Beyond the Letter Night 4 || ALFC Fresh Start

Welcome to the Lesse podcast. Here at Lesse, we seek the loss,

teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by

this week's message. All right, awesome, thank you guys for being here.

And just like that handsome guy in that video said, is that twenty

nine years and so that makes us a three generation church officially as we go

into our thirtieth year next year. And in a lot of churches in America,

once you pass twenty five years old, because the lifeline of a church

is not twenty five years, it's pretty rare to go twenty five years.

So we're what has reached what you call a legacy church. And so it's

a church that is a legacy. So if you were liking you know,

in some of the rooms I go to, that's the way you would define

your church. They would say, are you a church plant? Are you

a new church? And then you would say, no, we're a legacy

church, which means we pass twenty five years in our church is still healthy,

strong and growing. So you're able to say we now officially are leaving

a legacy as a church, and we're passing something down to the next generation.

So it's a beautiful thing that you and I get to be a part

of. Whether you've joined this church twenty nine years ago or twenty nine days

ago, you're a part of that legacy. And these Wednesday Nights are very

special. Wednesday Nights we do on the first Wednesday of every month. We

call it are Beyond the Letter Night. This is a great night. As

we know, we got a bunch of our church family watching online. We

have a lot in here today. This has been our service of what we

want to do is we want to be able to equip our church more and

be able to equip believers more by dealing more in depth into the questions that

you may have either concerning Christian life, culture, popular culture, or the

Bible as it pertains. Hey, lo fella, Oh he's making a run

for a little If you didn't see, there's a one year old who's running

for the stage. But security wasn't worried. So we're good. That wanted

to been good on TikTok or anything like. So are Beyond the Letter Nights

on our services allow us to jump into questions and be able to have conversations

in a deeper, more intimate way that necessarily a sermon can't necessarily always touch

or deal with. Whereas our podcast, which is called Beyond the Letter podcast

if you're if you're new to joining us, that's something that we've intentionally created

not only to equip our church, but also to reach people in corners that

would normally not be reached with the gospel. So the podcast was intentionally met

to go into corners of people's lives where they may be lonely, they may

be struggling, they may be going through things, and a podcast that's dealing

with real life conversations reaches them and impacts their life. And I've even been

at the point where not too long ago, someone heard me in a check

out counter recognized my voice said Hey, I don't mean to be weird,

but are you on a radio show or a podcast or something like that?

And I said yeah, yes, And she stopped for a second. She

said, is it called Beyond the Letter And I said yes, it is.

You go to Abundant Living. She said, what's that? I said,

I said, that's our church. I said, I'm sorry, you

listen to our podcast. She goes, yeah, a friend sent it to

me. I was going through some stuff. She sent me one of your

guys episodes. When I heard your voice, I immediately go I know this

guy. But she goes, but I didn't know what you look like.

I only heard you in audio form, but I heard your voice and I

said, yeah, So, so are you familiar with our church? She

said, what do you mean your church? You guys are pastors and I

said yeah. She must have only got through maybe one episode and maybe been

the only one episode where we didn't mention we were pastors or something like that,

and she just talked about how much she enjoyed that one she listened to.

And now she goes, I didn't know you guys at a church.

I want to come visit it now. And so the podcast that podcast to

us is what we call it's one of our front doors to faith for people.

Not only is it four people in our church, but it's also people

outside the church to know what does a believer think about, what does a

pastor think about, what does the life of a Christian look like? And

then these nights are for our church mostly, these are for us to be

able to be equipped to answer our friends that are outside the church or tell

your friend outside the church, I'm gonna ask my pastors about that on a

Wednesday and then be able to get one of their answer their questions answered.

So that's what tonight is. If you're first joining us. It only happens

on the first Wednesday of every month, and then all the other times we

either have a sermon or some type of worship night or something like that.

But we're excited, so we're gonna jump right in. We've had a lot

of questions because we took off Easter since it was Easter last beyond the Letter

night, and so we didn't meet last April, so we had a lot

of submission set. As you guys know, we try to pick seven to

eight of what we believe are the most common themed questions, not all the

same questions, but where we feel like enough people are kind of asking the

same thing in one shape or form, and then we try to pick seven

or eight because we know that's about how many we'll get through in one night.

So if you'd like to, you could take notes, or you can

later on watch it on YouTube and follow back on some of the stuff we

share, but we will jump into it. As always, we always start

with those that have submitted that said they're want to ask the question live.

