Essential (Week 1)

When you become a Christian, you want to grow in your faith.

You want to grow in your relationship with God.

And that's how it was for me when I was really getting serious about my following Jesus and feeling called to ministry right before heading into college.

And during my time in college, I went to a went to a Christian college, and actually my college roommate, Dave Sandlin, we've been friends forever.

He's a part of our church.

And he and I, this was maybe like junior year or something.

We were trying to grow in our faith in the Lord.

We heard about this thing called fasting.

I don't know if you've ever heard of it before, but it's something that Jesus did himself.

He went to the wilderness for 40 days and he didn't eat food.

He drank water, but didn't eat food.

And so fasting is taking a break from eating.

And there's been people who've used that for uh their relationship with God to go in more with prayer.

And so we decided that we were going to do a fast.

And so we decided that we were going to fast.

And I had done some kind of fast before.

When I was a teenager and youth group, we'd done this like 30-hour fast where we did an all-nighter and stayed up all night, not eating anything.

And so I learned a little bit about it, but we were like, we're gonna really do this thing.

We're gonna go for an entire week without eating.

Now, as a college kid, okay, that wasn't necessarily the best idea, but we decided we were only going to do juice.

So we started out, and so we had all kinds of grape juice, and you know, I was fudging a little bit.

I got some V8, some like, you know, a little bit more hardy kind of things to drink.

And through that whole week, man, oh gosh.

I mean, he and I, I mean, we were just going through it, all the hunger pains, and you know, just just dying as the week was going on, and thinking, man, we cannot get we can cannot wait for this week to end of us doing this fast.

I mean, us were just sitting in our dorm room at night, just miserable, going to bed hungry, commiserating with each other.

And so we were dreaming up, you know, of okay, how are we gonna break this fast?

Now, you may be familiar with break fast as in breakfast, right?

When you don't eat through the night, and then you break the fast.

And so we were dreaming up what we were gonna do.

And uh we went to college, there wasn't a whole lot of options, but we loved going to the Wendy's that was in the truck stop.

And we were like, if we could just go, and we're just dreaming about that Wendy's all week long.

And so the last day of our fast, we went to the Wendy's, and I ate seven chicken sandwiches and burgers, and he had about the same.

Now that was an even worse decision after not eating all week long, going and then scarfing down.

You can imagine two college kids in a Wendy's just like ravenous wolves, then starved for a whole week and we can pounding chicken sandwiches.

Uh, that didn't turn out well the next day, as you can imagine.

Uh but I wonder if, I wonder if the the craving that we had for food, I wonder what it would be like if we craved for God like that.

I wonder how different our life would be or how much we would grow in our faith if we had a craving for more of Jesus and his presence in our day-to-day lives.

This series we're jumping into over the next few weeks is called Essential.

Something that is important.

And we're gonna walk through these several different aspects that we learn from the spit from the scripture and from the life and ministry of Jesus and from the Word, essential things that we can do to grow in our faith.

And these essentials are called spiritual disciplines.

It's a big word, a big word.

It basically means a discipline is something that you do, or you may have studied a certain discipline in school.

And so, well, there are different aspects that we're going to be walking through over the next several weeks, but the point of that is for us to grow in our faith, and these are different things that we can do to align not only our beliefs, but also our actions and actually do what the scripture says we do so that we can grow closer to God.

You know, the spiritual disciplines that we're gonna go through and talk through, they're not for spiritual gurus.

They're for everyday regular believers.

They're for us to take a step deeper in with God.

And that's not hope for us over the next few weeks as we journey through the scripture and through these different aspects that we're gonna go grow closer with God, that we're gonna get closer to Him, that we're gonna have a hunger for Him, and that we're gonna have more of God's presence.

Now, my hope is that as we're feasting on or have these cravings for God's presence in our life, that we would go beyond just Sundays.

Imagine if you only ate one meal a week.

You would be starving to death.

In the same way, coming to worship on Sundays, listening to a message should not be the only time that you're craving for God.

Now I'm thankful that you're here.

And the fact that you are here in worship on a Sunday and listening to a message, that means that you are on the path.

You are on the right path.

But there is so much more of God for you to have and that he wants you to experience.

Those spiritual disciplines that we're going to be going through over the next few weeks are meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.

Whew, that's a long list.

But with this long list, what it's going to require from me and you is a longing for God.

Do you have a longing for God?

