I don't know, ridiculous amount of pounds.

Neither one of us could pick it up individually.

And so you got like a team of 12 carrying this burden.

And they're trying to teach, hey, you need to carry each other's burden, right?

It's very, because the spirit is a Christian retreat.

But we pick up this burden, it's freezing cold, and there's only one leader, and that leader can't use words, but he's trying to communicate to us the directions to get this thing where we need it to go, and but he can't tell us how to go.

And so we're all out there walking around, and I got messed up shoulders from football, and so I got this thing, and my shoulders going numb, and I'm like trying to communicate.

Hey, I'm about to drop this thing, and like it's about to be, but I can't talk.

Every time you talk, they make you stop and you have to do squats with this burden.

So we're out there, man.

This thing that probably should have taken 10 minutes to do ended up taking like an hour and a half.

My shoe came off in the snow.

We took a step and I stepped down like six feet of snow, it felt like my whole, I was like covered up to hear snow, came out, shoe was in there.

I'm like, oh, now I'm out here with a wet sock, still can't talk.

And we had to finish the, we had to finish this project.

That was just one of the things, but the whole purpose of this exercise, the reason they started the retreat this way, because it got more simple.

But the reason they started the retreat this way because they wanted to reveal to us who we were in times of distress.

What person are you, what type of man are you when things don't go your way?

Like what type of what type of leader are you when things are taken from you, when your life is flipped upside down?

How are you presenting yourself in your home when things are chaotic?

It wanted to reveal what type of brother in the faith are you when it's an inconvenience to walk with somebody?

And I think when we dive into prayer and fasting, when we truly invite God to do what he wants to in prayer and fasting, I think we begin to find some of those similar traits.

And one of our calls about prayer in Scripture is this call to pray without ceasing.

Another call we have is to approach the throne of grace with confidence.

With that, I think it's safe to say that our volume of prayer, our posture in prayer, and our consistency in prayer reveals to us truly where our faith and confidence lies.

Right?

Like, like when things go haywire, if we run to fixing it, then is our faith really in God who can fix anything?

Right?

When we get the bad news, if if our reaction is to go and live it up like some people do, well, I got the bad news.

I'm going to the Bahamas.

Rather than saying, God, what do you want to do through this in and through me?

Then what are we really attached to?

There's a couple quotes I want to read from this guy named Charles Spurgeon.

You probably heard of him.

A lot of us preachers like to read this stuff and learn.

Um, but Charles Spurgeon was a great preacher back in the 19th century.

Here's what he says He says, a prayerless church member is a hindrance.

He is in the body like a rotting bone or a decayed tooth.

Before long, since he does not contribute to the benefit of his brethren, he will become a danger and a sorrow to them.

Neglect of private prayer is the locust which devours the strength of the church.

It's powerful.

Here's another quote.

He said, It is well said that neglected prayer is the birthplace of all evil.

And let's think about those.

Let's think about those.

Number one thing, he says, a prayerless church member is like a rotting bone in a body.

I think he's pointing to the fact that, like, hey, the church is the direct representation in the bride of Christ.

Right?

We need to be in communication with Christ if we're gonna represent Christ.

We need to know how to walk with Christ.

We need to be led by the Spirit if we're gonna truly be who God has called us to be.

Beyond that, we need to be caring and walking and loving each other intentionally as a body.

So what he's saying is, hey, there is a weight that we carry when we say, I'm gonna follow Jesus.

I have a weight towards God, but I also have a communal weight.

And when I don't keep my communal weight, people are impacted.

If I'm not somebody who's committed to prayer, then I'm gonna be hurting a lot of people in the church, probably.

Because where am I getting my conviction from to change and to grow?

Right?

Somebody who doesn't bend the knee before God is gonna come and take, take, take, and they're never gonna get revelation.

They're never gonna get vision for how I should be giving.

Someone who doesn't have a prayer life, a genuine prayer life, can't honestly say, I'm praying for you.

Some of the basic things that we always say to each other, I'll be praying for you.

And then we we leave and forget, right?

So he said, listen, prayer is a serious responsibility of yours as a follower of Jesus, and you can't miss it.

Again, it's not this simple thing that we do because it's a spiritual thing to do, but it is real power, there's real opportunity, there's real lessons, there's real truth that comes from a committed life of prayer.