So that's what we're gonna do. We got two people tonight who are going

to ask the question live, which is always better because if we don't understand

the question, it allows us to ask for further clarification or just be able

to hear it live. So we have over here. Could you introduce yourself

for us? Yes, okay, I've never been on a microphone. Yeah,

my name is Alejandra. Hi, yes, I remember here at the

church. Awesome. Hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you,

two pastor. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm going to read my

question because a little lengthy. Yeah, no problem, all right. So

it came to me as I was scrolling on Instagram on your page that we

can ask a question. This came to my mind. So why don't we

as Christians keep the traditions of the Bible, for example, keeping the Sabbath

Day on the actual Sabbath and like having service on the Sabbath day Biblically that

was supposed to be a sign between us and God. Also, why do

we still dress Resurrection Day or Easter as Christmas, Resurrection Day as Easter or

Christmas as Santa Claus, which really are pagan holidays. Years ago, I

had the opportunity to spend time with the Jewish family and their traditions, which

mirror the Bible teachings. I learned that these pagan holidays are actually meant to

obstruct the truth and lead us to worshiping idols like the bunny and like Claus.

So it drives us further away from God. I happened to put in

place after learning all that, avoiding pagan holidays, and I can testify that

it has transformed my heart and being closer to God. Um. So just

curious why here at the church at Abundant we don't follow more of the biblical

traditions. And that's just a question since I often wrestle with feeling guilty whenever

I take part in those type of holidays. Yeah, it's great, thank

you for Thank you for asking that and being willing to ask it in person.

Also, UM, I appreciate you doing that. Uh you want to

you want to take this off first, Kleb. Yeah, yeah, i'llay

a foundation. Um. And there are three books of the Bible you should

you should study to really get a foundation. It's Ephesians, Colossians, and

Hebrews. Specifically, Um tackles this particular issue. So let me just read

for you some of these verses. Um Ephesians two fifteen says, by abolishing

in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandment contained in ordinances,

so that in Jesus he might make the two into one man, thus

establishing peace. And so the law of commandments in the Old Testament was a

schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And then once Christ came, he reconciled

in his body, in his flesh what the law was just a picture of.

And so we no longer have to follow the dietary laws of the Old

Testament because it was a picture, it was a foreshadowing. We no longer

have to worship in the tabernacle, we no longer have to circumcise. And

it's interesting because oftentimes we think of the Bible as just a list of don't

do this, don't do that, But it's just as much a command to

stop telling people to not do this and not do that in order to get

into heaven, in order to be right with God. I mean, you

can read the New Testament, read the Book of Acts more often than not.

I mean, yeah, it does say don't fordicate, don't steal,

don't lie. It does say that, but more than that, it says,

stop commanding the gentile that they have to be circumcised in order to go

to heaven. Stop commanding the gentiles that they have to do this and do

that, and jot every eye and jot every tu in order to go to

heaven. And then Hebrew seven eighteen says, for on the one hand,

there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness.

So the Old Testament laws of Moses are weak and useless, according to

Hebrews seven. And then Hebrews eight thirteen says, a new covenant he has

made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready

to disappears, just as obsolete as your walkmat That's that's about as relevant as

the law of Moses is. But but let me just go now into Collossians

too. Collossians two is what you really need to study if you're wrestling with

this, and especially there are some colts out there right now, some movements,

the Black Hebreizurolites are big into this, keeping laws and ethnic ethnocentrism and

but Colossians to sixteen says this, therefore, do not let anyone judge you

by what you eat or drink. For freedom, Christ has set us free,

So lay off the shackles. But don't use your freedom as an opportunity

to sin. But through love, serve one another. So love is now

the fulfillment of the law. So love is now the fulfillment of the law.

So I love Christmas because I'm able to love my family on Christmas.

I love I love Easter because I'm able to use that holiday as a as

a way to love my family. So if you're doing it in love,

then you're fulfilling the command of Christ. Now now listen to this. These

are a shadow, or it says, therefore, do not let anyone judge

by what you eat or drink, or with regard to religious festival, a

new Moon celebration, or a Sabbath day, these are a shadow of the

things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.

And so this is the law is fulfilled for us believers in how we

love one another. And so there are certain commandments that the New Testament describes

for how believers are to love one another. We come together we partake in

communion to be reminded of the death, barrel and resurrection of Jesus. We

come together, we feed the poor, we feed the hungry. It's more

focused on love of one another than did you get circumcised on the eighth day?

Did you do this? You know, circumcision was to end two thousand

years ago. It was a law. These other dietary things they were circumcision

was dan Okay, So now let's now Adams, that's no. I think

I think it's important to note because right now in America there's a there's a

there's a big fat on all spheres, that a spirit of criticism on everything.

It's it's just guys, just we all know it. Go online,

go on your pay your friends, Instagram, pay. Everybody's criticizing everything.

That's an American problem, that's a Western problem. Um. If you if

you go to the church in China and the church in Japan, they are

not debating whether celebrating Jesus Christmas on December twenty fifth is right or wrong,

and whether giving presence is necessarily right or wrong, because they are just happy

that they could even celebrate him, either in privacy or in public, like

they're they're so happy that they get to rejoice in Him regardless of the day,

whether it's for Easter or it's for Christmas. And so this idea right

now in America is criticize every little aspect of whatever you're doing, whether it

be Christianity or this or that. And so right now there's this idea of

saying, well, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go back

to Judaism. Well that's dangerous because you're called to follow Jesus, not Moses.

