Our Rule of Life - Prayer & Fasting Pt2

So we're gonna continue our series, Our Rule of Life, and, um, our Rule

of Life series, I think I've said this multiple times, but I feel just

like it's so important for us to say it, that we're not promoting legalism

and obligation in this series.

Um, so if you're sitting here, like me, struggling with performance…

You know what I mean by that?

It means you feel like you are acceptable if you perform well.

That's what I mean by if you're struggling with performance.

Uh, right now, go and get that monkey off your back.

Actually, if you, uh, got that on your back, just go like this.

Just go like, "Ugh, monkey, get off my back.

Yes, please start moving." Start pushing it off your back.

No one's doing it.

It must be, all must be perfo- I, I tell you, we all struggle with some

level of where we feel acceptable when we perform, and that is no fun.

That's not life, actually.

So this series is actually a joyful response to be with the Father.

Everyone say joyful.

Joyful.

Joyful.

The Father has this heart that invites us to come to Him all who are weary.

So if you're exhausted, if you're weary in this following Jesus thing, uh,

maybe it just seems so hard to continue to seek the Lord with all your heart.

Just feels like maybe at times you, "Oh, I, I mustn't be doing it right."

Um, it's just exhausting, and maybe you need to know that scripture doesn't

sort of ask you to ig- or even the scripture doesn't indicate that you

should ignore those feelings and emotions.

It actually speaks us to ca- and calls us into a different reality of living.

Scripture doesn't ask us, or it doesn't, doesn't command

the weary soul just to pretend.

Um, it calls us to come to Christ to rest and to trust that God renews

strength to those who wait on Him.

Galatians six nine says, "Let us not lose heart in doing good, for

in due time we will reap if we do not grow…" What does it say?

Weary.

Just been thinking about those two words, l- to lose heart.

I think s- the word weary is kind of at the end of that sentence, and

we kind of detach those two things.

But when you start losing heart, weariness will start to decay

you on the interior of your soul.

And so this idea of losing heart and weariness are c- are connected.

Is anyone feeling like you're losing heart?

Yeah, it's good.

It's so important that Drea called us this morning to be vulnerable.

Uh, that's a vulnerable question, isn't it?

'Cause sometimes when we come to church, you know, we, we don't necessarily

wanna admit that this, this is not easy.

This is challenging.

Um, you f- maybe you're feeling weary.

Maybe the volume of exhaustion has increased so it's louder than the

volume of God's love for your own soul

Today you may need to hear that weariness doesn't equal weakness in a way.

Like weariness potentially means that you've done a hard day's work.

You've been working real hard.

You're weary.

Weariness doesn't mean, uh, you've done something wrong.

Some of you need to hear that.

Um, fatigue doesn't mean failure.

Um, it's a human signal that you've worked hard and not some spiritual

flaw that you have, fa-fatigue.

Thanks, man.

So let-- get this into your spirit, and this is this whole idea of

getting this monkey off your back.

Um, Jesus isn't frustrated with your limits.

God's not angry at your limits

God's not trying to cancel your humanity

He's very aware of it.

And so much so in Matthew 11, 28, Jesus says, Come to me, all who are weary

and burdened, and I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and I am gentle and humble in heart.

You'll find rest for your souls.

My yoke is easy.

My burden is light.

We've been in this Rule of Life series quite some time now, I think,

like February, now it's August.

Like, phoo.

I just wanna continue to remind you what this is all about.

Just this little quote's been helpful for me.

"A rule of life is a shared rhythm of practices and orders that orders

our lives around abiding in Jesus and participating in his kingdom. So it's

not legalism, it's training in grace. It's not adding pressure, but removing

chaos so that formation can occur."

Formation, that's an interesting word.

Like, when we say formation, what we're talking about, we're… In,

in simple terms, we're saying being formed into the likeness of Jesus.

Um, in a more extended way, uh, this definition's been helpful for me.

"Biblical formation is a Spirit-led process by which a person learns to

live continually before God, with God, for God, until God's presence becomes

the governing reality of your thoughts, desires, habits, and relationships."

It's then you start to look like Jesus.

Now, you may be reading that and immediately your brain goes, "Oh,

I've gotta do better, try harder." That's not what we're trying to say.