Is there an inner attitude in you that you're wanting more of God in your life?

Look at what the scripture tells us in Galatians 6, 8.

It says, those who live only to satisfy that hunger, right?

Only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.

But those who live to please the spirit will harvest, another food word, will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit, the Spirit of God.

You know, it's an amazing thing that when we believe in Jesus, when we accept Jesus as our Savior, his death on the cross, where he gave his life for ours, when we believe in him and receive his free gift of salvation that he purchased for us on the cross, when we believe in Jesus and have accepted that and given our life over to God, he gives us something.

And what he gives us is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God.

We become believers in Him, God literally takes up residence in our mind, in our heart, that we have the Holy Spirit of God.

And just what this passage was telling us that we have this sinful nature.

That the enemy, Satan, our own selfishness, that we want to do things that don't glorify God and that are against God, and those things are sin.

And we're daily battling against that part of ourselves, but we have the power of the Holy Spirit also living inside of us.

And just to remind you what Corinthians says, it says that you have the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus up out of the grave from death to life, now lives inside of you if you're a believer in Christ.

If you're a believer in Jesus and has received that free gift of salvation and given your life to Him, the Holy Spirit's taken up residence in your mind and heart.

And in doing so, giving you the ability to harvest an everlasting life.

We want the spirit over sin.

That's what our daily walk should look like.

None of us are perfect, none of us are perfectly there, but what are you craving for?

What are you hungry for?

The spirit or the sin.

Romans 5, 17 says, for the sin of one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many.

But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness for all who will receive it to live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.

Send it into this world through the bad choice, the evil choice of Adam and Eve, the first people, but God put a rescue mission into effect right after that, that Jesus would come and triumph over sin, not just for himself, but for you.

Jesus, many times in the New Testament, has this group of very religious people.

You would probably call them the religious gurus at the time.

They were more like religious police, actually, in Jerusalem and in Israel.

These guys called the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

They had this big reigning council, and you know, they had big tall hats.

There's something about religious leaders in big tall hats.

I don't know.

It's like the bigger, the taller your hat is, the more religious you are or something.

I don't know.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

But the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they were the priests of God.

Also, there was a religious spirit in them that they were constantly trying to catch Jesus and defame Jesus and trying to debunk Jesus and to tear Jesus and his ministry down.

They would try to catch him and ask him questions to trip him up.

And guess what?

Jesus never was.

In Matthew 22, this group comes to Jesus wanting to disprove him and his ministry, wanting to prove him wrong and catch him in a lie or not in the way of the truth of the Bible.

And they ask him, What's the greatest commandment?

Knowing that if he was to choose one thing over the other, that that would somehow trip him up.

But this was Jesus' response.

Verse 34, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again.

And one of them, an expert of the religious law, tried to trap him in the question Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?

And Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And a second is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.

Jesus says, love God, love other people.

And in those things, everything is satisfied in the law.

It's love over law.

It's love over law.

Now, as we go through together and talk through meditation and prayer and fasting and study and simplicity and solitude and submission and service and confession and worship and guidance and celebration over the next few weeks, as we talk through those things, you may be tempted to think, oh, well, I've got to do these things, and this is now like a law that I need to follow.

And if I mess up or if I don't do every single one of these things, well then God's mad at me and upset with me.

And now this is law.

But let me just set you free right now.

This isn't law, this is love.

When we do these things and when we have these spiritual disciplines in our life to grow in our faith, it should be out of the overflow of our love for God.

Not out of some duty.

I guess I'll say it like this.

Imagine if I was to come home one Friday night, and at the door I come into the living room, and my wife Emily is there, and I have some flowers in my hand, and those flowers are for her, and give those to her and say, honey, let's go on a date tonight.

She gets all excited, and I've got a plan, and she's really excited, and she says, I'm so thankful that you are doing this.

I didn't even know you were planning this.

I'm so grateful that you're here and that we're going on this date.

And what if I looked at her and said, Yeah, I'm doing it out of our marital duty.

Would not go over so hot.

Probably not the best way to invite your spouse or significant other on a date.

In the same way, when we're following God, when he invites us into the things of God that are gonna give us everlasting life, we should not come to him just thinking, oh, this is just my duty.

This is just the law, but instead, out of an overflow, a hunger, a craving, a love for God.

Jesus tells these religious people, he says, Hey, what's really important out of all these laws that you have, the top, the most important of these is that you love God with all of yourself, with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind.