You're called to obey Christ, not Elijah. You're called to follow Christ,

not Abraham. And so this idea that all of a sudden, my

faith is supposed to be fulfilled by following the patriarchs and obeying the patriarchs,

we miss the Gospel and we put Jesus on the equal playing field everyone and

everything else. And that's not what we're called to do. And so the

moment we bring diet to Jesus's level is dangerous. The moment we bring worship

to the same level of Jesus. In other words, what day do you

do it on? So right now, someone who gets scheduled to work on

a Sunday you know, like you can't come on a Wednesday and worship God

like you got like for sure, then you have to just go start your

own business. That's your only option. And that's why a lot of Jewish

people own their own business because their religion dictates everything they can and can't do.

So their only option is for the majority of them to own their own

businesses because their religion dictates every ounce of what they could do. What for

God's approval? But what do I need for God's approval as a Christian?

I need Jesus for sure, for sure, I don't need those other things

that. That doesn't mean if you feel led to do it, you can't

celebrate the festivals of the holidays. We just celebrated a sator. That doesn't

mean that you can't do that. To understand the scriptures more, it becomes

dangerous when you wake up every day and instead of pursuing Christ, you pursue

Kosher. Instead of pursuing Christ, you pursue religious holidays that aren't necessarily They

weren't there to bring necessarily closer to Christ. They were meant to be there

to show you, as Galatians Chapter three says, and what Caleb just said

to show you how you can't reach God on your own. For sure,

it was meant to it was meant to be a status in which it's unreachable,

it's untainable, you cannot follow these laws. And simply put, the

Jewish Christians were, like Caleb said, abusing the Gentiles, which were the

non Jews who were coming to faith, by telling them they had to circumcise

and do all these things. So the early Church said, let's move our

worship to Sunday, which was Jesus's resurrection day, because the Jews keep hijacking

Jesus's worship and pulling us back down to the law. So therefore, instead

of worshiping on a Saturday, let's worship at the start of the week on

Sunday because that's the day Jesus resurrected. Now, if you want to worship

on Saturday, which there are many Orthodox churches that do that, there's nothing

wrong with that. But to say that there's when we have so much church

history to say in this particular case, there's one right way to do it,

there's only one wrong way to do it. And what's good for the

goose is good for the gander. That becomes very dangerous because now you're putting

people into submission to the law and not freedom into Christ and the spirit has

to be live. So if you start doing some of those things and you

do feel closer to the Lord, I feel freed. Definitely do that.

If that's where the Lord is calling you, as it opposed, I can

always speak for myself personally. Then we'll move on. In our home.

We don't necessarily we don't necessarily highlight Santa or the Easter Bunny. That's not

something I have a conviction towards that. Number one part of it, I'll

be honest, is a selfish conviction. A fat white guy with a beard

is not going to get credit for giving my kid's presence when I marked my

butt off all year to give them to that. I don't care how fun

it is. Daddy and Mommy are getting credit for those presents, and then

when our kids say thank you, Daddy and Mommy, we're gonna give credit

to the Lord. The only reason why you're getting that is because the Lord

has graced us this year with enough money to give it to you. That's

why there wasn't some guy that came in our chimney. Now, if you

don't, if your conscience doesn't bear witness with you, and you say it's

to us, it's Santa Claus is like Mickey Mouse. Right, we talk

about Mickey Mouse. We did, Okay, cool, I'm really not here

to put you into condemnation about it. That's not what I do. But

for us, we just say, hey, there's we don't want to create

a figment character in our home when we're really trying to dial in who Jesus

is to our kids, and we don't want to have to explain to them

how this guy isn't real, but this guy is real, and so we'd

rather just give the Lord credit and all things that we do. And so

for us, there's no Easter Bunny. But for us because if you ever

participate in a Jewish sader, the egg, an egg is part of a

Jewish Passover satyr. And so we do do little candies and toys in the

Easter eggs, and we put them in the backyard and we let our kids

get them. And guess what, we ever bring the eggs around and we

never say, let's think the Goddess of Diana for bringing us prosperity through these

eggs. We don't work. You can read First Corinthians chapter eight food sacrifice

to idols. It literally says in First Corinthians chapter eight, if those gods

do not exist, then don't let it weigh down your conscience if you eat

that food that was sacrifice to an idol, because those things literally do not

exist. The only one who exists is God. So you start getting in

trouble in your life when you start worshiping things. So yes, if you

put a Christmas tree in your house and you ask that Christmas tree to give

you a prosperous year, you are in some troubled ground because that's what it

was used for. So if that's what you're doing it for, it comes

into your worship. And guess what, guys, you can't accidentally worship something.

It's not the way God works. Sure you remember Aaron did that if

we read If we read Exodus, right, I know pastor Aaron would know

that. When they built the golden calf, what did Aaron tell Moses,

Oh, some gold, but there's some gold flu in a kettle. And

then all of a sudden, these cows, these golden cows, came out,

and Moses says, shut up, you crafted those cows to worship them.