What we're trying to say, I heard this quote once that says, "If you

intentionally draw close to God, you will automatically become more like him."

Does that make sense?

Like, the thing that you behold is the thing that you become.

So the question isn't just do better coming, becoming like Jesus, would you?

It's actually behold him and he will find… You will find yourself being

transformed more by him into him.

Does that make sense?

The other word that's been helpful for me in this journey is the word sustained.

How do you sustain the presence of God in your life?

This ongoing shaping of the whole person by God's relational nearness.

So he's near and he's transforming, shaping me so that his presence

is not just some temporary moment that I experience on

a Sunday morning at Red Door.

Like, it's sustained through my week, through my month.

You see, when we're feeling weary, when we're feeling like we're losing heart,

there's a natural human reaction to shrink back into self-care and self-preservation.

'Cause losing heart, when you're losing heart, it feels it's easier to live in

the cold than the effort it takes to draw close to the fire of His presence.

Like the effort it takes to gather the logs, the effort it takes to harness

the oxygen of the Spirit to breathe into the fire just seems so hard at times.

And so kind of what you're left with is like, I've got some kindling in my hand,

and it's good, but I throw the kindling on the fire and I get warm for like a

moment, but that moment is relatively short-lived 'cause it's just kindling.

The, the fire's not sustained

Yeah, brief moments of warmth, but it's just so temporary.

Any idea of a sustained fire of his presence just seems so out of reach.

So I've learned to live in the cold with my handmade blanket only

to find that there's holes in it

Some reason you might be losing heart, might be growing weary

is maybe a lack of breakthrough.

Maybe you've attached yourself to the latest church trend

Maybe you've attached yourself to some trend that the world offers

that seems to offer the mending of the hole of the blanket.

Maybe it's the busyness of life.

Maybe it's the fact that there seems like there's resistance all around me.

The enemy is at the door.

That's a real reality.

Maybe it's broken friendships.

Maybe it's the darkness, not necessarily around me, but the darkness in me.

My own interior issues of envy, fear

Sin.

You see, sin seems to promise to mend the hole of my blanket, but it

just seems to make the holes bigger.

Self-pity, maybe the belief that I'm owed something.

Maybe it's the belief that you think you're special and therefore you walk

around believing you're entitled.

And slowly, ever so slowly, you're finding it difficult to see the beauty

in the small things, in the good things

And that posture of gratitude, you've forgotten kind of what that's like

Now I'm trying to twist God's arm to make him to do something that I

don't think he really wants to do.

And sorrow and grief has made my home in my heart.

Adam, please don't tell me to try harder and do better, because I just can't

Psalm 103 verse 13 captures the heart of the Father for those who are weary and

Psalms 103:13

for those who feeling that loss of heart.

And it's this wonderful picture of this Father has compassion on his children.

So the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, for he knows how we are formed.

He remembers that we are dust

Today, we are continuing this topic of prayer and fasting, but

potentially not how you think

I'm reminded, um, the Pharisees in the Bible, they had this culture, like a

radical culture actually, of prayer.

They had a radical culture of fasting

The scary thing is even they missed the person of Jesus who was right

in front of them in their midst.

So when we talk about prayer and fasting, it's not about just doing

all this stuff, it's actually about encountering the living God more

in your life in a sustained way.

A sustained fire

So the question is: how do we fight back against the weariness and not lose heart?

I'd like to say to you the answer is prayer and fasting, and I am saying that.

But before we talk more directly into prayer and fasting, I wanna more, ask

you more, m-more basic question, is how do we combat weariness and losing heart?

And so I ho- my hope is that you'll see how these are all connected

as we kinda move through this.

So my first comment around this question, you know, how do we

combat weariness and not lose heart?

First one I've got for you this morning is to cling to God's promises.

Cling to the promises of God.

And I wanna add to this conversation the differential between a wish and a promise.

A wish and a promise.

See, a wish is just way too weak.

Like, it can't hold up in a storm.

It's l- it, it's not solid enough.

I've got this table that kind of just helps us contrast

between a wish and a promise.

So a wish is, in this case, self-generated.

But when we think about promises, the promises of God, we're talking

about something that's God-generated.