The second thing he said is even more true that a neglected prayer is the birthplace of all evil.

Because what he's saying is, if you neglect prayer, then you think you got it.

And the moment you think you got it is the moment that it all falls apart.

I don't know how many times praying has stopped me from doing something stupid.

I remember three years ago, I was out in my yard.

We just had moved to our house, and this was probably the eighth time I raked leaves out my yard.

And I was so mad because the way that the wind blows and the way that my house is set up, for some reason, all the leaves in the neighborhood found their way at my side door.

I literally stood outside and watched the wind blow, and it was like, I mean, I saw like I I never seen so many leaves in my life show up at one time.

And the source of the issue were my neighbors.

Particularly my neighbor to the left of me, who would never rake his leaves.

At the very least, he would just run them over with the with the uh lawnmower.

And I remember being out there cleaning up these leaves so I can get in the side door, and I'm like, man, this is like the 10th time I don't been to Lowe's paying$2 a bag or how much these bags cost.

I'm just sick of this.

And I started walking down my driveway.

And I got to the end of my driveway, started walking up the hill, and I said, Lord, help me.

And it was almost immediately.

Felt like God was like, What you doing, man?

Take your butt home, pick up them leaves.

I was all right, I'm gonna pick up the leaves.

But like in a in a split moment, like had prayer not entered into my mind, had I not already had a rhythm of saying, Lord help me, because that's my that's my go-to prayer.

Simple, Lord help me.

Had I not had a rhythm of that, I would have knocked on that door and confronted my neighbor, who I hadn't even really had a real conversation with.

My neighbor at the time was Nepali, you know, barely spoke English really, at least that's how he presented himself.

And, you know, it was kind of like one of these type relationships where, you know, every time we kind of came outside, they went in the house.

And so it was like, not really much of a relationship there.

I don't know how long he was gonna be my neighbor.

I don't know how long it was later, but I was gonna put it all on the line for some leaves.

Prayerless life is the birthplace of all evil.

I was justified walking up that hill.

He had offended me, he had hurt my family.

I was defending my home.

I'm doing what every American would do.

I'm gonna defend my home.

Just an idiot, though.

It's like, but I went down that lane quickly.

I have a right, I paid for this house.

I worked too hard not to have a nice job because of my neighborhood.

I was like, you work too hard?

Was my death not enough?

Who are you, Terrence?

Prayer is life.

Birthplace of all evil.

Here's what I think he's saying.

If prayer is not the essential of our Christian lives, then are we really living a Christian life?

Are we really then living a Christian life?

Right?

We can all like half of the stuff we do, apart from God, the United Way does.

For real.

I got an email, I got an email from Bellerman.

I'm a volunteer, so I got an email.

They sent out an email for a service trip to Guatemala.

I read, I said, that sounds just like a mission trip.

Self ain't nobody going to preach.

I'm like, they're doing the same stuff.

They care about their neighbors, they're serving, they're giving supplies to schools, right?

They're trying to love their neighbors.

That's what half all these uh uh activist groups are about now.

It's like everybody's trying to figure out how do we be better neighbors to each other, better people.

But the missing piece of it is Jesus.

And we can clearly see that.

I can clearly look at some of this stuff and say, okay, that's 75% good, but it still centers on the human experience versus the God-honoring truth that could come from it if we just shift it a little bit.

Then I say, well, let's get our lives.

How much of our lives are just good in theory?

Right?

But where's the God-honoring evidence?

If we don't have a prayer life, then I would imagine that most of the things we do in our lives are not pointing people to Jesus, they're pointing people to our goodness.

If we're not dependent on Christ, then we are not Christian.

It's that simple.

When we look at fasting throughout the scripture, I saw some interesting things.

I kind of just did this search and tried to go and like quick read a lot of the fasting uh scriptures.

Here's some things I found.

Uh you know, fasting happened uh when people began ministry.

Right?

We saw that in Jesus.

All right, we see that in others.

People fasted before they made uh major decisions.

People uh fasted before they stepped out in great courage.

I think of Esther when she said, Hey, fast for me, because she was about to step out for her people.

Uh people fasted as an act of repentance.