What Aaron tried to say was we accidentally worshiped, and Moses said,

no, there's only intentional worship. It's the only thing that exists. So

you also can't live under this condemnation that if all of a sudden, you're

leaving a Chinese restaurant and you realize there was a shrine to Buddha and you

go, oh, I just said, I ate orange chicken in this place

was dedicated to Buddha. I just worshiped Buddha by eating the orange chicken.

You don't accidentally worship. If you came in and he rubbed his belly and

dropped a coin, you just intentionally worship. Now you're getting into trouble.

Now you're breaking one of the ten decalogues or one of the ten commandments.

So you have to be very aware of what's conscious and unconscious, and you

may find yourself an unconscious decisions. Sometimes we should be sin and then that

cause us to repentance, and the Lord may do that. You may have

made a god of Easter and Christmas. Your kids may celebrate Santa more than

they know Jesus, and you should repent of that, and you should cut

Santa out of your house if you've overtly given him credit for stuff. I

think you should do that when you come to Christ. But it's what the

spirit begins to tell you on where you have brought your worship and what you're

passing down to the family. And so obviously we'd love to talk more if

there's more to it, but right now in America there's just it. It's

popped up the past five years where Christians are becoming very anti stuff that we've

been doing in the church for now thousands of years that the Catholic Church started

because they were trying to they were trying to drown out all the paganism in

the country. And believe it or not, if I were to ask the

average person in the room, what did the Romans used to worship on the

Christmas holidays? Nine percent of you guys wouldn't know what God that was.

And that's because the Catholic Church erased that God by making Jesus the prominent figure

of that season. And so that's historically what they've done over the years on

religious holidays, including Easter and including Christmas as well. And anything can become

an idol. I want to make that clear. You know, it's not

your Your kids probably have more of a more of a danger of making minecraft

an idol than than the Easter bunny. So an idol is anything that has

your attention and heart more than Jesus Christ. That could be sports, that

could be television, that could be our this thing, you know, and

and I bet you this thing is a greater temptation of idolatry than um an

Easter ornament or Santa Claus. Thinking about Santa Claus for a month, you

know, So something to consider. Put things in perspective, you know.

All right, we got one more, another live question. Some of these

will move faster than others, but we like giving credit. Someone asks it

live. We want to be able to give a good answer to the person

who asks live. Brother, go ahead and introduce yourself and give us your

question. Hi, I'm justin, Hey, justin. So my question is

what do you think happens when someone dies young? So like I a teenager

and maybe has not fully given their life to God. But there's someone else

who has been living a worldly life, i e. A murderer goes to

Joel and finally accepts Jesus and Joel in his sixties. I know life isn't

fair, but your thoughts and I can I guess the disclaimer would say that,

I know this is probably trying to understand God, like you know,

job, you know, my ways are above yours, and so I try

to do that a lot like I'm guilty of just trying to understand God,

like who went to heaven and who doesn't? Okay, vote you know this

teenager, uh you know died at third team in the car accident, who

maybe didn't get the chance to have their coming to God moment right. And

then Jeffrey Dahmer for example, who he supposedly gave his life to God in

jail after we all know what he did right murdering people. So justna know

kind of thought. It's a great question, justin thank you, thank you

for asking that. And Um, I'll first say this, I mean,

I mean, you know the Lord Grace Jacob who he named Israel after a

wrestle with him, and so UM, I highly encourage every person should be

wrestling with God and um and and wrestling with all things concerning the Lord.

Um. We begin to misstep is when the moment we move the wrestle to

saying God, I know how it should be done best, which unfortunately,

you know, preachers have unfortun and been doing that lately, where they're saying,

I know God says this, but if I were God, this is

what I would do, And it's like, oh gosh, get out of

the way for whatever it's gonna come down on that place. Um, people

have been dangerously doing that lately, so that, I mean, that's where

you start deviously overstepping at that point. But Pastor Kenney, why why don't

you open us with some thoughts. I would I would, you know,

definitely say I think it's important for us to separate experiences. And so maybe

that teenager, you know, maybe didn't have an opportunity or you know,

being raised in church, but maybe didn't make a clear decision or a decision

that we feel he or she should have made, separating that experience from the

experience of someone who's kind of lived a full life, kind of matured now

and and made some bad choices, but then came to a point maybe at

the death bed. You know, we have scripture reference of you know,

the thief on the cross. He said, Lord, remember me. I

think I would say that would be a death bed or an end of life

experience, and Jesus said, this day you'll be with me in paradise.