A wish is self-orientated, a promise is God-orientated.

A wish has personal benefit, but a promise has a kingdom benefit.

A wish, it's like, "Man, I need that now," immediate.

But a promise of God suddenly has inbuilt in it, like, a, a desire for patience.

Like, I'm willing to be patient for that.

A wish, I just feel I need the relief, I, and I need that relief now.

A, a promise has some sense of empowerment in it that would lead us

towards a, a, a willingness to sacrifice.

I found that really helpful.

Just to clarify, when we're talking about the promises of God, sometimes we need

to distinguish between our own sort of m-motivational drivers and our sense that

actually God is calling us some-something bigger than just my own wants.

So when you think about prayer and this idea of promise,

this quote really helped me.

I actually don't know who said it, to be honest, but I've been using it a lot.

"Prayer is calling on the name of the Lord to fulfill his covenant promise.

Prayer is calling on the name of the Lord to fulfill his covenant promise." Is

there a, a promise that you've forgotten?

Like it fell out of your hand and you didn't even notice it was gone

And before long, you forget that this promise once gripped your heart

so, and that forgetting, it kind of feels like some half-remembered

dream, maybe beginning to create in your heart a sense of regret.

But the Spirit of God today wants to remind you of something.

The Spirit of God wants to remind you of something you once knew, that this

world is not all there is, to take a leap of faith, to come back and be

children again, to come back to him.

See, prayer is coming back to him.

Prayer is coming back to God, coming back to him over and over and over again.

1 Timothy 1.18 says, Timothy, my son, I'm giving you this command in keeping

with the prophecies, simultaneously think about promises, once made

about you, so that by recalling them, you may fight the battle well.

There's something about recalling the promises.

I think when we grow weary and we lose heart, it's like

the promises have dissolved.

They were once living and active, and now they're like, "Oh, what was that

thing I used to love? What was that thing that used to burn in my heart?"

Doesn't mean it's gone.

Just means God wants to recall it in you.

The second thing I've got for you today is a vision of your place in life with God.

So remember what I'm talking about here is a question of how do we combat

weariness and losing heart is having a vision of your place in life with God.

So there's a difference between being a guest at the table and

being a child in the house.

See, orphans are grateful just to be allowed in.

They sit carefully.

They're kind of unsure of their place, wondering whether they belong or not.

But beloved children, they relax at the table.

They're not trying to earn their seat.

They know that they are loved, and they come and sit on the parent's lap.

Mate, they're secure.

And if you're a parent, you know when you see that.

You know, sometimes when kids can get, like, run amok at the table, you know,

and we go, "Oh, gee, settle down." You know, but the reality is they feel secure.

There's something precious about that, right?

'Cause it's their belovedness that changes everything

Your resilience is not meant to come from your competence

It's not meant to come from your spiritual performance or your

ability to hold it all together.

Your resilience comes from your belovedness.

You are loved

From knowing who you are to God the Father.

You know that word Abba?

Not the Scandinavian rock band.

You know, sometimes we don't use it, right?

We don't use this word Abba, but you know, in, in a Jewish culture, in

a, in a Hebrew culture, I'm a Abba

I've got this book here, sitting here on this t- thing.

It's here, I'm not gonna refer to it.

It's, um… You might have read it, it's Brendan Manning's book,

but it's called Abba's Child.

And it's sitting here today to remind me that as I'm sharing with you,

that before I am some communicator of God's Word, I'm Abba's child.

That's the only reason I got that book there, is just to remind me.

I might sit on the stool bit later, but it's just to remind me.

'Cause the picture on the front of it is this, this beautiful little image.

I wasn't gonna show you this, by the way.

It's just this hug.

Can you see that?

It's just this hug, and it's kind of nondescript.

But there's something about Abba that-

Starting just to melt my heart a little bit at the moment.

Um, so my point here is that resilience comes from your belovedness.

Fatigue doesn't mean failure.

Sometimes it means you've been working hard, like I said.

Losing heart often means that something deeper is missing, and it might be

described as intimacy with God the Father, where you're living in a

conscious awareness, a steadying reality of being held by your Abba

Now we're all gonna have different reactions to that 'cause we've all had

different physical fathers in this world.