And that you love your neighbor.

You love other people.

And not just love them, you love them like you love yourself deeply.

Caring for them, willing to share and love them.

But Jesus knew that these Pharisees, these religious leaders, they were not living that way.

The very next chapter, just a few verses later, in Matthew 23, Jesus says this.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and his disciples, the teachers of religious law, the Pharisees, the official interpreters of the law of Moses, so practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don't follow their example, for they don't practice what they preach.

They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

As we talk through these spiritual disciplines of fasting and of prayer and meditation and worship and guidance.

These are not things that I want you all to know as we're going through the next few weeks.

This is not something that I'm trying to lay on you as a heaven, heavy burden of, oh gosh, for us.

Now you're trying to tell me that I've got to do all these things if just uh to just follow Jesus.

And let me just set you free from that.

And to say, when you're walking and walking closer to God and wanting to grow in your personal relationship with God, there should be an overflow of you wanting to do things to get closer to God.

To have more presence in his life, to have more of his presence in your life.

And so these are not some heavy burden that I'm trying to lay on us, but instead an invitation in to a deeper, more satisfying spiritual walk with God.

I'll say it like this.

My call to us today to begin this series before we get into going through all of these different things is this.

Listen to me.

I want for us to love God by longing for God.

I want for us to love God by longing for God.

Are you longing for God right now?

Do you want more of God's presence in your life?

More forgiveness.

More joy.

More peace.

More patience.

More kindness.

Is there a longing?

Is there a craving?

Is there a hunger?

Just like me wanting to devour that Wendy's.

Do you have hunger pains right now for more of God in your life?

Let me challenge you.

Let me encourage you.

Let me invite you to show your love for God by having a desire and a longing for more of Him.

There are plenty of people who say that they love God, right?

Scriptures and Instagram bios and all those things.

But in the same way with my wife or with a significant other, that love has to be shown.

The book of James teaches us that.

It's dead.

Not that we work for our faith, but through our faith, it pushes us towards those works of growing with God.

And guess what?

When we talk about prayer, when we talk about worship and guidance, we talk about celebration of these things, it's not just for you.

It's for those that are around you.

All of these things, save solitude, which you've got to do that by yourself, is meant for you to do that with other people and to show love to others through you growing in your relationship with God.

So inviting you in to love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself by you growing in your faith and leading them along in that.

Now we're going to get to celebrate today.

Because there's some folks who are being baptized today, some kids, teenagers that are starting their relationship with the Lord.

This first step of obedience.

And we're going to celebrate with them.

And guess what?

We are celebrating with heaven.

The angels in heaven are celebrating over one person who turns to God.

So we get to party.

Maybe for you, maybe you need to begin the journey.

Maybe you haven't yet given your life to Jesus.

You've not received the salvation that He bought for you on the cross and wants to give to you freely.

Today, you can start that relationship with God.

Today you can receive that salvation and forgiveness.

And maybe for you today, you've been a Christian, or say that you're a Christian, or someone who loves God for a long time, but you need to have a hunger.

You need to have a hunger, a craving for more of God in your life.

Maybe that's you today.

Can I pray for you now?

Would you bow your heads and pray with me?

Father, all over this place today.

There are folks that are in two places.

Or they already have.

And so, God, I pray right now for those who are following you, Jesus, that do say to be Christians, God, I pray right now that, Lord, you would put a holy hunger in their belly, in their mind and their heart for more of you, God.

Lord, that what we do here on Sundays, that it wouldn't just stay on Sundays, that Lord.

It would move into our life.

A way of us having more of your presence and peace throughout our week.

As we go to work, as we go with our families, raise kids.

Be with our friends that, Lord, and all of that, that God, we would have a desire for you.

And God, I pray right now for anybody who's in the room today that has not yet begun a relationship with you, Jesus.

Today is the day of their salvation if they'll receive it.

And so, God, right now I pray all across this room for anyone who's here who's not received you as Savior, who's not accepted you as their Savior and believed in you, Jesus, and committed their life to you.

Today is their day of salvation, Lord.

And I pray over them right now that they would do that.

That they would pray and lift up to you right now in their head and their heart.

They would pray, Jesus, save me.

I accept your salvation and your forgiveness.

And I believe in you today.

Wash me as white as snow so that I can be in heaven with you one day.

I commit my life to you and give my life to you as you've given your life for mine.

Thank you for saving me.