So I think, regardless what someone does, if there is a genuine heartened

a desire for God, then we have scripture references that Jesus supports that and

that person is in paradise. I think, that young person, this is

This is what I've learned over the years. God's desire to save is so

much greater than our understanding, so much greater than we can articulate. That

He knows how to reach us, he knows how to get our attention,

and he knows when there is a true conversion that it may be different than

our conversion or our approach that we came to God. And you know,

the joke is, you know, we'll get to heaven and say, wow,

I didn't know that you was going to be here. And somebody said,

man, I didn't know that you was going to be here. And

so it's just by the grace of God that those of us who are gonna

be there, we're gonna be there. And that would be my response to

that question. It's good pastor Aaron ask some some too. I thought that

was a great perspective. Once you try to understand grace, it's no longer

grace. Um. I think it's Ephesians that says, um to understand the

love that surpasses knowledge. Yeah right. So so there's a love that Jesus

has for us, and we try to strive to but it surpasses knowledge.

That's why God can give us a peace that surpasses understanding. So when we

wrestle with the scriptures, sometimes we're not going to understand because according to Isaiah

fifty five, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your

ways. We accept them by faith and yeah amen, um. So we're

not like the board of directors to say, hey, they should be in

heaven, they should be inhaled every because if if it was for me,

it's like man, Judas was with Jesus three years, So how did the

guy on the cross He doesn't have that opportunity, but Judas? What could

have been more done for Judas? But I gotta believe the scriptures and see

how Jesus prayed about Judas in John chapter seventeen with the contrite heart. But

I have to believe those things by faith. Yeah yeah. And Paul the

apostle said that he boasted that he was the greatest sinner. Paul thought that

he was the greatest sinner maybe in history. Maybe maybe what is that?

Maybe that's what he implied by that statement, certainly alive in his day.

But his personal testimony was I am the chief of sinners because I murdered Christians

and um, and it's a and God saved me, a sign that anybody

can be saved. Basically is the paraphrase, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I think lastly, because it's it's a great question ask and it's

one people ask all the time, and um, one that asked that good

as the question is, because it's something that passes our head all the time,

we also have to remember that a question like that, we can frame

that in a million different ways, right. You could. You could talk

about a baby that was just born. You could you could talk about,

um, a young adult who just got their first job, and you could

talk about a ninety year old or eight year I mean, you could.

You could rephrase that question enough. But the problem is is the the the

post question puts us in the in the shoes of being God, and it's

actually slippery slope because then you have to begin to interject. Okay, what

if this teenager was killed in a car accident in a justin hypothetical, which

is good, a good hypothetical. But then you say, okay, well,

then where should have God intervene? Should he have miraculously lifted the car

up in the air, Which that's kind of absurd to ask him of that,

to just lift the car up in the air so it doesn't have a

car accident. Okay, well, what if he was hit by the drunk

driver? Should he have killed the drunk driver a week earlier so that he

wasn't alive to get in the car and hit that person. Well, now

you get in the whole minority report thing with Tom Cruise. Do you do

you hold a person guilty before they make the mistake if you know that they're

going to make the mistake, because now you remove free will? So okay,

once God starts removing free will from people, well, now all y'all

dying really fast for all the decisions you've made, right, so you're actively

God has a built in law. He is a built in moral law.

He built us in his image, which one of those things is to have

choice. Sin entered because of the fallen world through Adam and Eve. And

so therefore situations are life are byproducts of what not God's grace but the sin

of the world. The fact that you and I are here still breathing,

even after the flood where he did the flooding, he said, I'll never

do this to humanity again. I'll I'll never exercise a judgment like this again

where I just fled the earth. That's God's way of exercising mercy and justice

for us. So that person in their sixties has God's mercy injustice, and

that teenager had God's mercy injustice. Because sin operates in the world, then

there is a byproduct. But at some point we know that there's an age

of consciousness. So whether that teenager was in that age of consciousness or not,

which means you're aware of your sins and you're aware of your need for

a savior, let's just say he or she was, well, the question

would just be were they aware of Christ and did they receive him? And

if they had never heard of him before, which we'll talk about later,

where were they at, according to Romans too, where where was their belief

at in the law of God? Where were they at in terms of law?

Did they reject him or did they receive him? They may have not

know Jesus, but did they Were they searching for him as part of their

life and part of their being, And so there's a lot of implications that

go. So that's why I say those hypotheticals, as good as they are,

you just see if you talk to a theologian, we just go rabbit

hole after rabbit because you have to keep explaining, Okay, who's the teenager

and who's the guy that the sixty year old man? And at what point

should God have intervened. He did intervene. He intervened two thousand years ago

by walking this earth, and Jesus came and he carried our sins. So

he is he has intervened, and he is intervening by the power to spirit.

There is an intervening happening every day for people sitting in here right now.

God forbid, but something could happen. This is part of God's right

now that the Lord's intervening. Right now, he's speaking to you, and

he's saying, I'm real, my son's real. Receive him, Let me

adopt you and let you become an inheritor of Heaven. That's whether you're in

here and you're twelve or you're ninety, you're all receiving his grace in the

same way. Because God's intervening right now. His spirit is trying to reach

out to you and trying to speak to you. That is a form of

God. That is God's grace, that is God's love, and then it

just go can go deeper and deeper and deeper at that point, so really

great questions ask Let's move on to the ones now on the screens would jump

in, Uh, how how do I fast to have a closer relationship with

God? How do I know which type of fasting is best for me?