We've all had different experiences

But if you're drawing close in prayer and you're not growing in belovedness,

you're doing something wrong.

So can I just submit to you today that prayer is the means by which we would

cultivate belovedness in our own souls

And if you're spending time with Jesus in some sort of religious

process and your own heart is not being melted by the fact that the

Father is in absolute love with you

Then prayer is not…

Something needs to adjust in how you approach this construct of prayer

Is that okay?

Does that make sense?

So prayer is not about just getting things done, like good things,

like praying for your family.

That's not a bad thing.

Praying for the city, praying for your church, praying for Altar One.

They're good things.

But before those things, I would ask you is how is your belovedness going?

So just close your eyes right now for me

It's a f- interesting little sense of quietness in the

room since I started talking.

So I just wanna acknowledge that, Jesus, you're here with us t-this morning

Holy Spirit, you're here with us.

Just become aware of your breathing as you close your eyes

And I just want you to, as you breathe in, I just want you to say

the w-word in your, in your heart, in your mind, maybe under your breath.

You breathe in, you say, "Abba."

As you breathe out, I want you to say, "I belong to you

Abba

I belong to you

Aber

I belong to you

Lord, thank you for loving me

Lord, here I am today and my heart is cold

It's parts of it that does not want to be close to you because

I think I can do it myself

Right now, just please warm my heart towards yourself.

A fresh desire to be close to you.

You are, you're my Abba, my Father

Help me to s- receive a spirit of adoption today

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Just encourage you, that little exercise, Abba, breathe in,

I belong to you, breathe out.

Like, do that for 30 seconds.

Push yourself, go for 60.

When you wake up in the morning, when you go to bed at night, do it for a week.

See what, see what, see what happens.

Be interested.

See if it does something.

So what we're talking about here is the work of a spirit of adoption

If you're feeling weary, if you're feeling like you're losing heart,

what you need, uh, we need a s- we need the spirit of adoption to

be, um, stirred up in us actually.

A spirit that cries out, "Abba Father." Where a spirit of adoption grows

cold, what will happen is an orphan spirit will begin to reveal itself.

And often that orphan spirit is revealed through prayerlessness, a

striving, a need to prove ourselves.

These are hallmarks of an orphan spirit.

God is more for you than you think

I, I heard this little practice, and I've got this picture of this

fella, uh, on the screens for you.

And, um, this guy's name is Jonathan Roumie.

Does anyone know who this guy is?

He's Je-- No, he's, he's not Jesus, okay?

He's an actor.

He's playing the role in The Chosen, okay?

Okay.

Some of you, like, are looking at a picture and you're like, "Oh, man."

You, like, you might even have an emotional reaction, actually.

Um, I know Rebecca Morrison is probably having an emotional reaction.

'Cause there's something about his face, would you agree?

Oh, man, seriously.

So I just wonder, like, in your weariness and when-- in your, um,

maybe losing heart-ness, you know, what would he-- what would this

guy, what would Jonathan say to you?

I reckon he would be quite gentle to you.

Yeah.

Be quite loving to you.

Probably say something that's just nice and warm.

I wanna let you know that potentially how you feel Jonathan Roumie would

speak to you in your space of… would potentially be kinder and nicer than

how you think Jesus might speak to you

Jonathan Roumie's, I'm sure he's a nice guy.

No, no doubt.

But I wanna let you know Jesus is a super nice guy

So treat your weariness and your loss of heart like Jesus would treat it

There are some ch- questions to ask in that space as well, like where

did you receive this lie that you would, must earn your place in life?

In what ways maybe are you trying to be impressive in life?

W- why do you feel the need to appear epic?

That's just for me, by the way.

I know none of you have this problem.

No, uh, uh, these are, these are good questions, man

E-even Jesus was tempted in this way, right?

The devil tried to p- to get him to perform, to prove himself, to

make his identity thr- uh, visible through the temptation to be epic.

You know, in the, in the, in the, in the desert?

You remember that moment?

But Jesus already knew who he was.

He didn't need to impress anyone.

Why?

Because Jesus knew how much the Father loved him

So secure

So strong

Not even the offer of the kingdom of the world could

What are you talking about?

I don't want the wor- I've got the Father.

And I think Jesus invites us into that same place.