In fact, there was a lot of instructions in the Old Testament where God would call the children of Israel to fast for a season to come back.

People fasted as an act of mission.

Hey, I'm gonna fast for you.

After praying and fasting, they sent Paul and Barnabas out.

And then there's a story of people fasting for spiritual growth, and then Paul teaches like, hey, don't do that so much that it makes you think you're so holy.

Right?

Just like it will help you grow spiritually, but don't think you're more holy because you fast more than other people.

Right?

And so there's so many reasons for for fasting.

In the New Testament, the most popular scripture about fasting comes in Matthew 6.

It says this uh whenever you fast, don't be gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so that their fasting is obvious to people.

Truly I tell you, they have the reward.

But when you fast, put oil on your face and put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting isn't obvious to others, but to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

I love that because it's really convicting.

I remember the first couple times I fasted, I just kind of walk around my water bottle.

I had never read that scripture, but you're just like, oh what's wrong with you?

Oh, I'm just fasting, man.

I'm just fasting before the Lord.

Oh man, yeah, I can't, man, I can't eat nothing today, man.

I can't eat nothing.

Only thing I drink is water, man.

I got yeah, 12 more hours, man.

Oh, pray for me, bro.

And yeah, man, and I gotta get I still gotta get to the gym today.

I don't even know how I'm gonna get that workout in.

Right?

Wear sweatpants for no reason.

It's hot outside.

Sweatpants and slides.

Oh I love the script because it's like Jesus, like, chill out.

Like, get up, wash your butt, put lotion on, comb your hair, wear your best clothes, smell good, walk up straight.

Right?

Go on about your day, like you said.

Because your fasting is not to impress your small group, right?

But to pursue the heart of God.

To see what's on his mind.

Father God, what would you have for me to do in this season?

I love what Hebrews says.

Hebrews 12, 1.

Because I think this helps us understand kind of what fasting is trying to do for us.

And even prayer, too, when we ask God to reveal things in our heart.

That's a dangerous prayer, by the way, but I challenge you to pray it.

Hey God, reveal in me what is not of you.

And then give me the courage to be obedient.

Right?

But but I love what Hebrews 12, 1, it says uh that that uh we should strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.

And it says, run with endurance the race God has set before us.

That sounds a lot like what fasting wants to do for us.

Like this process of fasting and prayer identifies and prunes and sets us free from things that are weighing us down.

It reveals to us the sins that are so easily tangling us up and tripping us up.

And once we have established ourselves in the path of God, it frees us to walk obedience towards what He has called us to do.

This is why we should embrace prayer and fasting.

This is the process to make you and me like Jesus to help us experience and live that life that He promised in the gospel.

Here's the third thing.

What are the promises of prayer and fasting?

And why are these disciplines essential and worth my So, what are the promises of prayer and fasting, and why are these worth my attention?

I give you one word grace.

What's the promise of prayer and fasting?

Grace.

In prayer and fasting, just like baptism, just like communion, just like the word of God, just like miracles, just like near-death experiences, signs and wonders, we find a means of grace.

Now, here's what a means of grace is.

A means of grace is those things in which God uses to give and enable us to receive the grace and gifts of redemption in Christ.

Those things he gives us to enable us to receive the grace and gifts of redemption in Christ.

When you were baptized, you experienced just how needy you are.

But just how gracious God is.

When you hold communion in your hand, you experience just how broken you are.

But just how gracious God is.

When we open the Bible and declare us how sinful we are, but yet how gracious God is.

When God does the miracles and the unexpected, we are reminded just how blessed we are and how gracious God is.

And in fasting and prayers, we are reminded of our weakness, we are at the same time reminded of God's gracious strength.

It's a means of grace.

Like there's nothing that, like, there's nothing that reminds you how good God is or when is like when you're on the highway and the car misses you.

Right?

That feeling that you get, like, oh, this could have been it.

Like, this could have been the end of it.

And like, usually in the two minutes after that, you're thinking about just how gracious are.

Usually you're thinking about, man, I gotta get some things squared away.

Man, man, do I even have my life insurance policy put up the right, like, like you start thinking about everything.

Right?

But then you get home with a little bit more gratitude.

And you just walk with a little bit more pepper yourself, at least for a little while.