And how to fast correctly? It seems like everyone I've asked and everything I've

researched online says something different. Good old Google never given you the right answers.

Yeah, because well you have something, because because we got time.

It's after that. I just want to make sure he answer that question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought we were gonna do that for number

two. It's just I personally want to hear him answer a question. So

I was a question I don't I don't want to make it he says,

we cannot leave here until he answers that I gotta hear. Okay, who's

to take take this? Take? I'll take your back on it. Um.

If you're newer to ALFC, at the top of every year, we

do it what's called a corporate fast, and we provide some information because we

recognize google in different churches or what have, you do fast in different ways.

So every year, for me personally, I go to Isaiah fifty eight.

Isaiah fifty eighth is a chapter that I go to four fast and if

I could, if I could reduce Isaiah fifty eight to a bullet point um.

You don't fast to get results from God. You fast to prepare your

heart for God's answer. So so for example, some people will say,

hey, I'm gonna fast so I can get that job. Now you're trying

to not eat in and out. God, you see, I'm struggling,

can now and now get that job. And that's why in Isaiah fifty eight

there is people They're saying, Hey, I've humbled myself. I'm struggling out

here, why don't you take notice of me? And God is saying,

because you still mistreat your employees, you still mistreat your spouse here. So

it's not about what you don't do, it's about what you actually start doing.

So fasting is I'm denying myself physically as a symbol of practice of what

I'm doing spiritually. I'm denying my flesh. So when I hear God's answers,

I say, not my will or your will be done. I'll practice

that by denying the foods I want. So that way, I deny my

desire when God gives me his will. So I fast and I'm praying.

And as I'm praying, Isaiah Fiftier says, hey, start serving other people.

Hey, be kind, be polite. So that's practicing being in God's

will. So that's why at ALFC we say prayer and fast because some people

they'll just fast. But that's just a diet now, right, So what

are our disciplines? What in the Bible are you reading? What does that

look like? How are you helping your community? And in that you're killing

your flesh. So that way, as God answers your prayer, you won't

be That's not what I want it because all we want is God's will,

and we've been practicing that by denying ourselves. Yeah, definitely, it's good.

That's great. I think I'll I'll just lastly attack on really fast there

there's really Biblically, there's only one true version of fasting, and it's only

done for a couple of reasons. The true version of fasting is water only.

That's that's what the biblical version of fasting would be, and it would

generally be for either repentance or renewal. Those would be the two reagions.

Sometimes there were some religious holidays that fasting was built into it as well,

And then some of the rabbis they did it once a week, every single

week, but they made it known to everybody, and it was a form

of pride and arrogance and stuff like that. But generally you're gonna see fasting

for repenting. I have a sin in my life. I need a repent

so therefore I'm gonna fast and spend that time with the Lord so that he

can help me overcome this. So, so you're trying to overcome some things.

If you have addictions, pornography, addictions, addictions with your eyes on

your phone, addictions with alcohol or whatever, one of the things I would

say is go through a period of fasting, remove first remove those things,

and then it's a form of true repentance to allow God to just isolate you

and spend time with you in repentance. It's also a time then also of

consecration and renewal, to say, God, whatever this thing I'm doing,

whether it be in the new year, whether it be you're gonna start your

new job like you got it and you're gonna start it. You want to

consecrate that and renew that. But what you don't fastest to get God's attention

to answer your things to basically Genie and hey God, I'm doing my part.

You do your part. Like Aaron said that that that's not what fasting

was ever in ended. And lastly, one of the things we recommend our

church, which it was a form of fasting, but it's not something would

have regularly done in the Old Testament, which as we do do the Daniel

Fast, which was Daniel's version when he was in Babylon and they had all

this gluttonous food and all these things like that, he said, you know,

give me fruits and vegetables, me and my men, and will be

stronger than everyone else because the Lord will fill us up. Where these things

can't, and he did, and we encourage that fast in our church because

you have to remember, like even when Jesus did his forty day fast,

it would have been either with water or no nothing at all for forty days,

which, um, your average American diet today were you guys, including

myself, we're having more sugar and carb than anyone else in history of the

world. So in Jesus's day, their average diet would have consisted of in

the morning, maybe having one tomato and maybe an egg one egg, and

then for lunch they maybe had a couple pieces of fish that are like smaller,

like smaller than this, and then for dinner they were maybe having three

pieces of lamb that are like this big with a little bit of hummus or

something else. So you're talking about they're eating about seven hundred calories a day

and then they're gonna go a few days without eating those things. Well,

they're not eating a lot to begin with, so they're good. You Yeah,

that sounded like my fast. You go try and do water tomorrow.

I mean, Jesus's diet is why you fast doing, and that was his

every day diet, and so you just have to use wisdom so that's why

we'll come up on the pulpit at the top of You'll be like, hey,

the way you guys fast is for the next twenty one days water.