It's a good test for us.

Why are you trying to impress people who do not actually need to be impressed?

The risk of being unimpressive is a doorway to genuine

closeness and intimacy with God.

So if you find it difficult to receive a spirit of adoption that elevates

our experience of knowing that we are beloved, and you continue to operate

with this be epic syndrome, the world and the modern church in many ways

has created a culture of this through performance at the cost of intimacy.

We are not disciples of this world, my friends.

We are not disciples of the church, my friends.

We are disciples of Jesus.

And so resist the need to be epic or special.

You're short-changing yourself

Adam, Adam, why are we talking about this?

I thought we were talking about prayer and fasting.

Because the goal of prayer and fasting is to position yourself to grow in

your belovedness and stop trying to earn your place in this life

Just gonna put my ABBA just there.

Very good

Start to feel excited

So I had, uh, number one was, um, something.

Cling to the promises of God.

Number two, this vision of your place in life with God, this idea of belovedness.

N-number three, the benefits of prayer and fasting.

Here we go.

Yep, we finally got there.

Um, before I get into that, I just wanna let you know that fasting

does not earn something from God.

Three weeks ago, Dale t- began… This is like part two, um, of, of

this prayer and fasting concept.

Um, Dale started this topic three weeks ago.

If you haven't listened to that, please listen to this and… But fasting doesn't

earn something from God, it positions you.

Fasting's not twisting God's arm or hunger striking for God.

"God, I'll st- hunger strike until you do something."

So it's good that we're laughing, right?

Because we're laughing because we just talked about belovedness.

Does-- That, like, that seems, like, foreign, doesn't it now?

Like, what do you mean of hunger striking for God?

Oh, 'cause if you're beloved, you know, like, what are

you-- That's just foolishness.

What are you talking about?

That's a good, good reaction, right?

So fasting positions your heart and spirit to receive from God

what he has actually already given.

God's goodness is already established.

Fasting does not change his willingness.

Fasting clears the spiritual noise so you can perceive what is already true.

I would like you to think of fasting as alignment, not persuasion.

We don't fast to impress God, we fast to make more room for him.

Fasting is an act of surrender, a choice to position yourself to receive from God.

This idea of positioning I think is important to understand.

I've used this picture before and I'm, I'm, uh, I make no apologies

'cause I actually love it to bits.

So I want you to focus on the dot in the middle.

Obviously, we've got a picture of a landscape with kind

of a ruined castle there.

It's kind of an odd colorization.

It's kind of purpley, bluey, red-y type of thing.

We're just gonna focus on that for a little bit.

So don't take your eye off the circle.

Just keep focusing on it.

And in a moment, I'm gonna switch the t- picture, and we're gonna switch it,

and I want you to tell me what color you see, immed- like immediately.

So that's about a good 12 seconds, 15 seconds, and let's switch it

Now how many of you saw green?

Now look back at it.

Now do you see the green anymore?

No, what happened there?

That's weird.

Trust me, there's only two images.

I didn't-- There's not like a third one, one's a green and there's a black and

white, and like switch it a-again on you.

So let me explain to you what's happening.

The first image, what's happening in your eyeball is that the s-- There's a

very simple way of describing it, but the, the red and blue receptors in your

eyeball are being over-utilized when you looked at the first image, and so they're

getting tired, those two receptors.

And soon as the pressure is released, what receptor is kind of

elevated compared to the other two?

Green.

And the dominant color in that landscape is the grass part, yeah?

And so suddenly you see green because the green receptor is elevated compared

to the two other things that are tired.

Pause my analogy.

Fasting.

You are made of mind, body, spirit.

When you fast, when you go without food, you tire your flesh and your mind

But your spirit is flying high compared to the noise of your flesh and your mind.

And so your spirit is elevated.

So the spirit-to-spirit capacity of you to position yourself to hear from the

Father is elevated, and as a result, you've positioned yourself to hear from

the Father, to make room for the Father.

So the benefits of fasting, there's six of them, and I'm gonna rip

through these like you've never seen.

First one, a quiet soul.

It's just noise all the time in our world.

Did you know this?

But the reality is, if we're being honest, the noise is not just the noise

out there, it's the noise in here.