And when we commit to prayer and fasting, we get to like experience those things all the time.

Like every time I pray, I'm like, man, God, you're good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

When I'm fasting, and I'm like, day three comes around, I'm like, you know what, God, you're gracious.

Because two days ago I thought I was gonna die that I didn't eat at 11:30 sharp.

And now it's 2.30.

I ain't even thought about eating because I've been in your word.

I've been listening to my worship music.

And man, I've been more fruitful.

Thank you, God.

Right?

There's a promise to prayer and fasting that you don't want to miss.

There's these deposits that God wants to put into your life just to strengthen and deepen your faith.

And prayer and fasting are a part of those.

There's no better promise than the free gift of grace to Christ.

There's no better promise.

Like if that was the promise I gave you to anything.

Hey, that's in fact, can I say in in the Christian faith that is the promise to everything?

Like, when you get married, if you ever get married, like the promise of marriage is not necessarily just a a lifelong partner and the opportunity to lay down and not feel guilty about it.

Because that's how some of us look at it.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Marriage is a gift for God to sanctify us.

It's a means of grace to show us just how broken we are, just how much we need God and how good He is in spite of all that.

Right?

When you get the job, what you've been praying for.

It's not just so you can move to the better neighborhood or get the new vehicle finally because your your clunk have been been popping.

Listen, ain't no shame there.

My first car, I couldn't open my front doors.

That car had got hit from this side and hit from this side.

I had to crawl up the back seat.

So embarrassed pulling up in high school, but I had a car.

I had to keep a water jug in the front seat because it ran hot every 30 minutes.

Had to pull over, pour some water in there.

But we would get on the road and we would go see our girlfriends in the next county over.

We just parked down the road.

She couldn't see my car.

She couldn't see my whip now.

I had to walk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm parked a little bit down the road.

I ain't, you know, I ain't want.

All right.

But but when you get the new job, when you get all the new blessings, man, it's not just so you can enjoy them.

But like as you sit in your cozy home, you should be reminded that you don't deserve it.

And on the other side of that blessing was the promise that you are now tangibly experiencing the grace of God that you will experience one day forever.

And that's the promise of prayer and fasting.

It's a means of grace.

Prayer teaches us that grace is not just some distant promise to come at the judgment and at the day we experience heaven, but it's also the force of God behind our daily experience of walking with Jesus.

Grace.

So let's recap.

Prayer and fasting has a purpose.

It's to center our lives on God.

Point blame period.

If you needed a quick definition, prayer and fasting is to center our life on God.

What's the process?

Well, the process is to make us more like Jesus.

That's what prayer and fasting they make us more like Jesus.

And what's the promise of them?

The promise of them is that we tangibly get to experience the grace of God day in and day out.

And it just wets our appetite for what's to come.

As I close and as the band gets ready to come, I just want to leave y'all with this.

And I'm leaving y'all with this, and I'm just assuming this because I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.

I am pretty smart, but I'm assuming, right, that the reason that your leaders are doing this series on essentials and that one of them is prayer and fasting because they want you all to become a church that embraces those.

Right?

They want this to be a part of your DNA.

They didn't just want to do this series so that you have more head knowledge about how to follow Jesus.

More head knowledge about following Jesus makes it easier if we're obedient.

But it doesn't help us to know things if we're not going to follow through with it.

And so here's my challenge to you don't think too much about how you're going to get it right.

Don't think too much about how to do it perfect.

Can I just say, just do it?

Like that's my charge.

Just do it.

Just try.

If you know you struggle with prayer right now, it's okay to set reminders on your phone.

John Piper, uh, he's a very popular uh pastor in the Reformed church, but I was listening to one of his messages before, and he said, hey, one of the most spiritual things you can do is actually set reminders to pray because that shows that you're trying to be obedient.

He said, Don't let the enemy tell you you're weak because you're doing that.

Because in your weakness, Christ is made strong.

So set the reminders.

Put alarms on your phone.

I got alarms on my phone to tell me to drink water.

That's how simple I am.

Go drink some water.

So just do it.

Don't be afraid of fasting.

You don't have to know how to do it perfectly, but listen, don't kill yourself either.