Only half the church would die, like literally would die. They their body

would go into convulsion. They wouldn't know what to do. And so we

as shepherds have to use wisdom and we do encourage, hey, do three

day fast. That's why we talk about do some of it. Juicing another

thing, because we're trying to bring you the because again we're free in the

law of Jesus, so we're fulfilled in Christ. But we do believe there's

a benefit in prayer and fasting. Prayer goes along with it. So that's

why we come up and we recommend, hey, we recommend cut out Chick

fil A, cut out that. Because if we just come up and say,

hey, we think everybody should do water, it's in trouble. We're

gonna lose half our membership. So so we're just use wisdom. And that's

why we say we recommend the Daniel fast, because that is what your body

is. An American is going to be able to handle the best. And

you guys know what, we always feel more energized, and we think to

ourselves, why don't we do this for the rest of our life? And

then twenty one days hits in Chick fil A, you know, is open

after a Wednesday night service. You know, so we all been there before

in that way. But so, like Pastor Aaron said, really what it

is is start deciding when you want to fast, what are the things I'm

cutting out? And why am I doing this? Am I repenting? Or

do I need a renewal? And you lean into the Lord in those ways,

and it's seen through reading scripture, worship, prayer. It becomes the

consecration part of it, not just the no to the other things as well.

All right, let's do the next one. Do we have the child

one, the one who's like, yeah, yeah, yes, I believe

in God and he gives. He gives only what you can handle. And

I also understand that I'm not the only one that has gone through things in

my life that have been tough. But of all these things God can do

to a person, why did he take my daughter away? She passed away

last year in a car accident. I still can't understand it, but I

know my faith no parents should outlive their child. What does this mean?

What am I supposed to do? Will I ever get an answer from God?

What is the purpose or plan to all this? I'm stuck. Wow,

that's that's a question that I have personal experience. If my oldest daughter

was alive today, she'd be in her early forties. Yeah, she passed

away twenty years ago on the day after Thanksgiving from bacterial meningitis. And so

for this, this this mom. First of all, I want to say,

I'm so sorry for your loss. Our minds are not prepared for us

to bury our kids. Most of the time. Our minds are not prepared

for us to bury anybody. But it it, you know, for our

minds, it seems okay. When someone is eighty something years old and they

pass away, we still struggle. You know, we grieve because we love.

But but when it happens to our kids, we always something in us.

As you know, our kids were supposed to bury us. And so

then we start this journey of grief, and for losing a child that becomes

very difficult. It becomes very difficult. And for me it you know,

our daughter, she was a teenager, she was in our premortal class.

And so I remembered that her wedding dress. It hung in our bedroom for

an entire year. And so yes, I was Pastor Kenney on Wednesdays and

Sundays. But when I got home, I was a father, and I

was a father that was grieving. And so I began to study grief and

understand grief. And one of the things that I learned is that I needed

to lean into this terrible emotion, and that learning that leaning into this terrible

emotion over time, instead of it always being bitter, that over time it

became bitter sweet, and then it became sweet and sometimes bitter. And twenty

years later, I still think about her every day. She would have given

me my first grandchild. She would I would have danced with her first instead

of her sister Leslie. Some of you that you know Deuteronomy twenty twenty said

says the secret things belong to God, but those things that he reveals to

us belongs to us. So I think that this one answer I want to

give to that mother, and I hope it carries some weight because I've lost

a child too. So my first answer would be I don't know. And

it took me a few years to realize that that's a good answer to And

so God's presence was always with me, and the answer of why it happened.

I've been in full time ministry for over twenty five years. I don't

know if I always would use the word that God took as as much as

I would have used that God allowed as much as God allowed Joseph to be

sold into slavery, his brothers were going to kill him. But I can

tell you that I that I see the light at the end of the tunnel,

and it's not a train coming to run me over. It's God's grace.

And now I sometimes I go into the office and I play the songs

that meant the most to her. That that still means a lot to me.

And so Philippian says, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are just,

whatsoever things are of good report. And so I've learned through the grieving

process how to think of those wonderful times that we had, how that she

wouldn't eat a pot pie unless she made rice, and her brother, now

thirty five years old, won't eat a pot pie unless he makes rice.

And so we keep her memory alive. We talk about her, we laugh

about her, and we thank God for the time that we had with her.

Yeah. Wow, Yeah, I think just like the passage that the

Lord sympathizes with us in our weakness, just in what you just said,

over the course of the twenty years, if if we could line up the

amount of people that you've helped with your own story with that and applying the

scriptures in your own life and people seeing the fruit from your own life and

the amount of people that you helped, and so that's where I would talk

on the what you're saying, where where the mother may say, well,

what's next, the next could be who is out there that that you can

help through that deck's difficult time that they're going to face, that may lose

a husband to something, that may lose a parent to something, that allows

you to sympathize with them in their weakness and point people to a loving God

and a gracious God. Because I know Pastor Kenney's no me since I was

a kid, I know the amount of times he has helped people who have

gone God Why. And like Pastor Kenney said, he didn't have the answers,

but he had the sympathy and he had the grace to say, but

Jesus is there with us in our midst and it points to the goodness in

the mercy of God. And as a pastor who hasn't experienced that specific thing,

I've experienced something like it in my family, but not as a father

to a child. There is there is a degree of refreshing that people will

have hearing it from someone who has faced what they've faced. And that's what

the Lord may use you for in questions of why in any circumstance it's fight

to be whole and healed so that you can help someone else be whole and

healed. That's that's what I would encourage you to do in that way.