Blaise Pascal is w- the one who said, "All of humanity's problems result

in a man's inability to sit in a room alone with his own thoughts."

What I found is when I'm having a lot of noise outside, but also

there's a lot of noise inside, a season of fasting silences the voices

and awakens God's voice in my life.

When we are so surrounded by noise, fasting quietens the noise and helps us

become preoccupied with the one who we're gonna be occupied with for all eternity.

This is a choice we need to make.

The psalmist in w- Psalm 131 says, "But I have calmed and quieted my

soul." It's a decision that I've made.

It wasn't like God came and quieted me or calmed me.

It was like, no, no, in the midst of all these things that I'm occupied with,

I've made a choice to quiet myself.

Fasting helps you to begin to do that.

It's a benefit of fasting.

It… A quiet soul.

Does anyone want a quiet soul today?

Fasting could be your doorway to improving that dynamic of your

internal volume in your world.

Next one, the amplified word.

The voice of the world and the words of the world begin to get turned down and

the voice of God begins to get turned up.

It's basically when you're fasting, it goes from where the word of God

is just like this little tap on your heart, like a little nudge.

When you're fasting, it's like a sledgehammer.

Like it's a change, it's a shift.

The volume of God's word goes up when you fast because you're positioning yourself.

Fasting increases your discernment of the word of God.

I found that something happens where when I'm leaning into fasting, I

can just discern God's voice at the right time in the right season.

So important.

Remember, Jesus was tempted in the desert by the enemy and the

enemy quotes scripture at him.

He says like, the word says this and then Jesus says, no,

it is written, it says this.

Jesus was able to discern the right context and moment of his

word so you don't get it twisted.

Fasting helps you discern the word to the right context, the right season.

My heart gets weakened to any resistance to his word.

So when I'm fasting, it's like the resistance I have to truth,

hearing the truth, receiving the truth, that resistance is broken.

The nudge turns into a conviction.

The word of God starts sitting on me with weight.

The word of God starts to feel heavier on my life.

I'm not so resistant of it.

I think in the body of Christ, we need more than just

knowledge of the word out there.

We don't just need more opinions about the word.

We need people who can actually, when they speak the word of God, they begin

to do, it begins to do something in people's lives because they themselves

have been cut deeply by the word first.

And to be cut deeply means the word is weighed in on you.

It's, whoa, it just feels heavier because you're positioning yourself.

There's something about the word that is cutting me.

It starts to produce something out of me that I can't explain in and of myself.

So quiet soul, amplified word, exposed heart is number three.

Fasting is like a furnace.

Just set your h-heart before the Lord and that furnace, and the heat gets turned

up, and all of a sudden, the impurities that are living on the interior of your

soul, the things that you didn't even know were there, start, start surfacing.

And it's not like, "Well, I, I, I haven't eaten for a bit,

so I'm actually just hangry."

No, actually, where's this anger coming from?

Where's this frustration coming from?

You can actually begin to experience in the secret place that God begins to

reveal things that are coming out of you.

Richard Foster, who's written a lot about this, says, "More than

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

This is a wonderful benefit to the true disciple who longs to be transformed

into the image of Jesus." 'Cause we cover up the things that are wrong

inside of us with food, with other good things, but fasting brings these things

to the surface so you can see them.

If pride controls us, it's gonna be revealed almost immediately.

Anger, bitterness, strife, fear, they're within us.

They surface in our lives during fasting.

Now, when they come up, there can be a temptation to go, "Oh, I just gotta

do better, try harder to deal with this stuff." No, it's simply this.

Please don't miss this.

If you're fasting and this stuff's coming up in your life, it's simply

just saying, "Lord, see this?

I don't want this.

Can you please forgive me, and can you please cleanse me?"

Amen.

That's it.

That seems pretty easy, doesn't it?

But the problem isn't the fact that it's in you, it's the fact that you see it.

A lot of the time we have things going on in our hearts that we don't even see.

An exposed heart, it's a benefit of fasting.

Not for the faint-hearted, would you agree?

I don't know if I wanna see all this.

Uh, if you wanna become more like Jesus, there's a sense

that you, uh, you, you want to.

You want to see it.

Number four, a solid identity.