I'm pretty sure Forrest ain't telling y'all to go on a 30-day hunger strike.

That's not what he's saying.

But you can start with say, you know what?

For this next week, I'm just gonna fast until dinner.

I'm just gonna have my morning coffee.

I'm gonna drink water throughout the day, and then I'm gonna eat dinner at 6 o'clock.

And before I do, I'm just gonna sit down and I'm gonna evaluate God.

What are some things that you showed me today?

Where where was my spirit pulling me today that that I need you to intervene?

And then you can say, Thank you, God, for what you've done and how you've killed me today.

And bless this food so I can eat.

And God sees that and God will honor that.

That's the challenge, and that's the charge.

Be a church that is truly trying to center your lives on God.

His purposes, his pleasures, his mission.

Be some people who really want to know Jesus.

Like you really want a relationship with him.

Be some people who know the Holy Spirit.

Like the back of your hand.

You know when the Spirit is calling.

And be some people who who can just learn in the shame culture that we live in to receive the grace of God.

Just to receive the grace and mercy of God.

And if you're in this room and everything I talked about sounds good to you, but you don't know Jesus, then we got to get that first part figured out.

The Bible tells us that Jesus, when he came to earth, did not come to condemn the world, but he came to save it.

He came to be a friend of sinners.

He came to meet people right where they were and to introduce something better to them.

And all I want to tell you is this no matter what you came in here, Carrie, no matter who you are right now, if you don't know Jesus, I promise you, Jesus has something better.

And he's telling them right now, hey, don't worry about all the details.

Don't worry about all the things you don't know.

There's a group of loving people right here in this room that will walk with you and help explain everything to you.

But he does say today on the table is an offer for you is to experience this life-changing relationship and this means of grace that will change your eternity forever.

That's salvation.

And the way we do that is simply by what we talked about earlier.

This word called surrender.

On one side, we say, hey God, I acknowledge who I am.

At my core, I am a broken, sinful human being that does not deserve the breath that is in my body.

It's to say, Lord, I declare that, Lord, I have taken from you and from this world more than I will ever be able to give back.

It's to acknowledge that, Lord, without you, I have no certain future.

And I have no sustaining hope.

It's to say, God, I need you.

And once you get to that place, it goes to other side, say, Lord, so I know I need you.

Now I need you to do it.

So that I surrender everything about my life over to you.

If you don't like it, God, you change it.

Because I don't have the power to do it.

If I had the power to do it, I wouldn't be praying to you right now.

So I invite you, God, to change it and make me new.

And if you can say a prayer like that, then what Jesus promises is that you will have life and life to the full, that you will have eternal life.

That all your sorrows here on this earth will be changed to joy one day.

And that all the pain you've ever experienced will have a purpose and it will be used to his glory one day.

He promises to be a constant friend in a time of need.

He promises to meet you right where you are, and he promises to walk with you on that road and to explain everything you need to know.

John 6, Jesus says, the only work that I have for you is to believe in the one that the Father has sent.

So that is the invitation to you.

If you don't know Jesus, believe in the one that the Father has sent.

You don't need me to pray with you.

You don't need Forrest to pray with you.

You can pray that prayer in your seat right now.

If you decide to pray that prayer, we invite you to fill out a connection card.

And just notate on there that you made that decision for Jesus today.

And turn it in as somebody from the church.

They won't corner you today.

Right?

They won't parade you around at the gas station, say, No Jesus, Father! They won't do any of that.

They'll call you maybe sometimes this week and say, Hey, you want to get coffee?

Let's talk about this decision you made.

Let's see how we can better help you walk with Jesus.

And I just want to say, if you're afraid, that's okay.

It's okay.

Just say yes.

Let me pray.

Lord, we thank you.

We thank you for today.

We thank you for this word.

We thank you for this opportunity that we got just to learn a little bit, just to discover a little bit about what your word teaches us about prayer and fasting and how it might help us.

I just pray more than anything that we were just all convicted, reminded, encouraged.

Lord, just to pursue these disciplines a little bit more.

Lord, would your Holy Spirit help us to be faithful in prayer?

Would you help us to be faithful in fasting so that we might experience your tangible grace in the here and now, so that we might be those who give it to people in the here and now.

In Jesus' name, amen.