So some of these last questions six we'll do six minutes left and we'll close

out here together. We'll do a quick rapid fire. So let me get

them up on a screen hobby. I'll read them fast, and we'll try

to rapid fire these as much as possible. Why is the Apocrypha? I

think I had something else. What is the Apocrypha in the Bible? And

why was it removed? And do Christians recognize it as divinely inspired word of

God? Part of it is on what side? I'll just answer it really

quick the apocryphab is what's known as the books in between. So between Malachi

and the Book of Matthew, there's what's called the four hundred years of silence,

So there's four hundred years of no prophetic literature written. Those books.

The apocryphal books have claimed to be written during that time and can be traced

to be written during that time, and mainly number one in all of the

New Testament, not one New Testament author speaker quote any of those works at

all. The Catholic Church has some, not all, of the apocryphal books

in their Book of the Bible. And so this first second math mccabee tobit

other things like that. The reason why we wouldn't as Protestants have those in

our Bibles because as we began to really define canonization more and more, the

apocryphal books just had incongruency amongst mostly time and authorship. Every book in our

Bible except for a couple like the Book of Hebrews and stuff like that.

But we still know the language of the author was driven every book of the

Bible. We can say we know who was authored by, we can trace

the date, we can trace the time. There's enough manuscripts that are close

enough to it that say we know that it was written by this person,

we know that they were authentically authorized by the Lord, by the Holy Spirit.

A lot of the apocryphal works, we would say historically, we don't

know who wrote those, and so therefore we would not what's called anonize them,

we would not put them in, and so they're known as the book

in betweens. Then there's the one step further, which is called the pseudopigrapha.

Those are just tons of inconsistencies. Altogether, it doesn't sound like that

the era that it claims to be written in. It's too mystic which may

mean that it has too much mysticism, which isn't congruent with any of the

other Old Testament books, so on and so forth, and so you could

basically look more if you're interested. You can basically look up how was the

Bible canonized and what books were left out, and it'll give you a really

clear picture of why we have the books in our Bible as opposed to maybe

the Catholic Church or other traditions that may have other books in their Bibles that

we would not recognize at fully. Authoritative doesn't mean you can't read them.

Yeah, you could read them. You could read it just like any other

book, the Odyssey or whatever, any other historical book that you could think

of. You could read them in that way. And it's just a book

of history, is what it would most likely be. But definitely don't read

it as something that the Lord is ministering to you on and that the Holy

Spirit divinely inspired in that way. Let's move to another one real quick.

Why is infidelity such in fashion nowadays? Uh? Seems to be no respect

and no values. Why is infidelity such a fashion nowadays? Caleb? Caleb,

you want to rapid fire. Well, I mean it started really I

think in the in the sixties and seventies. The sexual revolution, specifically birth

control was a big factor that gave women reproductive rights and they could basically control

and they had were before that. Before that, you kind of had to

be more responsible, right before abortion number one and before contraception the pill.

In the sixties and seventies, the sexual revolution, you had to be more

responsible. And so you now have thirty forty fifty thirty forty years now of

dealing with the consequences of this sexual revolution, the sexual freedom and to now

it's to now. Where it used to be looked down upon to have baby

out of wedlock or to fornicate or whatever, now it's the norm. Now

you're now if if you're a virgin, you're a unicorn. If you if

you get married as a virgin, like you, you might as well be

a unicorn nowadays, because it's flipped as far as what's normal now, and

that a lot of that just has to do with the result of the birth

control pill and abortion and the sexual revolution and reproductive rights happening in the sixties

and seventies. Yeah, let me read something record second simmothe three speaks on

this. But understand this. In the last days, there will come times

of difficulty. People will be lovers of selves, lovers of money, proud,

arrogant, abuse of disobedience, appearance, ungrateful, unholy, heartless,

please usable, slanders without self control, brutal, and to summit up lovers

of pleasure rather than lovers of God. So hashtag twenty twenty three. So

that's that's why we don't we don't have biblical values. So the Bible is

true. We're living in a dark, dark space. But he gives an

opportunity for our life to shine, because the church wants to be a place

when people are broken because of their sexual sin and they come to our church

or they meet a pastor Adam at the grocery store. When they come here,

they'll meet a mature church that will love them through their sin, give

them the gospel, get them saved, get them sanctified. So that's the

heart. Yeah, that's great. We really hope you enjoyed the message.

And if you said yes to Jesus, we just want to say congratulations and

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