Fasting delivers you from what you do for God and reminds you of who you are to God

You know, in a fully exposed state, I feel pretty unimpressive when I'm fasting

in my capacity of what I can do for God.

But in that state, I'm just presented very raw and very real before God.

I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I'm bitter, and God goes, "Ah, I'm glad

you came and took off the mask."

Fasting tests and refines the spirit of adoption in your life like

nothing else I've ever seen before.

If you wrestle consistently with your position and your standing before God,

I would invite you to start leaning into a spirit of fasting because he

will begin to solidify that spirit of adoption, that Abba Father cry in your

heart where you know you're his child

Henry Newman says fasting is not about self-denial, it's about self-discovery.

As a Christian, you're discovering who you are.

You're his child.

It strips away the comforts and distractions of food, and we come

face to face with who we really are.

The false identities we build, success, performance, and the opinions of

others begin to crumble, and we're left with the only identity that

truly matters, who we are in Jesus

There's something so humbling to me in fasting.

It's like it's just, it helps me realign.

Oh yeah, it's not that I love God, it's that He loves me

It's not about how I perform for Him or how much I love

Him, it's how much He loves me.

Fasting helps us experience that, a solid identity.

Number five, a holy hunger.

A benefit of fasting.

Newsflash, fasting makes you hungry

That's not a surprise.

But there's something when you've experienced a season of staleness

and dryness in God, there's something about fasting that

awakens the holy ache within you.

We, we don't like to ache on the interior, so what we do, we tend to just, like,

numb it, medicate it, entertain it.

And what we're, what we're suggesting here is we need to agitate the ache.

Fasting agitates the ache

Second Corinthians five speaks of how inside of your life there's a

longing and a groaning and an aching

That we take, that, that we, the ache we take off in the mortal,

we wanna put on the immortal.

So there's an ache in our mortal bodies that can only be satisfied

by the immortal, which means there's an ache to connect with the Father

who He's, He's our only answer.

He can satisfy the ache.

We ache, we long for this sense of fullness, but often the body of Christ

in the world, we're told to numb it.

I wanna tell you there's an invitation from God that we need to agitate the ache.

You need to awaken that longing.

You need to tend to that place, the deep place within you.

Samuel Whitfield said that fasting is about awakening our first love.

It's the contrast, right?

That if… I said this morning, has anyone ever tried to, to go through the

Graham Farmer Freeway tunnel holding their breath for the entire duration?

You ever tried that?

Anyone succeeded?

It's not easy.

Nice, three people.

What happens at the end of the tunnel when you've been holding it?

Like, right?

Like, there's demand on oxygen.

Would you agree?

Would you agree?

Like, you're really sucking in the big ones, right?

Don't try it at home.

Yeah, don't try it.

If you got health issues and you have lo-lack, low fitness, don't try it, right?

But there's a demand on air in that moment.

If you sat-satisfy the holy ache with medication, with entertainment, with

food, if that's how you eat your emotions right, and you don't allow that ache

to sit, you're not placing a demand on more of the Father's presence because

you've saturated it with other things.

So it's like you gotta sit with that tension and allow the ache

to sit there so you can develop a holy hunger for more of Him.

It, it awakens this longing for more of Him.

Number six, spiritual breakthrough.

We save this one for the last one because primarily that's what everyone

thinks of straight away when we're talking about fasting, but it's actually

more of a consequence of fasting than necessarily a reason to fast.

Those other reasons are actually, to be honest with you, more important.

But it's undeniable that when you fast, there's something spiritually

potent that breaks in the spiritual what you cannot break in the physical.

And if you don't know much about any of that, just read Dan- Daniel chapter ten

to get a paradigm for what I'm talking about around the spiritual realm.

Daniel chapter ten.

Great.

Got that?

Number four, we're bringing this home.

Pray from the riches of God's word, not the poverty of our own hearts.

So just to recap, number one was cling to God's promises.

Number two, a vision for your place in the world.

Number three, prayer and fasting.

Number four, pray from the riches of God's word, not the poverty of our own hearts.

I think I said souls before.

So I hope you're seeing that fasting is alignment, not persuasion.

Fasting helps quiet the soul, sharpen the word, expose the heart, strengthen

the identity, awaken a holy hunger, open the door for breakthrough.

But without prayer, fasting is just dieting.

And as we end this time in prayer this morning, I want to lead you

in an approach to prayer that has a possibility of transforming

how you connect with the Father.

And so this is not my words here.

This is actually a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

His wo- his quote kind of says, "The riches of God's word ought to determine

our prayer and not the poverty of our own hearts." Because what happens is we can

tend to feel weak, we can tend to feel lose, like we're losing heart, and we

can allow that to dictate how we pray.

But when we elevate our hearts and our minds and our spirits to

how God's word is and what, how God sees, it can be so helpful.

And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna do that together as we close this morning.

And so if you've got your Bible, I want you to pull it out.

If you've got your phone, yes, I want you to pull it out.

Everyone needs to pull this out.

We're gonna do something.

It's very interactive.

It's very, um, participatory.

You're not gonna observe here.

You're gonna do something.

And we're looking at Ephesians chapter one, and I'm gonna slowly

read through Ephesians chapter one.

Well, depending on what the time is.

No, it could be a medium pace.

But I want you to do this.

This may be a little bit different because you'll naturally wanna just read along

with me, and I don't want you to do that.

What I want you to do is I want you to initially read along with me, but

as soon as something jumps out in the scripture, and remember, this is Ephesians

chapter one, so it shouldn't take you too long for something to jump out.

I want you to stop there.

Like you stop there.

I'm not gonna stop there.

I'm gonna keep on reading.

But you stop there.

And I want you to… I'll be talking.

You'll hear my voice.

But in the foreground of your heart, you're going, "Why did that

scripture jump out at me?" Okay?

The reason why that scripture jumped out at you is because there's

a prayer inside that scripture that jumped out for you, right?

Someone's reading it already out loud.

That's good.

Do you wanna bring your app to me?

Then we can just read it with that mechanical voice.

I listen to that voice all the time.

This

It's good.

Thank you.

All right, are you ready to read?

Have you got your Bibles out?

You… If you don't have a phone or a Bible, just throw your hands

up in the air so I can know, like, w- how many people are… Okay.

So if someone next to you has got a Bible, just, just, like, just scoot over.

Just, just scoot.

Everyone say scoot.

Scoot.

Okay, good.

All right.

Ephesians chapter one.

So remember, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna read, but you're gonna stop.

Okay.

Paul, an apostle of Ch- Christ Jesus, by the will of God To God's holy people

in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God

our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has

blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be

holy and blameless in his sight.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ,

in accordance with his pleasure and will, to be the praise of his

glorious grace, which he has given, freely given us in the one he loves.

In when, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of

sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on

us with all wisdom and understanding.

He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure,

which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reach

their fulfillment to bring unity to all things in heaven, on earth, and

under, and on earth under Christ.

In him, we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the

plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his

will, in order that we, who were the f-first to put our hope in Christ,

might be f-for the praise of his glory.

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message

of truth, the gospel of salvation.

When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised

Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until

the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus

and your love for all of God's people, I've not stopped giving thanks for

you, remembering you in my prayers.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may

give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know

the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in

his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

That power is the same as his mighty strength he exerted when he raised

Christ from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly realms,

far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that

is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come.

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be the head

over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him

who fills everything in every way.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

So as I read that, my hope, my prayer is that something jumped out to you.

Remember the verse number.

Now, for the next five minutes, I'm not going to talk, and you're

going to pray either quietly or with the person next to you.

It's up to you.

You're going to pray.

You're going to place a prayer language in that scripture that jumped out at you.

You're going to use the scripture to allow you to inspire you to how to pray.

Is that okay, everyone?

Do we need the lights up a bit more so you can see your scriptures?

It just seems very bright where I am and dark where you are.

Yeah, so let me just lead and then you jump in.

So, Father, thank you for your wonderful word.

Thank you that your spirit is here to illuminate it to our hearts.

Help us to pray in accordance with the riches of your word, that as we pray,

we would be in alignment with your spirit and with your purposes and will.

Father, thank you for your holy people here today.

Grace and peace to every single one of us as we enter your

throne room in this moment.

Lead us in your prayer.

Show us how to pray, Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name.

Let's begin to pray together.